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PROG ON THE MOVE
Thirteen members and friends met at the Friendship Center on Saturday, November 5, to move all PROG's equipment and supplies to our new storage facility at Hayden Meadows. Thanks to Jack Bookwalter, Kate Fuller, Jewell Gowan, Dennis Headrick and his son John and two grandsons Jacob & Ben, Mona Marsh, Ed & Sandra Martin and their grandson Forrest, Mark Moore, Neal Skibinski and Carole Bess White for coming to help, and to Barbara Coleman's son Slade for helping unload at the storage facility.
We sorted, packed, loaded and then sorted some more and finally got it all organized and stowed in the vehicles. It took one truck & trailer, one pickup truck, two vans and one PT Cruiser to hold it all. Do we have a lot of stuff or what? But we were done by 2:30, thanks to all the help. And thanks to Sandra Martin for providing a delicious tuna sandwich lunch.
We happily experienced
TheTHE SURPRISE OF THE SHELVES
In the Friendship Center basement there was a stack of particleboards that we've tripped over and shifted around several times over the years. On moving day they were still there, so we guessed they must be ours and brought them up to put in the truck.
Eagle-eyed Dennis immediately realized what they were and zipped downstairs to hunt up the metal uprights and crosspieces from our old shelving units that we thought we had sold. But no, they were just disassembled and waiting all these years because they didn’t fit into any of our spaces at the Center. They fit perfectly in our new storage unit, and we’re happy to have them back in service.
We were also thrilled to experience
THE FINDING OF THE TRIPOD
We haven’t been able to use the glass cam for several months because the tripod was missing and feared lost or stolen. We’ve looked and looked for it to no avail, but Mark found it hiding in the back of the stage cupboard where it had slithered under a bunch of boxes and supplies. Nothing like a total cleanout to bring things to light!
One of the things concealing the tripod was a round, 12" tall, plastic container filled with small pieces of wood. If anyone knows why we've been storing this little object, please let us know because otherwise it’s going to be recycled.
At the Center, we had the big cupboard on the stage, a double kitchen cupboard, two closets of approximately 4’ x 8’, a cupboard on the basement landing and spaces of about 10’ x 8’ in the basement and 8’ x 3’ on the third floor—all jam-packed and stacked to the rafters. It was nice having everything in the same facility as our meetings, but the ease and convenience of the storage unit far outweigh that.
Plus, as Jewell pointed out, it will be a lot easier for the volunteers to load and unload the show and convention supplies because now we can back right up to the door instead of lugging things up from the basement and down from the third floor and then out to the street. (In case you didn’t know, it takes Jack’s 12’ van and at least one other van or truck to hold all our supplies for the show and convention.) Also, the storage unit is large enough to let us find things (think tripod!!) without having to unpack the whole shebang as we did at the Center.
So all in all it was an exhausting but fulfilling day
The cost for the storage unit and Central Lutheran for two meetings a month is just about the same as what we were spending at Friendship Center for two meetings and storage, so we're still on budget.
As a final note, the volunteers all came to appreciate Jeff Motsinger even more than we already did. When PROG moved from our former facility to the Friendship Center, with the exception of the library he did almost single-handedly what it took 15 of us to do this time. Hats off to Jeff for that long-ago move, and to everyone who helped accomplish the current one.
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