I’ve been retired for four and a half years and still my body has not adjusted to the fact that I don’t have to wake up at stupid-early-o’clock every morning. So I’ve adjusted to the new routine and make use of that time in a different way and go to the Y every morning.  I never thought I would be one of those people, but here I am.  Sometimes changes happen in our lives that we don’t expect, but turn out to be for the best. 

Certainly there are a lot of people who struggle with any kind of change.  I worked in the science field for 40 years, so there was new technology and new procedure to learn pretty regularly.  It was one of the reasons I loved what I did.  I have a good friend who’s still there and says she’s going to work just one more year and then retire. She’s been saying that for three years.  I think it’s just because she doesn’t know how to face such a huge change in her life. 

The Club too has faced a lot of changes in the last couple of years, and that has been hard for some people.  The familiarity of the old ways was comforting to some in a way that many people can’t understand.  I think by now we’ve all realized that some things will never be the way they were before the pandemic; that event forced some of those changes on us.  But oftentimes good things can come out of bad circumstances. We definitely learned new ways to connect and have those online meetings, and that’s something I’m sure many of us would never have considered if we had still been able to get together physically. Yet online tech sessions, online “town hall” meetings, and virtual car shows often draw a larger attendance than previous in-person versions of the same events.  

And most importantly, for the first time in the Club’s history, we have a real strategic plan in place to focus the Club leadership in the same direction.  We have made significant progress on several of the goals and strategies already. I know it can be hard to embrace changes, especially to something you feel passionate about.  So I applaud the Board of Directors for everything they have passed to make this all happen.  But we do still have changes to face.  That may never end.  Together we will come out stronger and better and ready to embrace our new future.