WSCC’s ANNUAL MEETING

Sunday March 12th 2023

ShadeScapes Event Center, Hotchkiss CO

WSCC’s 2023 Annual Meeting was a festive affair with a beaver flair! We had about 80 people in attendance at the beautiful ShadeScapes showroom in downtown Hotchkiss.  We welcomed new Board Member Lauren Hall Ruddell and with much gratitude saw Kate Graham and Alex Johnson step down from board service. We reviewed the work of last year through the lens of our Annual Report – the Tater Heap (available to view HERE). And we had a fabulous guest speaker – Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter – talking with us about the amazing beaver and how important they are on our landscape. Thanks to Ben Lehman of Lehman Images (lehmanimages.com), we were able to record Ben Goldfarb’s talk for posterity and to share with those who missed it. You can view it on YouTube at youtu.be/j-NLNq-n4Kk

It was also an opportunity to express our gratitude to Tanya Henderson who wraps up her tenure as WSCC’s Executive Director at the end of March, and to introduce Kathy Swartz as our new Interim Executive Director. Kathy served as the Executive Director for Solar Energy International for nine years before stepping away in June of 2021 for a sabbatical to dive into her other passion – mainly food! You may have eaten her food at local fundraisers or at one of the many local food establishments in Paonia. We are excited to have her extensive non-profit management expertise during this transition. Kathy will be starting at the end of March and moving things forward until a thoughtful and considered hiring process produces a new permanent Executive Director.

We also feasted on Black Cat Pizza and fresh salad greens from The Living Farm, and enjoyed a tasty pale ale donated by Chrysalis Beer in Paonia and Alfred Eames wine donated by Liz Lundeen. Many thanks to ShadeScapes for offering their lovely space for our event, and to all of our members, donors and sponsors who make our work possible and rewarding. Here’s to another great year!