Goodness Gracious, time flies!
At least it has been for those of us at headquarters and on your Executive Team. With working on the ballot counting—many thanks to those who sent in your votes on the bylaw changes!—getting the Digest to press and preparing for convention, it’s non-stop around here. But at last, here’s a new News & Notes.
By the way, here’s a question for you: Should we rename the News & Notes page the Dowser’s Network? You remember the Network, that other publication you used to receive? Well, our reduced staff simply has not the resources to renew publication of that periodical, and we have adopted the “News & Notes” page on the website to take its place. As long as we have a forum to keep you informed, we’re happy. That’s our opinion. Share yours with us! And thank you!
Convention preparations are humming along. The Food subcommittee of the Convention Committee met in January with Sugarbush personnel and came up with a plan. Because, after all, Convention will be different at Sugarbush this year. At Lyndon State College we had one dining hall for all three meals, unless you took yourself into Lyndonville to a restaurant.
At Sugarbush you have other choices! They include: Castlerock Pub—located in the lower level of the new Gatehouse building, the Pub is comfortable, informal, and low-key. It offers simple but gratifying pub fare, and most evenings is a great place to gather and hang out/mingle/socialize; Gatehouse Cafeteria is where the banquets will be held (lots of room for all us dowsers!) and where you can choose from an a la carte menu for all your meals, if you so choose. Located in the upper level of the Gatehouse building, it is equipped with a building-wide sound system and thus a great place to hear announcements (speakers are outside on the courtyard as well!). And for those with a bigger budget, the new top-shelf restaurant on the mountain is called Timbers and offers the epitome of fresh and succulent for a corresponding price. But wherever you eat, the food is delicious and plentiful; and during the summer when we’re there, the folks at Sugarbush will be taking full advantage of local farms and their produce! Vermont has a strong alliance of local farmers that sell to restaurants, resorts, etc. You’re sure to enjoy the results!
Those of you staying in the condos and suites at Sugarbush itself will also have the option of dashing back to your rooms for a quick meal in your kitchen—everything is located within a few minutes’ walk. So, you can buy a meal when you wish and graze at “home” when you opt.
To provide the opportunity to gather and co-mingle and network, which we have gotten used to at Lyndon State College, we have worked with the team at Sugarbush to create a “theme meal” for each day which you can purchase (or not!) in advance with your registration. These meals are definitely a step up, a “treat” as it were, and can be purchased singly, or all four for a discount. Pick your night—don’t like Italian? Forget that one, spend your money where you like it—on the Mexican-flavored dinner, or the lunch-time barbecue on Saturday. The choice is yours! Me, I’m definitely going for the Island spread. See you there! :-)
And more very exciting news from the Convention Committee.
TICKETS FOR THE JAMES REDFIELD EVENT ARE AVAILABLE!
click here to buy your tickets online...
James and his wife Salle will be presenting together (nice to have the goddess present!) and we are delighted to finally have the general admission tickets available on a first-come, first-serve basis. No more than four can be purchased at once. There are only 1500 tickets total to be sold, so get ‘em now. ASD members have first rights (and a discount), obviously, but we will be opening up the event to the greater Mad River Valley community and to the general public as well. Tickets are being sold through ASD’s electronic bookstore, at or by snail mail at ASD, P.O. Box 24, Danville, VT 05828.
Back in the mid 1990's yours truly saw James Redfield before he’d sold the rights to his first book. He had self-published it, and was selling it out of the back of his station wagon. A friend of mine told me about this guy James and his wonderful book, and brought me to a weekend workshop (in Atlanta where I was living at the time). James gave us a great day-long presentation. Since then James has wowed audiences far and wide with his inspiration, insight and oratory. We are thrilled to welcome James, Salle & family to Vermont, and look forward to their stay here among us.
Counting Ballots, on April 7th, your O.M. Arvid Johnson and a few stalwart volunteers joined together at HQ to count ballots. Yes, the dedication of ASD devotees is unquenchable. Almost 800 ballots were returned, 26.8%. Thank you, thank you, those who voted; and to Arvid, Lisa, Pam, and Barry, who counted. Your trustees spent two days on these bylaws in December, and your return ballot is a vote for your trustees’ efforts. Thank you. Some of you noticed that little questionnaire about the convention registration booklet and returned that as well. That was the idea of Treasurer George Weller, and it paid off! Not only did quite a few of you members agree to downloading that document off the website (saving us money by eliminating the need to send a hard copy through the mail), but donations came in! In fact, almost $1000 total—and which really helped out with convention expenses already upon us. Almost 100 members took the time to remit a comment with their paperwork as well, either with positive feedback or thanks for the good job, or asking a clarifying question. So thanks to George for that bit of inspiration!
The HQ team is getting ready now to send out the ballots for voting in your 2007 - 2009 Board of Trustees. Now is a good time to familiarize yourself with current trustees—several agreed to run again—and have a conversation with them, find out who they are and how they spent their term of office. As well as to learn about the new nominees. The Board of Trustees is the body politic of ASD, and those whom you choose to fill these roles is an important decision to make. Thanks for putting some time and energy into it; current trustees and contact information can be found in the front of your Digest.
DOWSERS IN THE NEWS
And now, under the category of “Dowsers in the News,” please check out this webpage:
http://www.scottsdaletimes.com/mar07-feature2.asp
Read about ASD members and their exploits in the southwest. Thanks to Susan King for sending this in. Please keep us informed when you or your members are the subject of media—broadcast, print or otherwise!
A dowser in Croatia
On the other side of the world, a fellow dowser tells a much different story. Zeljko Stojanovic, a dowser in Croatia, recently contacted headquarters looking for help for himself and the dowsing group that he belongs to. Dowsing in Croatia is currently under religious and political persecution. One of the group’s members was recently arrested and spent the night in jail, without ever being told a reason why. This man was denied a phone call to his family and/or lawyer, all because he tried to help someone find a well site by dowsing, and was more public about it than he now realizes he should have been. Because of these conditions, they have no access to any kind of information on dowsing, so Zeljko took a huge risk and emailed the bookstore asking for help in the form of used books that people would be willing to donate and send to them. Scot at Headquarters has the contact information, so if you’d like to help out our friend in Croatia, please email Scot at: scot.foxx@dowsers.org He’ll collect the books there and send them from HQ. If you don’t have any books but want to help the cause, a couple bucks toward postage is another idea.
Your O.M. recently emailed out the first quarter financials to the trustees. Any member who is interested can contact Arvid at: asd@dowsers.org and receive these in Excel format.
Till next time!
