The year is screeching to a close at the Eastern 4-H Center. I wanted to take today's opportunity to outline some of the biggest stories that happened either at or to the Eastern 4-H Center. While everyday is important, some events just supersede all others. Here they are:
5) The Wedding Show...Yep - we did one. It turned out pretty good, too. Lots of vendors came from all over the region to peddle their wares. DJ's, photographers, cake makers, and rental companies showed up to showcase their items. Most people around here think that most people get married at the Outer Banks. Not so fast my friends - many people, like me, would prefer a quiet soundside wedding (if a wedding at all, in my case) as opposed to a sandy, salty beach wedding. You can look down the beach on any given Saturday and see several different weddings taking place. Nevertheless, the Center "marries" lots of folks, and we took the opportunity to show off to folks who are thinking about getting married. There is nary a free weekend - weddings take up a lot of our weekends, and we are proud to be a place of importance in a couple's life!
4) Relay for Life - The Center played the host of 2009's Relay for Life. Not just that night sticks out in my mind, though. All of the fundraising and events leading up to that really cool night were the best. Our Pancake Breakfast and Sausage -n- biscuit fundraiser was so much fun! I ate a lot of pancakes, but not as many as Lee. Sara made virtually all of them - like 1000 pancakes! The biscuit fundraiser started out really early and I remember putting out the parking cones at 4:00 am in the pouring down rain...the fundraiser was held in concurrence with the northeast shooting sports tournament...so the whole day was really busy, but it was one of my favorite days ever at the Center that didn't involve Summer Camp. Our team, "Camp Relay", also got the award for best Team Theme. It was cool to have nearly all of the Summer Staff show up at the Relay event itself to liven up the crowd in the middle of the night. And while I walked for 2 hours straight on a treadmill (It was thundering and lightening outside), I was able to catch-up on my Operation Purple Camp curriculum reading.
3) Moving into the Electronic Age - 2009 was a very impressive year concerning "green" practices. Almost 100% of our in-house paperwork became "electrocuted". Rental Agreements and such are now all done by email...our newsletter, "Eastern Echoes", became an electronic document that was emailed instead "snail mailed."If we could only get our monthly calendars to be put in electronic format...We also started this little blog, created a camper email address for parents, and allowed people to sign-up for camp or make donations via the internet. The Beginning of "On Line Registration" is one of my proudest days...at that point we got seriously serious in becoming the premier place for a child to spend a summers' week.
2) Dock of the Bay - biggest DOB ever. "funnest" DOB ever. greatest "DOB ever. We raised lots of money to help send children to camp. We also made a lot of new friends, had a great auction, even better food, and a PERFECT time.
1) Summer Camp numbers - Summer 2009 was tremendous. Highlights include: 10 weeks of camp, strengthening of our healthy lifestyle camp "Takeoff 4-Health", two weeks of Operation Purple Camp", "slammed" weeks of 4-H Camp, huge numbers in Camp Canvasback/Marine Scince & Sailing/Cloverbud, and our first ever camp for children with special needs - Camp Kid Courage. We also maintained our American Camp Association...BY PASSING EVERY APPLICABLE STANDARD! LESS THAN 1% OF ALL CAMPS CAN CLAIM THIS!!!!!!
That's my top 5...the biggest news story for 2010 will be the new Recreation Hall...no doubt.
Enjoy the day...
No comments:
Post a Comment