Fitness Hiking

Fridays  Jan. 8 - April 23 Time: 9 - 11 a.m.    Place: Beaver Brook Maple Hill Farm
Fee: $50 includes use of snowshoes when conditions are appropriate.
Guide: Celeste Philbrick Barr and KC Morgan

Create a healthy routine by getting outside on Friday mornings for some aerobic hiking. We explore different trails of Beaver Brook and area conservation land at a moderately fast pace to stay warm and burn calories.  Guaranteed to raise your endorphin level for the day!  Snowshoes included when the conditions are right.  Call to register.  Crampons recommended when there is no snow (call Celeste to discuss which ones work and don't work).  Typical terrain entails rolling hills and the pace is moderately fast.  We save enough air to laugh while hiking.  Outdoor activity combats seasonal affective disorder and cabin fever.

Annual  Volunteer Awards

The Founder's Award is the highest honor a volunteer can receive at Beaver Brook Association and is awarded by a vote of the Board of Trustees for outstanding long-time service to Beaver Brook in a variety of capacities.

It is awarded to a volunteer who bests exemplifies the spirit of dedication and volunteerism, which has long been a tradition at Beaver Brook.

This recipient was asked by co-founder Hollis Nichols to join the Board of Trustees. He was a Board member for nine years, which is the maximum term a Board member can serve. This person is also a former member of the Funds Development Committee and Land Protection Committee, and served in many other capacities at Beaver Brook.  He is well known for his generosity offering countless printing services to Beaver Brook from his Hollis-owned business. He is currently a Member of the Corporation, which is the group that oversees the Board of Trustees. Although his life is extremely busy with other charitable endeavors and a healthy obsession with growing the perfect New Hampshire wine grape, he recently agreed to chair this group to elevate the group's role at Beaver Brook. He has already spearheaded several high level projects, including updating the current by-laws and improving the selection process for new Trustees. This year's Founder's Award goes to Fred Lyford.

photo shows Fred Lyford receiving a custom made walking stick from BBA Board Pres. Drew Kellner.

                 Awards to Volunteers of Special Merit                     

Andrea Schoemmell has been an integral volunteer for BBA in the office. She came to us via the Accomplished Gardener Class.  Earning the 20 hour Accomplished Gardener Certificate wasn't enough for Andrea.  She began volunteering for us each week doing several different tasks.  At a moments notice, she helps Ilga in the office with typing, filing, copying, and mailings and has tirelessly volunteered helping Celeste with Educational materials.  She is willing to do almost anything from folding Summer Youth Program T- Shirts to cutting out letters for a Children's Loft display for Fall Festival. Her steady, calm demeanor has proven to be what we need in a volunteer at BBA!  She lives in Nashua with her husband, Harold.

Dave Pyle came to us from a request published in our LOG for a volunteer who could help streamline our Summer Youth Program database.  He took our ailing database and breathed new life into it!  He once again made it dynamic software that we could get timely and accurate information from.  He took a daunting task for so many of us and made the process easy to use and understand.  He listened to staff, took our ideas and created new solutions, all along keeping site of our goal to move to a paperless system. Dave has even traveled with Cliff to analyze new donor database software.  He is a dedicated and committed volunteer who has gone out of his way to be accessible to everyone.

Dick Brown of Hollis has been quietly volunteering for us behind the scenes for several years.  With the Maple Hill Gardens being featured as one of the showcase gardens for the Colonial Garden Club Tour this year, Dick sprang into action tirelessly volunteering along side his wife, Liz and fellow Maple Hill Gardeners each and every week.  He did everything from repairing fencing to spreading mulch, rain or shine!  Over 250 people viewed our gardens back on June 27th and we all felt proud of the public praise we received that day!  Dick always has some interesting fact he read and loves to share it with the staff.  He is a strong proponent of the recycle and reuse theory and he has an uncanny way to bring things back to life at Beaver Brook!

The Fall Festival Core Committee consists of Wally Key, Kathleen McDonnell, Pam Gustafson and Peter Powell.  Over the last three years, these four individuals have provided exceptional, year round volunteerism to Beaver Brook taking on a specific component of the Festival.  Pam provided a detailed and organized process to selecting a featured Artist for Fall Festival. Wally and Kathleen have been instrumental in soliciting donations to our very successful raffle fundraiser.  Peter has continually taken responsibility for taking our poster from development to printing.   The Festival would not run without the tireless efforts of these four volunteers.

The Siddall family of Dunstable, MA, came to us via a very large nature center in Michigan where they worked and volunteered for several years.  They were moving to New England and wanted to give back to an organization in the same way they did back home.  Jon, Kap, their two sons and various friends have supported us in every way possible at Beaver Brook.  From sourcing and picking pallets of apples for our apple pressing demonstration at Fall Festival to countless volunteer hours harvesting bark and building the wigwam that was in much needed repair!  The Siddall family has made several fire building kits to be used in our Fall school programs and they have consistently volunteering at our Maple Sugaring demonstration.  Their energy is infectious to all who volunteer alongside them!

WINTER CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Beaver Brook 5K Snowshoe Run