You may wonder what we do all year, but mostly I wonder how it all gets done.  Probably the crown jewels of our year are the three sea turtle films we sponsored in an effort to promote annual protection for nesting turtles and their hatchlings.  One is a 4.5 minute documentary with voice over and original music.  The other two are 30-second public service announcements using the best parts of the documentary.  They are available in both English and Spanish, and are being shown locally, all over the state, in the Caribbean and South and Central America.  We hope these will be joined by our first Sea Turtle Festival next spring before nesting season begins.

We begin planning meetings in February for our annual Back to Nature Festival in mid-October.  This year, under the chairmanship of Chandra Hartman, was bigger and better than ever.  We added new events to the roster, and Family Fun Day completely filled the green amphitheater at Seaside with booths of all kinds, wonderful live music, and children's games that continued throughout the day.  Seaside and the Tourist Development Council helped us by paying many of our expenses.

We held a Saturday morning workshop on rain gardens, and later, under the leadership of Executive Director Anita Page, installed a rain garden in a low wet area at Nokuse Plantation.  Another has been planned and approved for a wet area in Helen McCall Park.  We are awaiting permits for that one.

We celebrated Earth Day in April with a booth at the Earth Day Festival at Topsail Preserve.  We used our new display board to stage a game of identifying native flora and fauna, giving native plants as prizes to winners and not so winners.

Our annual Fourth of July beach cleanup on the fifth of July was a great success under the direction of Second Vice President Bill Schultz.  More than 70 volunteers turned out to pick up approximately 120 bags of trash from South Walton Gulf beaches.  Bill handled getting bags, gloves, water, tee shirts, signs and captains for each of the Walton County public beach accesses. 

We held our monthly public forums through most of the year hoping to educate and entertain residents and visitors.  Our programs are designed to teach the public about our local government, our environment and many aspects of community living.

On a more serious note, we have worked almost every day to have definitive input into the mandated revision of our Comprehensive Plan.   Anita's excellent research into county and state records, and her artful persuasiveness with county officials, has done so much to ensure South Walton Community Council's mission to preserve, protect and enhance the quality of life and the natural environment of our area.

One Sunday morning in June we put our work clothes on and cleaned out our storage unit putting in shelves to make the boxes more accessible.  Boy was it hot!!

We reworked our liability and our special event insurance to save money without losing any of the coverage.  We have also changed our website managers to save a lot of money every month.  Debbie Baker, our Administrative Assistant has been in charge of this.

The South Walton Rotary Club invited us to speak at their regular breakfast meeting, and in spite of the early hour I managed to do that.  They were so welcoming and interested in what we do.

This is some of what we've been up to so far this year.  And we have even bigger plans for next year and hope we can count on your continuing support.

Ella Caro

2009 President