STOCKHOLDERS MEETING NOTES...

The Annual Stockholders Meeting took place last night, January 18. It was presided by outgoing president Rusty Wilson. 

Ed Hughes, Rusty Wilson (Rusty read the report prepared by Myra Baker) and myself gave our annual reports to those present. For a copy of any of the reports, please contact Myra or new Board President, Brad Gilbert.

As it is usual, three board members terms expired. As a reminder, the board is composed by nine members, with staggered terms of three years, thus, each January, the terms of three members expire.

This year, the three members whose term expired were Ann Cowan, Greg Dodson and James Ainsworth. Of the three, only Greg Dodson decided to stay three more years, while James Ainsworth (served one term) and Ann Cowan (served five terms) retired from the board. New board members are Kim Jordan and Blake Brewer.

Yes, I think I needed a haircut and
eyebrow trimming!

While it is true that each board member is important, and each makes tremendous contributions to the club, many times beyond the time they give, by giving money and resources to make the club better, I think it is appropriate to recognize the services that Ann has given to the club over the  fifteen years she served in the board. That is a long time of free service!

The personal relationship that Mona and I grew with Ann is no secret to anyone, starting with her direct approach to things, including what many think is the only reason I cut my hair from time to time: three weeks into the job, she looked at me and said, "you better go trim your eyebrows and cut your hair" and from there on, we made it kind of a game (trust me, if she didn't ask me, I wouldn't have an "afro" now!).

Anyway, for someone who can find a way to say things in 100 words instead of 10, I know I could write a long chapter in a book about Ann. Maybe one day I will. For now, I will just point out that she is the opposite, if she can cut 100 words into 10, she'll do 5, and get results.

Along with a couple of other board members, there is a long list of things that she has done for Mona and I outside the work, but at the club, there was no one you could rely on more to get something done, whether it was to help you do something directly (help with juniors, help early in the morning before a tournament, get sponsors, do a quick course setup for a particular tournament, watch the shop, pick up range, you name it), or to give you direction on who could help you. Over the five years I witnessed her services and dedication to the club, always helping staff  when the need arose.

This blog would not be had it not been for her, nor the Facebook page. Between the two we have over 200,000 hits to see what is going on at the club.

This year, as usual, she got involved in many tournaments and social events at the club, but, her biggest contribution was recognizing the opportunity to take advantage of the weather in order to dredge the pond, so, when she saw the chance, she contacted those who had pledged to help, and together with the help of Greg Dodson, Daryl Dunn, Andy Blankenship, Tate Finnell, Joe Wynn and others who donated valuable time, equipment and labor, saved the club some serious money for something that truly needed to be done (more than tripled the capacity of the ponds that had not been dredged in over 15 years!).

I remember a member complaining to me about the work and how it interfered with his game, "why couldn't we wait, why couldn't we pay someone to do it, who thought of this?" When I mentioned Ann, he just said, "that explains it!" and left. He was not happy, but knew that if Ann was involved, it was going to get done.

Thank you Ann.