Hello all! I hope this update finds you with some cooler weather and hopefully a little dryer than all of us who attended High Sierra Poker Run this past weekend. What an amazing event! Thank you to Steve Peckham and Paul Brady for putting together this amazing event with an equally amazing group of volunteers that put together a great event from start to finish! Well, perfect other than the unexpected weather Saturday early morning around 3am when I had opted not to put the fly on my tent while camping with my middle daughter when setting up our camp around 2pm, when about 3am, noticed a bit of precipitation entering our tent through what was a star filled sky when going to sleep and discovered that the rain had come quite a bit earlier than any forecast I (and others) looked at. Other than some damp spirits and a little bit of hail Saturday throughout the day, it seemed like everyone had a great time at High Sierra Poker Run. The rain kept the dust down and made the trails a little bit more challenging.   Again, for those of you that have not volunteered with an event or have chaired/co-chaired an event, it is a small miracle when it all goes off and all of that hard work that you and many others put in, allows everyone that attended to have a great time.   There are so many behind the scenes situations that most never notice and I just want to thank each and everyone of you for all of your hard work and dedication.

Our August Board Of Directors meeting went very well and I feel very vindicated for all of our hard work leading up to the BOD meeting and at the meeting. I have said it before and will say it again here, the most amount, the meaningful amount of work happens between the meetings, not necessarily at them but in this case, it was both. There is soooo much happening to work towards streamlining the Association in its efficiency and just like our events, there are many volunteers in the background helping with this endeavor. The BOD has decided to move to a new Accountant and Bookkeeper as to have all of our financials handled within one firm. This will relive the office staff and State Treasurer immensely. There was a ton of information that came out of the BOD meeting and I don’t necessarily want to bore you with all of that here – if you want to hear more, please, feel free to reach out to me personally and I’ll fill you in on all the happenings. I also want to say, the next time you talk to one of your district BOD members, take a minute to thank them for their hard work as they are all busting their behinds to make a better Association for tomorrow.

Speaking of events, one of my favorite events is coming up rather quickly and I would like to formally invite each and everyone of you to Operation Desert Fun. This is the official 21^st ODF that was started by Angela Cook and Mark LaFontaine 21 years ago!   Angela has decided to step down this year as Chair and I want to personally thank Angela for all that she has done for this Association and the South District for the past 20+ years! This year, Danette Starksen and Christina Epstein are Co-Chairing ODF and they have a spectacular event planned that you should make plans to attend! For those that do not know, the raffle proceeds from ODF go directly to the San Diego PVA which is near and dear to my heart. Look for a link in this update for Registration which should be going live as soon as you see this.

Thank you all for your patience as we continue working with our new contractors to get them and all of us up to speed as this is a very involved process with new contractors along with all the behind the scenes stuff organizing and streamlining the Association.

Till the next update…..