FROGS Talk
by Ivy Sinaiko, FROGS President
Ivy Sinaiko, FROGS President (Photo credit: John Richards)
If you are like me, you spend winter waiting impatiently for spring. Forget all those Currier and Ives prints of sleigh riding and ice skating; I’m not interested. I note with pleasure every minute the days get longer after the Winter Solstice.
For me, this year so far has been like waiting for spring on steroids because I am not only anticipating the end of winter but also—I hope—the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of this pandemic.
I want to celebrate how the folks at Green Spring Gardens adjusted to and coped with what 2020 had in store for them. I have been constantly amazed at how Nicole and her crew have demonstrated their creativity and resilience. It can’t have been easy. They were recently awarded the “Site of the Year” award at the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA)’s 2020 Trailblazer Award Ceremony. Trailblazer Awards are the Park Authority’s internal staff awards presented annually to a facility/site that has demonstrated superior services and/or accomplishments and has positively impacted customers, visitors, and FCPA as a whole. Green Spring certainly deserved this award, and we are proud to be associated with the fine staff there.
I also want to thank the FROGS board for hanging in there. We have been holding our meetings via Zoom, like many other organizations, and I have exposed my messy computer room to the whole bunch, not without eliciting a few comments. At some meetings I have worn a funny hat in an attempt to distract my fellow board members from my surroundings. Some of them have shown me up by somehow managing to attend the meetings in front of various impressive natural wonders, historical landmarks, etc. Not fair!
We appreciate very much the financial and moral support that you, our members and friends, have provided. Without you, 2020 would have indeed been bleak for us.
Here’s to the future and to the eventual coming of spring! Now, in the meantime, I am going out to the porch to plant the “Grow a Sunflower in a Jar” kit my perceptive daughter gave me for Christmas. Hope you all stay safe and well. See you in the spring.
P.S. After I wrote this, I received the very sad news that one of our FROGS board members, Bill Peters, had died. Bill served on the board in the early days of FROGS, and we were lucky enough to persuade him to rejoin the board in 2016. His institutional knowledge, ability to think creatively, stewardship of new and/or younger board members, and sense of humor made him a valuable addition to our group. We will miss him very much.
