Author: Andrew Bowers

The Friends of Clark Park held our Annual meeting on October 19th. It was the first time the meeting was held online, as most of our board meetings had to switch to this year.

During the meeting we elected two new directors to our board: Erik Nash and Jonathan Marcus. Also three directors were re-elected to new terms: Ari Kessler, David Forde and Carol Jenkins. Erik and Jonathan bring welcome skills and energy to our mission to serve the park. Carol, David and Ari are staying on to continue their key contributions to the Friends. All four officers were reelected to another term as well.

My deep gratitude goes out to all of our directors and officers for your commitment to serve Clark Park. I would also like to thank our departing directors for their service to the board during their terms; Algernong Allen, Caroline Van-Zeijts and David Jonas.

COVID-19 cast a long shadow on 2020. Both of our iconic soccer seasons had to be cancelled, along with the always amazing Shakespeare in Clark Park and our annual Party in the Park which was set to coincide with Clark Park being the city’s signature site event for the Love your Park week in May.

Losing these and essentially all events in the park was definitely sad but it was more important to protect the health of the community. That being said COVID highlighted just how important a large green space is to an urban neighborhood. Clark Park gave us a place to get outside of our quarantine and spread out safely. It was still a place we could exercise and see our friends and neighbors and just get a little sunshine on an otherwise cloudy year.

The Friends also took advantage of the relative downtime. We ordered and installed new benches and sold them as memorials, and created a new logo and branding material as well as updated our membership guide. We also created an online store so that customers can now access our merchandise all the time. Perhaps most importantly we started and finished a strategic plan which we will use to guide us and engaged city council to bring attention to the condition of our perimeter sidewalk.

Look for more to come on those fronts next year. Into 2021 we will be implementing our new plan and also working on a master plan, which has long been needed for the park. This effort will be key to making improvements to Park B especially.

Most importantly of course, we will continue to protect the park and work to make it a place that welcomes and embraces all. Thank you to all of our members and partners and neighbors in this trying year and please stay safe.

Anyone going for early morning strolls knows that autumn has officially rolled into Clark Park and so it must be time for our public Annual Meeting. The meeting will be October 19th at 7:00pm and will take place online this year due to the ongoing public health crisis.

Unfortunately COVID-19 has come to define this year. At the outset of 2020 we had anticipated it would be a great year filled with many fun and healthy activities in the park, including being the signature site for the city wide Love Your Park Program and have that event coincide with our Party in the Park in May.

Neither of those came to pass of course, and we also had to cancel most events including both of our soccer seasons. However, I do not consider this a lost year. In fact we needed our park more then ever as a place where we could just be outdoors while staying socially distant. The park was possibly busier then ever and we had to find creative ways to maintain it since traditional large clean up days were not allowed and the city crews were limited by illnesses. The Friends have also made good use of the year to focus on organizing ourselves so that we may better serve the Park and community in the coming years.

To learn more please attend our Annual meeting in two weeks. We will have several guests who will be updating us on big upcoming projects and members in good standing can vote in the election of our new board for 2021. As always we are looking for people who can come help advance and extend our mission and add their voices to guide the future of the park.

Friends of Clark Park Annual Meeting (Zoom Meeting)

Or join over the phone at (646)-558 8656 

Meeting ID: 816 6782 1786
Passcode: 799958

Hope to see or hear you there! Please stay safe.