Recognition for Volunteers at Pleasant Hill

[Jeff_in_KC]

We often see a lot of thanks and congratulations handed out for teams who do well and so forth but I wanted to make a thread in itself to pass along a HUGE THANK YOU to the folks who volunteered and made all the difference for 65 teams (one no-show) at Pleasant Hill this weekend!

Stan and I could not have pulled this off without super folks pitching in! First off, my wife Tammy and her mom and dad, Tom and Ellen Brown (who are here from Michigan for the weekend because Taylor is being baptized tomorrow on Easter). Tammy also put up with a lot of stress on my part for the last few weeks. Tom and Ellen worked their tails off helping at the contest. Ellen worked hard with Tammy on the Sponsor/VIP dinner and various other things. Tom ran to get our ice from our provider every time we needed it, helped run golf carts back to the shop after the contest and spent a large portion of this afternoon cleaning and sweeping the community building.

Then we have folks a lot of you know... fellow Brethren Vern Guilford and Shane Petzold once again, for the third year in a row, made this contest what it always is... a very cooker friendly event. These guys live not 20 minutes from Pleasant Hill and make up Moo Cow BBQ Team. I'm sure they'd like to compete so close to home but they have sacrificed that for three years to help out and make things great for our teams. We would probably not have a contest without Vern and Shane! THANK YOU, guys!!!

This year, Chris and Jana Early (Early Bird BBQ) were not able to compete but yet they showed up on Friday afternoon, ready to help. They helped out with People's Choice, helping with things teams needed and so forth. Today, they were a Kids Q liason to the young 'uns who were competing (total of about 25 kids), riding around on golf carts to make sure everyone was happy and had all they needed. Chris and Jana also took the bull by the horns and sold a TON of raffle tickets for our donated ABS smoker so that we could make a bigger donation to the March of Dimes. Jana unloaded a ton of tickets and cash they had raised multiple times. In addition, they helped in the judging area (Chris was a table captain) and generally made our lives much easier! Great friends and great help! I'm estimating they single-handedly (or double-handedly!) sold around $700 in raffle tickets for March of Dimes!

Bryan (This Is How We Que It) came out on Friday night and helped take care of the teams, working with Shane to provide great service! This is the kind of help that is really important because you guys are really the face of our committee! Great job Bryan! Didn't get a chance to thank you in person other than when you showed up to help but Stan and I appreciate it!

Finally there are a lot of local folks who you probably would never know but who pitched in and propelled this contest to a big success. First off is Scott George, Director of Parks and Recreation and someone I've gotten to know so well over my five-plus years serving on the park board with two as president. Scott is also the assistant to the city administrator and has a very full plate already. The contest has probably doubled his work load, especially over the last two weeks or so. He has been instrumental in getting the fairgrounds ready, arranging for all tables and chairs and setting them up, hooking up and operating the sound system, hanging walls on the pavilion so we'd have a great sheltered area for people's choice, meetings, judging and awards, getting the lots grated, trash cleaned up and so forth. Without Scott's cooperation and dedicated effort to this contest, it just simply would not have happened. In fact, he's probably the reason there IS a Pleasant Hill contest and that the logistics run so smoothly.

Other folks include Jennifer Wood, my vice president on park board, Stephanie Ray, assistant to the mayor, Brandon Golliday, park board member and also an owner of Midwest True Value here in town, Connie Allee, the entire parks department staff and the Pleasant Hill Lions Club (who served the breakfast this morning).

While we both worked hard to make this a great event in town, Stan and I just organized it. All of the above people MADE IT HAPPEN and you are the BEST and truly appreciated!!!

[moocow]

No problem Jeff, glad we could help out! Thank you for putting on such a good contest, I know everybody appreciated it.

[Fat Woody]

Just posted a big thanks in the results thread, but I'll second that here - great job everyone and big thanks to Shane, Vern and all those who helped out and kept us laughing all weekend!! Great contest Jeff & Stan, hope we can make it back next year!

[Solidkick]

A big thank you to all that helped this weekend!

And Jeff, I'll look for your lost ipod at 2AM in the morning anytime.

[Jeff_in_KC]

Oops!!! Big apologies!!! I left Cindy, Vern's wife off the above list! Cindy helped out a lot with ticket sales and helping alongside Vern! And while I'm at it, Vern's son was out on Friday helping and earned hours towards his Eagle Scout pursuit which I was honored to sign off on his sheet!

[Sticks-n-chicks]

Great job on the contest, we had a blast. Already looking forward to next year.

Again, Thank you.

W

[EarlyBird]

We had a blast helping out Jeff. It was kinda weird not cookin. Thanks for letting us bring the RV.

[Captain Caveman]

Thanks to all who helped put on this great contest.

[KC_Bobby]

Surely that's not all the volunteers you had? They were tremendous - we didn't go a second without something of need or an answer.

[stan]

Big Thanks to everyone for coming out and competing! As Jeff said we do the planning but the volunteer make the contest! Thanks Vern, Cindy, Hunter, Shane, Tammy, her mom and dad, Jana and Chris! I hope we did not miss anyone!

I am almost caught up on sleep! See everyone at the next contest!

[Jeff_in_KC]

Originally Posted by KC_Bobby

Surely that's not all the volunteers you had? They were tremendous - we didn't go a second without something of need or an answer.

LOL! That's pretty much all of them, Bob. Well, I forgot my neighbor Rob Prewitt as well!!! Rob helped set up and serve people's choice on Friday evening! There were a few more who helped out off and on but as far as start to finish, that's it! We need more next year! Trouble here in town is that it seems the same people work darned near every event and the majority don't get involved. Plus, this year, with the contest beginning on Good Friday, a lot of our friends who usually help were at church. That's just how the ball bounces I guess. We got "lucky" that this weekend was Easter. It hurt our people's choice attendance too. We only had about 200 people compared to over 300 last year.