For those of you unable to make our annual meeting this March, we had a good turnout of 30 or so members, friends, and neighbors. We also saw several of our elected officials in attendance including Mayor Sheehan, Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, County Legislator Andrew Joyce and Councilman Joe Igoe. That presentation we made to the audience of members and friends is also available here.

As a brief recap, it was a good year for our conservancy.

• Membership has grown to 190 paid memberships
• We secured our largest single donation up to then of $15,000 from an anonymous donor thru the Jewish Federation of Northeastern NY
• Awarded our annual Pond Partner award to former BPC president Harry Ermides
• Coordinated invasive plant removal with the Water Dept
• Began work with the Water Dept on a master plan to handle erosion and path stabilization from the north Euclid path entrance to the south Lenox entrance

As for our plans for 2017, a short list would include:

• Embarking upon an ambitious playground improvement campaign and secured a $25,000 challenge grant from the Massry family
• Launching our commemorative brick fund-raising campaign to complete funding for the playground
• Moving forward with our efforts to address water quality, working with the City Water Department on improvements around the pond.

Lots of good things are happening and the coming year holds the promise of both a new playground and upgrades to erosion control issues that will help improve the water quality in the pond. However, as with every all-volunteer organization, we could always use more hands helping us row the boat.  If you have an interest in joining one of our committees or the board, I encourage you to attend our monthly meetings which are the first Monday of each month @ 7:30. We hold those meetings at the public meeting room at the Bach Branch of Albany Public Library at 455 New Scotland Ave.

Thanks,

Felton McLaughlin
President
Buckingham Pond Conservancy