SWONA Annual Report for 2021
SWONA NEIGHBORHOOD UPDATE March 2021
PLEASE come to the SWONA 2021 Annual Meeting (via Zoom), Thursday, March 18, 7 p.m.
- Meet your neighbors (virtually!)
- Elect new SWONA Board members
- Updates from Olympia Police, local businesses, and more
SWONA’s Annual Meeting is March 18, 7 pm via Zoom. Meet your neighbors, elect officers, and share ideas. SWONA’s mission is to involve all neighborhood residents in full and democratic discussion and action on issues that affect the quality of life in our neighborhood. We also offer an opportunity for families, children and others to become friends, help each other, and to collaborate on projects and activities that keep our neighborhood healthy and nurturing of community life. SWONA is a Registered Neighborhood Association with the City of Olympia.
The past year has been dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The initial lockdown cancelled our last Annual Meeting, and we have been doing work arounds ever since. Our annual picnic and Bike to Work events were cancelled, but we managed a socially distanced musical event in August (‘Front Yard Singout 2020’)and a work group doing mural maintenance on Olympic Way in October. Construction of the Wellington Heights development continues to concern us, as new developments threaten to make worse an already congested traffic situation at 9th and Fern St.
For those of you unfamiliar with SWONA or new to the neighborhood, we have organized the following:
- Created and maintain several pocket parks in the neighborhood
- Created a ‘walking park’ map of the neighborhood
- Opposition to construction of a convenience store at Harrison and Division (now the West Central Park)
- Convincing the City to close 16th and Fern and Decatur Street accesses to Highway 101.
In addition to quarterly meetings (generally, the third Thursday in March, June, September, and December), we hold an annual picnic at Decatur Woods Park in August (in non-pandemic years) that features kids’ games, music, and food. Check out our website (www.swonaonline.com) or Facebook page for more information.
All of our board members have either reached the end of their allotted terms or have extended an extra year due to the pandemic, so it would be nice to give at least one of them relief. These are the jobs: The President and Vice President put together the agendas and facilitate meetings and act as spokespeople for the association. The Treasurer takes in funds and pays expenses and does a financial report annually to the membership. The secretary does the meeting minutes and prepares copies of any handouts for those meetings. Please consider volunteering to stand for these positions if you have an interest in the continued success of SWONA as a neighborhood association.
At this year’s annual meeting we will have our Community Policing Officer giving an update on public safety, and a local business will discuss how they are handling the pandemic, along with other neighborhood updates.
“See” you there!
A note about dues. Official dues are set at just $10 per voting member per year. We normally collect these when we meet in person, so our dues income for 2020 was zero. We’ll discuss options for sending in dues going forward (until we can meet in person) at the annual meeting. Dues go to pay the costs of running the meetings (liability insurance, printing), and (if required) permit fees and incidentals for community events like the annual picnic and our Bike to Work Day station. We often apply for (and get) City matching fund grants for bigger ticket items, using volunteer hours for matching value.