As of June 1st, AREC membership has topped 70! If you are one of these 70, and haven’t picked up your T-shirt, talk to Todd Rose.
Another exciting event was that May saw the start of the Long Beach ICB Marathon training. Our first run saw 14 people, including 9 new runners! One important note that both Todds have mentioned on the Wednesday runs: We are looking for training volunteers! We aren’t looking for anything specific – it’s not like the Nike runs where you have to run a certain pace and laud the club (though that would be nice!). We are just looking for people to show up and do the runs. The runners that show up have been beginning or intermediate runners, which means they run 10 minute miles or slower, so it’s an easy run for you, the volunteer. It also frees up Todd Rose, Dennis Murphy, or anyone from having to show up EVERY week for 5 months! You can talk to myself or Roberta just to find out a nice way to spend your Saturday morning!
Some “sad” news: We had a goodbye party for Sam & Karine Brooks, long-time AREC members, who left for colder climes in Newport, WA. We hope they will come back for frequent visits!
Also, on that note, our co-training leader, Liz Caporelli, was offered a job in Woods Hole, MA – a great opportunity for her. Unfortunately, she cannot telecommute and moves out there in mid-June. Maybe she can provide a place to crash for you Boston Marathon qualifiers!
Lastly, I just got an update from Elizabeth Campagna: “I have survived two weeks on the Donkey Farm now and am still alive! I am back in Cape Town this weekend and hoping to climb Table Mountain tomorrow. The weather is still warm, but getting cooler. I think the winter will be similar to that of a Southern California winter, so I will not freeze to death! We had a bit of rain yesterday, but it only lasted for like 10 minutes and then quit.
Farm life is interesting. The lady who owns the farm is 60 and on a mission to save the world. She is trying to get programs set up to bring children from the townships to the farms for donkey rides and such. We had our first group of kids Thursday and survived, but it was sssooo chaotic! There were more kids than we were prepared for and of course only about 2 out of the 22 understand English. It was an experience! We have more groups coming this week, but younger kids, so communication will not be an issue – you just smile at the little ones and tickle them and then you’re best friends for the day!
The first few hours of each day are pretty much the same and after that it’s up in the air. The first task of the day is milking the goats and cleaning the goat and donkey corrals. I am becoming quite good at milking goats, I have been assigned one of the goats to milk every morning, her name is Sweetie Pie. One of the goats – Dancer – was in a movie and now has a major attitude. The goat seriously gave me death looks for the first week, we had a few encounters, but I managed to pull through with only minor bruises and scraps. After milking and cleaning we eat breakfast (we eat a lot, I’m getting fat) and then we clean more or build/repair fences. Mainly we build fences, big ones for donkeys and little ones for guinea pigs and such.
Besides goats and donkeys there is one horse, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, and guinea pigs. We just got the guinea pigs this week. Nina, a volunteer from Germany, and I built their cage and then each got to pick one out. Unfortunately mine disappeared – not necessarily dead, just missing. In any case I have been demoted to working on trying to grow some vegetables seeing as I have no luck with the animals, quite sad.
Nina’s last day was Friday and a new volunteer comes Tuesday. There are also two volunteers from another program who help out in the afternoons, so there are lots of people around, sometimes too many. Sonia, the lady who owns the farm is having an operation next week so she’ll be out for a few days and leaving me in charge, apparently she views me as responsible. Should be fun!”
Finally, CONGRATULATIONS to Colleen Callin and Rob Mirviss, who got married over Memorial Day weekend!