Yes, yes, we know; it isn't like this event takes place in some place like Minnesota or the North Pole, but for those of us used to 100+ degree summers and very mild winters, the water at 52 degrees with an official outside wind chill factor of a balmy 42 was as close to polar conditions as we can take, and for dozens of brave residents of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association, it was a nippy good way to mark the new year.
Each year, the young and the young at heart meet at the community pool at the Lodge of the Great Northwest to carry on the annual tradition which nets the participants a great T-Shirt and plenty of cookies and treats after the event. I must confess, my wife and I opted to cheer them on rather than dawn Speedo's and freeze any vital areas.
There was a large media presence with crews from KENS-5, News 4 WOAI, FOX 29 and the Express-News. Our Recreation Director, Stephanie was interviewed to provide background on the event and several of the participants gave the media their reasons for participating.
As the hour approached 12 Noon, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Lee Besing, provided the swimmers with the current outside temperature, the wind chill factor and the pool temp, suggesting that if anyone was having second thoughts, nobody would think the worse of them. No one backed out!
So as to accommodate the large crowd, Chairman Besing directed the younger swimmers to take the first leap and the group of kids lined the far end of the pool waiting for the excitement to begin.
As parents and friends waited at the near end of the pool armed with towels and blankets, the Polar Bear Swim officially begin.
There is nothing like chilly water to make you swim fast and these kids zoomed across the pool like it was a swim meet in an alligator farm.
Next up were the brave adults who would not allow all the glory to go to the younger folk. With perhaps a slightly larger splash, it was adult swim and there would be no chickens in this group either.
Though perhaps not as fast as the kids group, these folks demonstrated the Olympic quality skills (okay, not really) to get from one end of the pool to the other without losing body heat or swimming trunks. 
As the swimmers all huddled for warmth and a dry towel, GNW's first resident, Ms. Olivia Theroit, decided that she would not miss an opportunity to get in the New Year's Day spirit. Instead of impressing the crowd with a full length of the pool swim, Miss Olivia instead opted to feel the cool waters from some steps along the side.
When all the swimmers had completed their invigorating swim to get the new year off on a positive start, it was off to the warmth of the lodge to enjoy refreshments and collect on the T-Shirts passed out by volunteers.
Perhaps next year, if we can get up to a reasonable temperature of about 82 or so, I might make the big leap into the pool. But don't hold your breath...
Wow! That was a fast one with little to no controversy to report - which is a good thing, right?
My wife and I made the short trip down the street to the Lodge of the Great Northwest to attend the meeting of the board of directors for the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association.
A very brief agenda and Chairman Lee Besing knocked it out in near record time. Kicking off the reports from the department heads, Community Manager Darin is getting acclimated to the new position and the community. He and the staff have the yearly assessments ($222.00, down from $235.00) in envelopes and you should be getting yours soon. Pay it!
Jose our Deed Restrictions officer is back on the streets and hitting it hard. Having filled in as CM for a period, he had not been able to focus as much time on notifying residents of their crimes against good taste, and thankfully, he is back at it. He mentioned that yes, he does understand French, and many upset residents give him quite an earful when he cites them. Keep up the good work Jose!
Jose also mentioned that the five members of the Architectural Committee should be given new three year terms beginning in January so their tenure's can be normalized. It seems that there had been many members leaving and new people filled the slot. By resetting everyone's tenure to the same month, it will normalize things. Director Guy Pucci agreed and made a motion to do it and the board agreed.
Speaking of the Architectural Committee, did any of those five members approve the new color scheme of the painting project on the Lodge? Apparently, the color is Mustard (on the bottom) and Yellow (on the top). Egads! As I looked at it to take the picture, I could tell how it might work in an industrial sort of way, but again, Egads!
Then again, nobody has ever accused me of having taste or style.
Stephanie, our director of all things Recreation made note of the Hot Chocolate Social scheduled for Thursday the 13th of December. Santa is supposed to be there and apparently, pictures will be taken. Check out the GNW website for more details. She also mentioned that T-Shirts have been ordered for the Polar Bear Swim scheduled for New Years Day. If I weren't so concerned for the wellbeing of the public, I might consider plopping my own fat ass into the chilly waters, just to be able to report the commotion here. We'll see.
Chief Burton was out on business so Chairman Besing made note of the security related details: A new truck and new security systems. Taggers, beware.
Fred from Maintenance gave us details on lots of good work being done to improve the parks and also to make sure the board knows they are getting their money worth from the painters.
With that, Directory Janet Doherty wanted to bring to the boards attention that certain groups renting the lodge during December had some issue with the Christmas tree and associated decorations being in the lodge during their events. Though Jose had no issue with removing the tree to accommodate these folks, I think the idea of someone being offended by these type of decorations was 
equally offensive to many others.
Chairman Besing, though finding the idea (of being offended by the tree) silly, suggested that this was not so much a board issue but a personnel issue - as in, do we pay the staff to remove and replace the Christmas tree every time someone doesn't want it for their party? (Agreed).
At least one audience member voiced his disgust for these tree haters and asked what's next, are they going to want us to remove the Texas flag? Actually, they do remove the flags when the lodge is rented out.
Here's the deal and this is just my take on it from the perspective of someone who just recently rented the lodge. First, it is not a minor expense to rent the lodge if you pay for security and clean-up (security is required if you have any beer/alcohol). So, I don't recall the exact fee we paid but it was well over $650 from roughly 7PM to Midnight. Don't get me wrong; it was very much worth it.
Here's the deal. A Christmas tree would not have fit the scheme of my daughter's daisy-filled wedding. When you rent the lodge, you get the use of tables and chairs and such, but you are not required to use all the tables and all the chairs. In other words, the staff assists with set-up and sometimes the tables get set-up classroom style, sometimes they get set-up dinner style, or sometimes, there are no tables and only chairs. For all the work that it takes to set-up the tables and chairs, moving the Christmas tree once or twice during one month out of the year is not the back-breaker, or the offensive anti-Christian thing that it might appear to be at first blush.
Oh, and by the way, it was actually a religious group who rented out the room who were opposed to the tree. Go figure.
Sorry folks, wish I had more dirt to stir up but really, it was all very calm and everyone behaved rather nicely. My own observation is that our new community manager has had a calming affect and is quick to defuse things when blood pressures raise.
The final order of business had to do with adopting of the a few changes on the budget and there was one insignificant issue (to everyone but the person who raised it) and the CM was able to immediately rectify any concerns and the vote commenced. Great work!
NOTE: I appreciate the feedback that I receive from people present in the meetings, especially when they are able to clarify something that I might have recalled or mis-recalled. That was the case in my notes reported from a month ago. Specifically, I did something that I try to avoid with my blog in general and that is to present information that I wasn't first-hand aware of. Several folks e-mailed me to tell me that I got a few things wrong and of course, I made the corrections to the blog entry. But, I wanted to be clear that it is my intention when I present these notes, that I do so in an honest and hopefully accurate way. This doesn't mean that I expect you to agree with my take on things or agree with my opinion about them. I do appreciate when folks (especially Directors) leave comments that help expand the notes or at least give their opinion. I hope that these notes can make residents (and people interested in HOAs in general) aware of the activities with our little association. But by all means, if I get it wrong, let me know!
Last night, my wife and I skipped some other plans in an effort to be civic minded and attended the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association board meeting. This is the version where residents are not given the chance to speak, (though Chairman Lee Besing smartly opened up discussions of the DRAFT budget to the audience). The end result in my mind was, same stuff, different week.
The first part of the meeting where members of staff present information to the board went pretty quickly, though getting to that point seemed difficult. After the formalities, and an attempt to adopt the agenda, Director Sigrid Long wanted to add items, specifically discussion of scheduling special board meetings and discussion of an editorial that her and Director Steve Mifflin had written regarding the months ago settled lawsuit with Director Guy Pucci. The Scheduling discussion was added as new business and the letter to the Passages issue was added to the closed session. Hopefully someone brought a taser.
Moving on, there were minutes from three meetings that were to be adopted but after what seemed like an eternity of board members fumbling through stacks of papers, it could not be determined which if any of the directors had received copies of the minutes, and Director Mifflin smartly moved to table all the minutes for another meeting.
Following that fiasco, the meeting continued with an attempt by DRACO Jose Morlett to give an update in his capacity as acting Community Manager. Unfortunately, the borrowed sound system experienced a major malfunction and after a moment or two of observation, Chairman Besing pointed out that the system would function with greater fidelity if perhaps we would plug the power cord into the electrical outlet. This task was accomplished and Jose was on the air, broadcasting to an increasingly irritated audience as he tried to speak above a small daycare that had moved into the meeting room.
Jose introduced the newly hired Assistant Community Manager/Accountant, Cindy Johns. ACM Johns brings several years of experience as a Community Manager for another HOA, and she was warmly welcomed by the residents attending the meeting.
Jose also discussed the successful graffiti removal project held this past weekend. He mentioned that 16 out of 17 targeted locations to clean-up were taken care of by volunteers and that he had already received calls from several people thanking this group for their effort.
Next up, Rec Director Stephanie Larrabee had several items for the board including some budget concerns which would be addressed by the board during the budget discussion. She brought up issues regarding pool repairs and costs and Director Pucci made the request that she receive separate bids to cover some potential plumbing repairs, prior to the board approving a contract. Good idea. Ms. Larrabee also had some positive news regarding other activities including an upcoming Masquerade Ball (October 12th at the Silver Creek Lodge). This is a 21 and up event and they will be checking IDs at the door. She also mentioned the Great Northwest Haunted House scheduled for 30 and 31 October between 7 and 9PM, for the youngsters.
During the course of Ms. Larrabee's briefing to the board, some of the chillin's sitting behind my wife and I became disruptive to the point that their mother had to escort them from the meeting. I would like to make a motion that board meetings be limited to those old enough not to whine and carry on, but that would potentially eliminate some members of the board of directors. (No lawsuits, please).
Maintenance Director Fred Murphy got up to discuss the planned painting for the lodge and the new and much needed sound system. The good news is, the original bids close to $10K are now down to a reasonable $2k or less, and the man kind enough to lend the board the temporary sound is also offered his assistance in getting the new system installed. Kudos to him.
New Business: Apparently, there was a special board meeting called by Chairman Besing. He notified the directors via e-mail of this meeting, however, at least one director, Ms. Long, did not receive the e-mail in time to attend the meeting. On the outset, her complaint was met with rolling eyes, shaking heads and sighs of disgust, - and frankly, that was just my wife and I giving each other the, "here we go again" look. But technically speaking, Director Long was justified and on target with her complaint. She mentioned the by-law which requires that the Directors be notified in writing or orally (should that be verbally?), and when Vice-Chair Janet Doherty asked her to quote the by-law, director Long did so and it very specifically stated that the written correspondence must be delivered to the residence of record. In other words, as much as I think e-mail should be sufficient, the fact is, Director Long missed a meeting because she was not notified per the by-laws. Chairman Besing quickly made it a point to correct that by mandating that they will re-institute the use of Security Staff to hand deliver notices to the directors.
This little episode brings up a more important note in my mind, and that is that there is clearly turmoil amongst board members. And part of that comes from the "gotcha" attitude that is so prevalent in what we see at the national level in politics. That is, we care less about what a particular issue is and more for how it will play for or against our own side. From the time that I have attended these meetings, I have heard over and over about things requiring review by lawyers or this or that is against the by-laws. One resident and former board member told me that this was the reason you needed a strong Community Manager - someone to handle all the big issues and details, leaving the board to simply vote for or against things and get out of the weeds. I disagreed with her at first, but must say that I see myself coming around to the idea.
And hopefully, we will get a well qualified, strong CM and soon.
The budget discussion was in my mind a waste of time. It is a draft at this point, but as we found during the initial talks, the numbers were totally irrelevant. Hopefully, the various staff members can correct this and when the real work is done, behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the residents, the board and staff can get it knocked out.
Are you sensing a little frustration? I'd love to read your comments. Leave them here (click the comments button below), or e-mail me.
Yes, yes, we know; it isn't like this event takes place in some place like Minnesota or the North Pole, but for those of us used to 100+ degree summers and very mild winters, the water at 52 degrees with an official outside wind chill factor of a balmy 42 was as close to polar conditions as we can take, and for dozens of brave residents of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association, it was a nippy good way to mark the new year.
Each year, the young and the young at heart meet at the community pool at the Lodge of the Great Northwest to carry on the annual tradition which nets the participants a great T-Shirt and plenty of cookies and treats after the event. I must confess, my wife and I opted to cheer them on rather than dawn Speedo's and freeze any vital areas.
There was a large media presence with crews from KENS-5, News 4 WOAI, FOX 29 and the Express-News. Our Recreation Director, Stephanie was interviewed to provide background on the event and several of the participants gave the media their reasons for participating.
As the hour approached 12 Noon, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Lee Besing, provided the swimmers with the current outside temperature, the wind chill factor and the pool temp, suggesting that if anyone was having second thoughts, nobody would think the worse of them. No one backed out!
So as to accommodate the large crowd, Chairman Besing directed the younger swimmers to take the first leap and the group of kids lined the far end of the pool waiting for the excitement to begin.
As parents and friends waited at the near end of the pool armed with towels and blankets, the Polar Bear Swim officially begin.
Next up were the brave adults who would not allow all the glory to go to the younger folk. With perhaps a slightly larger splash, it was adult swim and there would be no chickens in this group either.
Though perhaps not as fast as the kids group, these folks demonstrated the Olympic quality skills (okay, not really) to get from one end of the pool to the other without losing body heat or swimming trunks. 
As the swimmers all huddled for warmth and a dry towel, GNW's first resident, Ms. Olivia Theroit, decided that she would not miss an opportunity to get in the New Year's Day spirit. Instead of impressing the crowd with a full length of the pool swim, Miss Olivia instead opted to feel the cool waters from some steps along the side.
When all the swimmers had completed their invigorating swim to get the new year off on a positive start, it was off to the warmth of the lodge to enjoy refreshments and collect on the T-Shirts passed out by volunteers.
