My Time On Main Street

A few years ago I signed up to be on the board of directors for a small organization who's goal was the  revitalization of downtown Portsmouth. I thought it would be a fun way to give back to the city. In 2010 I was asked to serve as the groups Vice President. I gladly accepted the position with anticipation of serving as president in 2011. This morning was the last board I presided over as president of Main Street Portsmouth.
Going into 2011 there were some high expectations, not only from myself but from the organization.
We began the year with two employees, a part time director and a full time program assistant. A few months into the year our director submitted her resignation. She offered to stay on until she found another job or we found another director.
Shortly after that happened our program assistant offered her resignation, because her husband had taken a job somewhere else that would require them to move. So at that point we were down to one part time employee.
In the mean time we organized and held our first golf tournament, which was a successful fundraiser.
I will spare you further details but after a few months we started the search for a new director. After much conversation and discussion we were able to hold interviews.
We decided on our next director shortly after. As with all new employees there was a time of transition with more questions than there were answers it seemed.
As the president of the organization I stepped up to answer the call of guiding the organization back to stable ground.
If I had to put a theme on 2011 for Main Street Portsmouth, it would have to be "Winds of Change." The winds that blew were not bad winds. I think we faced the challenges head on and was able to come to a solution as a community.
If we were unable to come together the way we did, it would be hard to tell the situation we would be in today. I think we are a people vested and dedicated to this community and we are going to do what it takes to make a positive change.
As of this morning I have moved into the roll of past president. In this position I will be forming a committee that will bring forth recommendations for new officers and board members in 2013. There are also a few side projects I hope to get to, in between.
One of the last things I have to do as president is to perform an evaluation of our director. That will be done on Monday. I pray it goes smooth and that we will be able to come away from that conversion more committed to the mission at hand.
As a token of my service the board presented me with a plaque that states "Main Street Portsmouth presents to Wayne Allen in appreciation and recognition of service as president 2011."
One of the things I know for certain looking back on this experience is that I have grown in more ways than one. As I told them this morning in my presidents report "it's been a good ride."

 



 

It's been a while....

Hello Friends....It's been a while since I've bogged about what is going on in my life. Things have been a bit on the crazy side. There has been lots going on and lots of side projects that I have taken my attention away from things like this;
One of my new years resolutions was to read more, so I started this book,

with the idea being that I would finish it by the end of the month for the e3 class. Well, I am just about half way through the book and we are 18 days into the month and 10 days away from the first day of class. We will see how far I can get.

• Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me. It marks the end of my term as the president of Main Street Portsmouth. This year there has been a number of challenges before us and I am proud to report we have overcome them all. Two of the biggest issues is that we were on the brink of loosing a major funding source, we were able to secure it for another year, because of that we have been able to keep our doors open. This year we also hired a new director, that has taken the organization in a new and exciting direction. 

• Last weekend we lost a couple of giants in the community. It was due to natural causes but is still hard to loose friends. Tomorrow is one of their viewings. It will be hard to face that reality but it has to be done.

• This weekend I am headed to Camp Bountiful for a board of directors meeting. This meeting I am also up for re-election as Vice President of the board. I have held this roll for the past two years and I am hopeful I can continue in the capacity. I love the fact that I am able to contribute to this fine organization and camp ground in this way. I will keep you posted on how this goes.

Well I think that is enough ranting for now. So, as always thanks for reading..

-W

I got my car back yesterday

The good news about yesterday was that I got my car back.....It was a great day. It turns out, the security system on the car thought I was breaking into the car and disabled it's self. So the system had to be reset, once it was things were fine. It's funny how things work out sometimes.....The total cost of the repairs was $90.
Also my friend Jessica told us about a like to buy some iphone/pod chargers for the price of shipping. So I got two of them for $3. They came in the mail yesterday as well, tt was sweet.

Lets say I'm a little beyond frustrated

Well, going into this week I knew it was going to be a short week because of the holiday. So I scheduled my self off work on Friday for a me day. I did that with the idea that I would take care of a few things and be able to spend the time the way I wanted. It turns out something went wrong with my car Thursday night and needed to be worked on all day Friday and Saturday. My dad had a couple of his friends look at it, with no success. Now it is stilling somewhere else waiting to be looked at with a real possibility of getting fixed on Monday. It has been a frustrating process, I suppose it should be a learning opportunity, that sometimes you are just meant to stay at home and do nothing for three days.

Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow....

My challenge for the next 30 days

Here is a recent story I wrote that will give you some background.....


Members of Revolution Church in Portsmouth will begin a 30-day fast on Jan. 2 asking God to intervene on the problems of this community.
“We have a free seminary at Revolution, when we were reading through some different texts, we came across a passage in the gospels of Jesus telling his disciples that some demons can only be exorcised through prayer and fasting,” said Matt Rawlings, pastor of Revolution Church. “That led us to talk about the kind of evil that’s beset our community, such as drugs, hunger and prostitution. Fasting is something Jesus prescribed as a way to attack evil.”
Rawlings said the idea for a 30-day fast came from a pastor friend of his.
“He and his church have been fasting and praying for their community for 30 days every January for the past couple years,” Rawlings said.
He said everyone participating will be fasting in different ways and for different reasons.
“I’m fasting from (solid) food. A number of people are fasting from liquids. Some are fasting from things they feel they have an unhealthy connection such as social media. Some will fast from TV and others will fast from whatever they take comfort in, such as junk food, snacks or comfort food,” Rawlings said. “I’m preaching on this topic Sunday and I will tell people this (fasting) isn’t a way for us to manipulate God into doing something. We’re just hoping he (God) takes mercy upon us and releases us (community) from the kind of darkness that has descended upon our hometown.”
Rawlings said he has no expectations from the fast.
“All of us are going to go to God in prayer in hopes that he acts in an extraordinary way,” Rawlings said.
He said others are encouraged to participate in the fast.
For more information about Revolution Church, visit www.therevolutiononline.org.

I have decided to participate in this fast with these fine people.  "Some are fasting from things they feel they have an unhealthy connection." For me that's spending money on needless things that do not carry any or much value. I have a tendency to spend money on a number of things I do not need and could do without....So this month I am (going to try to) only going to spend money on things I need, rather than things I do not.

Today is the first day of the fast. It was a good day I only spent $1.25, it did help that someone else bought my lunch. So things are going well already....I will keep you posted on how things go....

As always thanks for reading....
-W

A great start to the new year.

Today was a rather productive day. Let me tell you about my day, this morning I went to church for the fist time all year. I know, I know I am such a slacker.....Helped serve communion. It's always an honor to be asked to help in that capacity. I had to leave Church early to go into town and take photos at the Polar Bar Plung. The overall weather was was not bad it was wind that made things cold. With the wind the temperature was about 20....This is the third for fourth year I've been down to take photos at the event and have often debated on participating, came close a year or two ago. It would be fun to do it once just to say you did it.

After that I got to go to the hospital to take a picture of baby new year. Her parents were very proud they had baby new year and were excited about the idea of being in the paper.

After that I headed to my favorite place to eat in the entire world. Believe it or not it's a gas station that serves the worlds greatest chicken. Granted the chicken is very fatiguing and enough of it would be bad for you. The place is close to the church I go to so it works out to stop there once a week. It was a little bit of a treat to do that.
Then I proceeded to take care of a few things. I then went back to the church to read.  At Pleasant Valley Community of Christ there is no cell phone service. So I was able to read for a long time without any interruptions, it was sweet.

I have been working on this book forever so it was great to put some closure to that. Next I will be reading the book "Jesus, Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary"
It's for a class later this month. Hope i can get through it? Have any one you read this? is it good?

Now that I have been playing on the internet for a couple of hours I am going to finish watching a movie I started yesterday. Pirates of the Caribbean 4; on stranger tides.

Have to work tomorrow and I will be the only one in the office because it is being used as the New Years Holiday.

Tomorrow I plan to tell you about a 30 day challenge I am participating in with some friends. It will be challenging. But I guess that's why they call it a challenge.

As always thanks for reading and I hope this finds you blessed in your life.

-W