Wine Country Waterworks Association

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

November 2011

Dear Members and Associates,

The weather is cooling, the leaves are turning, and water demand is easing up. Now it’s time to catch up on all that deferred maintenance.

We had a good training event at the Elks Lodge in Napa last month. Feed-back from all the attendees I talked to was very positive. I did get a strange look from my wife though, when I told her we learned about Zebra mussels.

Thank you, trainers (Janice Oakley and the Department of Health Sonoma District Staff; Catherine Mandella, Department of Fish & Game; and Bruce Borders, Control Systems West) for your expertise and time. Thanks also to Monica Farris and the Elks Lodge staff for taking such good care of us.

For those of you who were unable to attend the Napa County event we have reserved the Ukiah Valley Conference Center for December 7th for our training in Mendocino County. A total of six contact hours of training will be provided. Richard Vierra of Water Opcert School will talk with Carlos Castro from the Town of Hillsborough about Water Treatment in the 21st Century and NO—DES Flushing Methods, David Patzer of DKF Solutions Group will discuss Risk Management techniques, Nathan Anderson from Layne Christensen will talk about Technology and Methodology for Well Rehabilitations and the Health Department will be hosting a discussion on Capital Improvement as Related to System Reliability along with Dosage Calculation.

Be sure to register for this training via Pay-Pal on our website, or by sending in the attached registration form. It’s been a long time since we’ve been to Mendocino County and I want a good turnout so we can keep coming back.

Speaking of our website, we have purchased new software for our Association through "Wild Apricot" which will be launched in January 2012. This new tool will provide a more professional looking and interactive website for us as well as allowing us to better manage our membership information. There will be a Forum page to share ideas and questions with fellow members, and a voluntary password protected database for members who wish to make their contact information available to other members for networking. It will also offer a calendar of events with registration capability. This software will assign membership numbers and track membership status to issue renewal reminders when the year’s membership is expiring. In this way, members will receive a full year of membership regardless of when they join during the year. I believe this will be a huge improvement for our members and volunteers. I eagerly await implementation.

We have also recently purchased a public address system which should give us much better outreach at the Trade Show and other larger outdoor events.

I want to welcome and thank Paul Harris from Golden State Water Company in Clearlake, and Christine Russell, an aspiring operator from Fort Bragg, as our newest members on the Board. They both have much to offer the Association. I look forward to working together. As always I want to thank our Board members for all their effort and dedication.

I look forward to seeing you all in Ukiah on December 7th.