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A Message from the President, Board of Directors
Welcome to the Annual Meeting
of Project Independence - 2012
Let
me
start
off
my
report
for
this
year
by
expressing my sincerest thanks
to
three
very
important
groups
of people;
all
of
which
have
contributed
to
the
tremendous
success
that
Project
Independence
has
seen
over
the
past
year. I
am
talking
about
PI's
employees,
PI's
volunteers
and
the
community
that
PI
serves.
First,
PI's
employees - Rarely
have
I
had
the
experience
or
the
joy
of
working
with
a
more
dedicated
or
hard-working group of people. From
my
perspective,
Dee
and
Linda
have
a
very
enviable
job
of
managing
a
group
of
employees that
come
to
work
each
day
prepared
for
whatever
the
day
holds
in
store
for
them,
perform
their
work
with
a
very
high
level
of
expertise
and
care
and
go to extraordinary means to help
to
ensure
that
the
many
needs
of
our
participants
are
met
(and
many
times
exceeded)
throughout
each
and
every
day. The
fact
that
they
all
seem
to
enjoy
their
work
is
an
added
benefit
for
all
of
them
and
for
our
participants. Thanks
to
them,
PI
is
a
verysafe
andfun
place
to
be
for
everyone!
Next,
PI's volunteers - Each
day
the
staff's
efforts
are
enhanced
significantly
by
a
small
group
of
very
dedicated
people
that
ask
for
nothing
more
than
to
be
able
help make
PI
a
better
place
and
to
freely offer
their
time
to
make
that
happen. These volunteers fall into two groups,
although the groups are not mutually exclusive of each other. The first group consists of the folks that
come during the day to help the staff take care of our participants. Some of these volunteers come several days a
week and there are a few that could almost call their volunteering a full-time
job. Without the help of these folks,
the staff's job would be much more difficult and our participants would be much
less happy. I am grateful for the time
and effort that these volunteers expend on PI's behalf. The second group of volunteers, of course, is
the small group of folks that make up the PI Board. Although they only meet once a month, I can
assure you that they think about PI much more often than that. The last several years have presented the
organization with many opportunities and challenges that required the Board to
make many difficult decisions in order to help keep the organization on task
and financially secure. I sincerely
appreciate both the time that they provide to PI and also the seriousness and
creativity with which the Board has faced these difficulties and challenges
over the past year. As I said above,
these two groups of volunteers were not really all that separate from each
other; this is due to the fact that some of our PI Board members also volunteer
at PI during the day. I take my hat off
twice to those folks; thanking them for both their incredible dedication and
for their invaluable help.
Finally, PI's community -
The actual “players” in this broad-based group are much harder to define
and/or identify and, in fact, some of them change from one year to the
next. This group consists of our donors
of both money and in-kind services, people with talents and skills that help
entertain its participants during the year, people and organizations that
provide indirect support to PI through their assistance in integrating it into
the greater Central Vermont community and, of course, all of PI's vendors. All of these people and organizations have
made significant contributions to the success of PI over the last year and we
thank them for their contributions.
There is, however, one individual in this group that deserves special
mention and thanks; Ken Randall and his company Randall Construction. As many of you also know, Ken and his company
played a critical role in getting our current building (the “PI Palace”) ready
for us to move into. In May of this
year, when downtown Barre flooded, Ken and his company (along with many from
PI) worked tirelessly to get PI back on its feet after PI's basement nearly
filled with water. The result of this
amazing effort was only 2 days of downtime for an organization that makes all
of its money from being open to its participants. Without Ken's help and the
hard work of PI's employees, such an event would have likely meant financial
disaster and possibly collapse. In the
very near future we will once again turn to Ken and his company to help us
“repurpose” the main floor of the PI building to accommodate the retirement of
the basement as a part of our everyday living and storage space. While there is never a good time to take on
the expense and disruption of this type and scope of construction, the
rearrangement of our main floor to provide additional office and stage space is
critical to the long-term health of the PI organization. There is little doubt that the basement will
continue to have water problems over time and we will need to ensure that those
problems cannot create the disruptive and expensive problems that they have
previously. Ken's excellent skills and
judgment will, again, be invaluable in ensuring that PI receives the most
benefit from this work for the lowest cost possible.
At the risk of sounding repetitive each year, I will say
again what a great honor and privilege it truly is for me to serve on PI's
Board and as its President. I hope that
you will join me in thanking the groups of people I mention above and along
with them, look forward to all of the successes that the coming year will, no
doubt, bring to this amazingly vital organization.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Koenemann
President, Project Independence Board of Directors
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