Seasons Greetings
The season’s change is upon us, with the crisper air, frequent gray skies, early darkness, and brilliant autumn tree leaf colors taking over. My favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the annual human seasonal cycle when we come together as families, neighbors, co-workers, friends, and fellow church goers to share in the warmth of each other, to give thanks for what we have, and to share with others our time and presence, friendship, and love.
Our chapter, too, is a community, one that is important to many of us for the support we get from members in doing our jobs and for others in this tough economic time when we need one another for job leads and references more than ever. Our annual holiday party, set for December 3, will be held at the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country Hotel in Fountaingrove, Santa Rosa. Jennifer Alexander and Terry Reap have planned a terrific evening for us, including a special pre-dinner wine tasting and live entertainment, an opera singer and harpist who will, or course, enliven our spirits with Christmas songs. If you miss this event, I am sure you will regret it, so mark your calendars, invite your spouses, colleagues and friends, and help make our holiday gathering a very special experience.
The Chapter Boosters program has started off very well. One member has already anonymously donated four dinners and at least one sponsored dinner has already been used by a needy member. For those who don’t know about it, members and their companies are invited to sponsor the dinner of a member who is now unemployed or very slow in work, exactly the people who need to network the most at our meetings but who cannot afford it right now. Our chapter community can muster some resources to help those less fortunate right now. If you are interested in making a donation of a dinner, please contact me or Kara Ameral, and let us know if you would like some publicity, which we would enjoy giving you or your company.
John Guill’s three seminar series on Specifications at the North Coast Builders Exchange was very well received. If you missed it, keep on the look out for next the Technical Forum John is also heading up. It meets about quarterly at the Builders Exchange as well. I want to thank John again for his generous donation of his knowledge and time for these educational events. If anyone would like to participate in the Technical Forums, please contact John.
Our Construction Documents Technology (CDT) study program will be starting in January. Look for more details on our website and in the next Bark. This year we will pioneer the addition of web casting the sessions for up to 15 remotely located members and others who sign up for the access. I would like to extend a thank you to Winzler & Kelly for agreeing to host the study sessions again this year, and member Dan Reiter for arranging this for us. Please go to csinet.org and click on the “certification” button on the left side of the home page on for more information now.
In closing, I hope all of you can get together with as much of your families and close friends as possible over the holidays and enjoy one another and a lot of wonderful holiday cheer. Be safe and have fun too.
Bryan J. Varner, CSI, CCCA, LEED AP
