11 Jul Anatomy of Collaboration - Great Example
The following is from an email from Rod Mattingly, President of the Pigeon Point Neighborhood Watch (Association), to his members. In reading it I thought that with all my references to community building and neighborhood associations, some might not understand what I am referencing. I hope that reading this email which outlines just one of many chains of events that make our city better every day.
I would like to share with you sort of the ‘minutes’ of the dedication/celebration of our library on July 6th. We had a very good turnout, but the majority of you were not able to attend, so we would like to share with you some of the highlights of this significant event in the history of our Neighborhood Watch. Here we go:
Per the included minutes, we agreed to purchase a library for the Park, which would be oriented mostly toward children. Kay Merrill agreed to spearhead the implementation and monitoring of the Library, as well as future programs.
Kay and I met with Liza HIll regarding the project. She suggested we contact Tim Wood who had built a ‘kiosk’ in honor of his wife, Kristi. Amazingly, they lived in Pigeon Point when they first married and she taught pre-school in a building on Paul Sommerville’s property. At the “ceremony ” Kristi gave the ‘history lesson’ about Pigeon Point when they lived here - as we do in our meetings. Tim donated his beautiful, sturdy kiosk to us as the original location did not work out. See the pictures.
Liza, a landscape architect, drew a site plan after we discussed where to place it. We wanted to include a ‘reader’s bench’ and an appropriate statue if possible as focal points of the project. Paulo Luzny then built the seat for us in just a short couple of days.
We decided it would be great to have paintings on the sides of the kiosk. Steve Weeks and Sue McCarthy agreed to offer their significant talents to paint these portraits. Unfortunately, Sue was not able to help at this time due to a sudden illness to Bill, her husband. Thankfully, Bill is recovering. So Steve agreed to paint both sides. As you can see, they are amazing and so incredibly appropriate. We all are extremely proud of his work.
And the little statue appeared as well. Barbara and I found her at an outdoor furniture company along Route 15 in Pennsylvania. She couldn’t wait to come to our Park.
At the dedication, Mayor Billy said some very nice things about our neighborhood and we all welcomed his support.
One of the highlights of the event was a recitation of the Gettysburg Address by two sisters who are sophomores at Beaufort High School - Payten and Paris Grubbs. They have together performed this in complete unison at the Memorial Day Ceremony at the National Cemetery. They are amazing and embody everything we are trying to achieve by promoting reading through our community library.
Finally, Robbie Anderson, our Parks Superintendent and her staff did an amazing job of further landscaping the circle after they placed our three pieces in their permanent positions in the center of the Park.
At lot of folks have donated books and quite a few have volunteered to read - at a time of their choosing - to those coming to the Park. We can always use more. Visit the kiosk and look at the little ‘bookmark’ on the inside for further instructions (Kay made these as well). And I am sure Kay might have even more ideas in the months to come. Stay tuned!
Rod Mattingly
Chairman, Pigeon Point Neighborhood Watch