Tammy and her assistants are keeping busy with several winter projects, one of which is the replacement of the many books that were lost in the 2009 fire. A big thank you goes out to the CSA Womens’ Association, which gave Pilgrim Place a generous donation this summer. We will be using this money to replace as many books as possible. We’ve been extremely fortunate already to have received several books as gifts, either by the author him/herself, or by others. We extend our thanks to these people as well. If anyone has questions regarding which books we still need to replace, please contact Nancy Gillett at Ngillett @ aol.com.

Please come visit us next summer where you’ll find the Assembly Anecdotes albums updated with new stories, new oral histories to listen to and many other interesting items to browse through.

I heard the foghorn
Then remembered
The rain on the roof overhead
The tall trees dripping and swaying
Leaves rustling.

Have they been here forever?
Since the days when Pere Marquette
Walked through cool glades
And chirping golden meadows
To the open blue of Lake Michigan?

My grandmother sang me ‘The Red Fox Song’
‘Til nothing was left but the bones-o…’
And read me stories of magical things that happened long ago
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
But we’d stop when the foghorn blew
To savor that sad sound
In our little cabin with the dark all around.

Once when we were driving
We saw a heron flapping his way from the marshes into the sunset
Gradually
Like a funeral procession
My grandfather wore dark glasses
Because the sunlight hurt his eyes.

When I was older
I  made a fire and camped on the beach
Near the foghorn at Point Betsie.
And like the lighthouse at that place
Shined my flashlight
out at the stars
Pondering Eternity.

Poem: Thomas W. Eley
Illustrations: Xian Lin Eley

Dedicated to our Mother and Grandmother
Betsy Hill Eley Youngblood

Please consider donating/helping The Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse Inc.

http://www.pointbetsie.org/

— Wendell Berry

     Nothing to report except the weather has been wonderful.  Go out and enjoy the day… Todays picture is the Crystal lake sunrise yesterday…
 
  Be well,  Jay

Testing a second paragraph here. Last test struggled with multiple paragraphs and placed the equals sign at the end of each line of text. Not sure if it was because of the copy and paste I did, or if it is an email posting issue.

Here is a third paragraph just to be sure that the email posting is working correctly. There is still the problem of making the website automatically download the email post from webmail, but I think I can add a simple script to the page so that any time a page is reloaded, from any browser, the site checks it’s email account for any new email posts.

Unless a great number of authors plan to update their portion of the site via email, this feature should probably be limited to authors that do not wish to learn the new posting system or those authors who plan to make a lot of updates via blackberry. iPhone users will be able to install the wordpress app which allows them to easily access an iPhone version of the author’s dashboard.

End transmission.

Deb is a long-time CSAer. Her children, Will Daugs and Kit Baker, are the fourth generation of her family coming to the CSA. Her parents bought their first cottage in 1947, on Standish Road. Deb and her husband Lou decided to retire here full time four years ago. They love living year round in Michigan. We all know Lou from the CSA office. Deb keeps busy working at Betsie Hosick Health and Fitness Center and being a CSA Trustee… and now, CSA President. We look forward to Deb’s many contributions.

We are sad to see Diane Young-Spitzer move on to other interests, but she deserves some extra summer time with her family after years of service to the CSA Women’s Association. Diane provided the energy and leadership to maintain many of the Women’s Association’s traditions, while also leading us in new directions.

Diane is an environmentalist who not only promoted “green” efforts within the Women’s Association, but encouraged them throughout the CSA. She also championed the development of the CSA Web site via a Women’s Association donation, involvement with the Web site committee, and by staying at the forefront of providing Women’s Association content on the site. We thank her for those contributions, and many more.

Stay tuned for more information on the many Women’s Association activities for 2009!

At the 2006 Annual Meeting the sections of the CSA bylaws pertaining to Members and Associate Members were amended, in particular making it possible for the first time in many years for new Associate Members to be approved. Because Associate Members are not authorized to vote on that kind of bylaw amendment many of you who are Associate Members may not have followed the discussion on this issue over the years.
There are two provisions in the changes, however, that directly affect all Associate Members whether new or of long standing. In the past adult members of family units were designated Associate Members if they met certain criteria and they could retain their Associate Membership either by purchasing a privilege ticket while in residence or by paying a retaining fee. In the amended bylaws Associate Membership is by individual rather than by family unit. In the place of a retaining fee, individual Associate Members are receiving a bill for an Associate Member fee each year. The exact amount will be determined by the Trustees, but it is intended to be equivalent to the cost of a two week privilege ticket. Payment will be credited to the individual and, upon registration during that summer season will be applied to the privilege ticket being purchased. (If you don’t register and purchase a privilege ticket it will be treated as your fee for being an Associate Member for that year.)

This season, 2008, is the first year that we have sent bills for Associate Member fees and we are still working out some of the kinks in the system. We used the existing list of Associate Members kept in the CSA registration system and we added to that the new Associate Members whose applications were approved in 2007. Because of the change of designation by family unit to individual Associate Membership our lists may not be complete. If only one name was on our list we only sent the invoice to that person, and you may have asked “Why did my husband/wife/adult child get one of these and I didn’t?” or “Why did I get this and no one else in the family got one?” The Membership Committee suggests in these situations that you send in the check for the person(s) named on the invoice. Then, upon registering at the office this summer, ask for an Associate Member Application to update our records. The Membership Committee meets weekly from mid-June until late August so your application will be reviewed quickly and our lists will be more accurate for 2009.

If you have any questions about this policy, you may post them on the CSA issues forum here on the website. The forum is monitored and your questions will be answered quickly.