Were you able to join us for our 25th anniversary and website launch party?
We had a blast, didn’t we?
If you weren’t able to be there, you missed quite a shindig!
This event was put on by Ben and Tiffaney Williams, the Maryland picnic coordinators. Since they live in Virginia now, they thought they’d re-start the MAESSR picnics with one closer to home.
We gathered at Mountain Run Lake Park in Culpeper, under a pavilion near the water. Despite promises of all-day storms, the universe gifted us with plentiful sunshine and manageable temperatures. It may have been a bit toasty, but that didn’t stop people or dogs from making the most of the day.
This was the first time MAESSR volunteers have come together in celebration since COVID-19 disrupted our lives. To watch people meet and embrace again was uplifting, to say the least.
And the dogs! If you’ve been to the Maryland picnics, you’ll know that the dogs treat this as their event. And really, it is! They had so much fun together, making new friends and seeing the old, just like us.
We were so grateful to be able to laugh with each other again.
In addition to hosting the event and running the store, the Williams family launched the third iteration of our website in the afternoon. Despite some technical problems, if you can describe “leaving key power cords at home” as “technical problems,” the launch was a successful one.
We asked everyone present to remember the old site while getting out their phones and loading the new one. Tiffaney, left, wanted to have a New Year’s Eve-style ball drop, but such things are difficult to pull off in a county park.
Still, everyone was excited to see the new site! And after months of work, the Williams family was also relieved to call it done and put it out into the world. While we were disappointed that we weren’t able to have a large display (or a ball-drop), we were grateful to be able to share with everyone this special moment in MAESSR history.
The afternoon ended far too soon. And as is typical for events hosted by the Maryland picnic coordinators, it started to rain as soon as the event was over. Volunteers and their dogs returned to their far-flung homes to dream about next year’s picnics!
Will we see you in 2024?
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