Time to reflect on a year of challenge and achievement
by Robin Cravey
As the summer season fades, and we look forward to the fall and winter, it’s a good time to look back and take stock. From Spring Cleaning in February through our Flash Flood Rapid Response, the year has been busy and exciting for FBSP.
Spring Cleaning 2006 was the first organized event for us, back when we called ourselves the Barton Springs Swimmers Club. It still kicks off the year for us, and was led this year by Jonathan Beall.
The Barton Springs Treeathlon in April, organized by Mike Cannatti, was a new event on our calendar this year. It was our first real fundraiser, and brought in $7,500 for tree planting and maintenance at the pool.
Our Picnic by the Pool in June was another new event for us, led by Gary Beyer and Emma Cravey. This event was a fun replacement for our former Annual Meeting.
Council Cleans the Pool Day again blazed in August, led by Tom Weber. In addition to Mayor Lee Leffingwell, the city council, and other elected officials, we were honored to have Senator Kirk Watson present, and grateful to have him present FBSP with a check for $300,000 to help fund repairs to the bypass tunnel.
The flash flood in September gave us a chance to mobilize scores of volunteers, helped by the publicity generated by Chasity Keen Larios.
Our first-ever Fall Social is scheduled for November, with much organizing effort by Jesse Malone. There we’ll recall the year with members and friends.
Through it all we rely on the steady accounting of Maria Weber and the versatile and enthusiastic work of Mary Yarrington.
Quick Dips
Fall social. The fall social will give everyone a chance to trade stories about the year past, and catch up with friends you last saw during the summer. If you’ve earned a tee shirt, you can pick it up. We’ll present more rewards for our star volunteers We’ll have a slide show with lots of photos, and a surprise musical guest.
Fall board retreat. Every spring we hold a day-long board retreat to map out our goals for the year. This year, we’ll also hold a half-day fall retreat to look back and see how we did.
Looking ahead. In December and January we’ll be planning ahead for the Spring Cleaning and starting the whole cycle again. Our calendar this year was well-paced and effective, but we’ll no doubt have a few new surprises in the coming year. And it’s all done by a hard-working all-volunteer board and members. Not a single paid staff member. Darn good!
