2/23 Workshop Results - Countdown to Blast Off!

As of this weekend, we have entered the Countdown to Blast Off!

This workshop was dedicated to clearing the main floor area to allow the painters (Mike and Jeri Sanders) to be able to move the scaffold easily around our floor and finish the repairs on the tin ceiling before they paint it on Wednesday.

In the meantime, Tom and his crew will be checking off what we laughingly call his "honey - do " list. Hopefully Tom and the gang can finish those items in the next two weeks. These items include finishing the back part of the wall they built between the gift shop and the lecture and museum area, which will include yet more wiring and dry walling, etc. Tom and the guys also will be finishing up a few of the other wall areas before we can apply the final paint job.

By the first week in March - we plan to have our gift shop ready to start adding inventory, and our security system and cameras have already been set and working just great!

By the second week in March, the Gift Shop may even be open a few hours a day just to get our volunteers' feet under them and to make them feel comfortable before we open from 1-5 pm each day and for events. At this point we will also be heavily involved and concentrating on installing the two coed bathrooms off the gift shop, and adding the doors that will close off the gift shop during the day from the lecture area and museum space unless we want to give the access. This will of course, make the huge space manageable for the volunteers during the day as well because they will only have to worry about the gift shop only.

By the 20th - our plans are to have the bathrooms in and the lecture area set up for the first event from 6:30 - 7:30 that night, which we are proud to announce is Barb Cole from Owego, NY who will be bringing a live animal each and every month and discussing it and wildlife rehab issues.

Workshop results today...
As some of you read earlier this week, we had just received over 200 chairs from the Guthrie Clinic, and those along with the other things we have had on the floor made it near to impossible for us to get into our next phase of work until they were moved from the main floor. So today - we dedicated the day to that end:

Before:

After:



Thanks to our conveyor belt, this was all moved in just a couple of hours up two flights of stairs!

~~WHEW!~~

That left us enough time to actually sit down and devour a whole sheet pizza and chat a while:

Also - we had a couple of guests at our table today - our dear friends Barbara Cleveland and Dr. Earl Robinson who filled us in our their efforts with the Lowman Historical Society and the National Registration of the Newtown Battlefield. Many of you may remember Dr. Robinson was the person who ran our Sullivan Campaign bus trip at our last DrumBeats event last October...but I believe the discussion that was taking place when this picture was taken was concerning a dip in the river Ted Keir and I took with him two summers ago....(Let me just say we still can't believe we survived it! And Evelyn - - if you are reading this - - it wasn't my fault!!!!)


Lastly:
I want to thank everyone for coming today and each weekend and sharing this really incredibly exciting time with SRAC. The memories we have made together during this time are just something I know that many of us to feel blessed to have gained in our lives.

Those of us that have spent these long hours together are at a point that we know that we will all look back on this as a time for not only great pride and feeling of accomplishment, but a time when we formed relationships and bonds with one another that only times like these could.

These next four weeks before we open will undoubtedly bring us more stress and work, but we also know we can expect more laughs and memories....

And if you are in need of more good clean fun in your life - join us next weekend...we always have enough fun to go around!