Executive Board Retreat - August 2022 - Moab, UT
In late August, the executive board met in Moab, Utah for a working weekend to walk through Grand County High School and visit other potential additional venues for the 2023 Spring Conference. In attendance were Aleia Nay (current president), Kate Watson (president-elect), and Anna Davis (secretary),Georgiana Simpson (rural & underserved advocacy committee member), and Crista Green (Southeast Rep. of the rural & underserved advocacy committee) Georgiana will be working with Crista and our hosts at Grand County High School to facilitate the event. Crista is the ceramics teacher at Grand County High School and will be our local board member host for the ‘23 Spring Conference. We are so very grateful to her for all of the work she has already put into getting ready for this event next spring!
We toured the high school and discussed locations for everything from registration and meals to silent auction and vendor booths. We took notes of available classrooms and their amenities in order to try to make the best classroom assignments possible for the various workshops and classes we anticipate offering during the conference.
We toured Desert Sun Ceramics as a potential venue and tried to visit the Moab Arts & Recreation Center as another possible venue, though MARC had closed early to prep for an event that night.
We also got to visit Crista’s home, which she and her husband built themselves and is a work-in-progress of living sustainably off the grid. They have worked hard on creating an incredible home and we felt fortunate she was willing to share it with us. A storm raged through the area while we were visiting her home, and by the time we returned to downtown Moab, we realized we had been safely out of the way of a flash flood that raged through the town in our absence! As we walked to breakfast the next morning we saw the devastation and the quick work of the community coming together to clear out the mud and debris left behind.
Moab is a stunningly beautiful town full of art venues, comfortable accommodations, and delicious restaurants! And that is just in town! It is surrounded by the incomparable scenery of southern Utah. There is something to fill all the senses in Moab! We hope to see all of you there in the spring!