End of Year Message from President Paul

Dear Solair Family,

Another wonderful season at Solair has passed and we are again in hibernation mode at camp. Although we did not have the good graces of the weather gods, we still had an exceptional year financially. This past year brought us record snows, several power outages, a hurricane, a full-fledged tornado, snow in October and lots of rain in June. Our gate was slightly off from the previous year but considering the horrible weather we had at times, I would say that we had another banner year. We welcomed many new people through our gates, several of whom became associates. Overall, 2011 was a great year with many more positives to offset the negatives.

We accomplished so much in camp this year, thanks to all of you for your hard work and contributions. Whenever a call went out for help you were there with smiles, strong backs and willing hands. We always had fun, with lots of laughing and joking around but we never lost sight of our mission, making Solair the best place to hang your hat. A thousand thank you’s to all of Solair, we are truly a community of friendship and love, a home away from home, a family.

This past year saw many changes in camp. We opened our new sun deck on time and in budget and it has been a hit from the get go. The new deck added almost a thousand additional square feet of much needed seating area at the pool. The new chaises, 25 in total, were always occupied and there were many positive comments from our guests. We also instituted a new smoking policy, limiting where people can smoke as well as opened a new, welcoming smoking deck at the pool. The new policy was accepted camp wide and we have implemented it without any problems. Thank you to the smokers who saw the need for this and welcomed it with open arms.

We continued to work towards making our camp more secure by closing off as many of our borders as we can. We have repaired and replaced our entire fence now and have only gated access for vehicles in the back entrance. The renovation of the Arent Pavilion has begun with preliminary plans being submitted to the town. We have bid on and won the right to host the AANR East Convention for 2012. It will be held on July 9-15 and 2012 will also be our 75th Anniversary celebration and we are planning on combining the two to make this convention the talk of the AANR community.

2012 will also see many new upgrades to the camp in addition to the Arent Pavilion being refurbished into rental units. We have a completely new floor for the shower/hall in the community center being installed in January. We will be having a new hot tub for the 2012 season along with a new private shower area outside.

So as you can see, although the camp is in hibernation, we are hard at work making Solair even better. We will be holding our first formal meeting in the community center on December 31 at 11AM for all those who signed up for the committees for the convention and the anniversary. We ask that all team captains and their helpers attend as well as anyone else who would like to participate in making these events happen. We at Solair never do anything half assed and I am confident that we will have a great turn out for what will be the kick off of an exciting season at Solair. Feel free to bring an appetizer to share with the attendees and the office will provide sodas and waters. Please email me or the office to let them know that you will attend.

In closing, Sheila and I would like to wish all of our Solair family the very happiest of holidays and a prosperous, healthy New Year.

Sincerely,

President Paul