Spring USHPA Board of Directors Meeting

27 March, Friday – Surprisingly the day was sunny and the snow was quickly disappearing and the temps had risen somewhat. C.J. had only the Awards Committee meeting to attend/chair (Brad Hall was delayed by the blizzard). At the meeting, there was only one topic to discuss – the Rob Kells Memorial Award. Brad had sent his ideas via email and it was easy to fine-tune them to a finished product. Lisa was the only other attendee but Connie Work dropped in to say she would have been there but for another meeting scheduled at the same time. Rick Butler was also there and after the meeting we talked with him for quite a while. I asked him about the loose screen problem on my Toshiba and he took it apart enough to determine that the left hinge was broken (later I found that it was “only” missing its machine screw which was sheared off inside). We went across the street to Chilis for lunch with Paul Gazis – the food was much better than we had remembered it from years ago. Since there weren’t any other meetings we needed to attend we went back to the hotel. I caught a little more rest to make up for all that snowy driving, then went down to the fitness room for an hour. Around 1900 we went back to the Doubletree and carpooled to the USHPA office with Brad, Lisa and Mike Hailey for the open house. Paul Montville and his crew, including new personnel Erin and Beth, provided a great feed of barbecue and interesting beers. Martin had even arranged for Doubletree chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

28 March, Saturday – We got over to the meeting in time for the General Session which was scheduled to run all day. At first it went quite quickly as the Exec Dir and Pres. gave their reports and most of the comm. chairs got through theirs as well. Soon enough though the board ran into more controversial material (the Torrey Pines situation, for one, and the new competition rules, for another) and the pace slowed down as the discussion became more heated. Fortunately everyone that we went to lunch with at Chilis again were still speaking to each other. C.J. stayed for the rest of the meeting while I returned to the hotel, read for a while then went down for an hour in the fitness room. Later we showered, rested and got dressed for the awards banquet. It was at Nosh, a rather fashionable restaurant on Tejon Street, the location of most of the popular bars and restaurants in downtown Colo Sprgs. It was a bit crowded at first until the non-USHPA patrons were moved out around 2030. Dinner was very good starting with a platter of interesting appetizers like smoked salmon meatballs and lettuce-wrapped seasoned sweet potato. Paul did a good job as the emcee for the awards ceremony and a reasonable number of the awardees were present including Katherine Yardley, Joe Gregor, Bill Liscomb, Steve Prepost and Dick Heckman. Too bad that more of the awardees could not be there – some were turned back by the blizzard, of course, as were several of the directors.