By Linda Martin
President, Coal Creek Canyon Park and Recreation Board of Directors
Happy November, Coal Creek Canyon! I do so love living in this wonderful community! I have some exciting news for you this month. On November 4th, we are submitting an application for a Local Park and Recreation Grant from Jefferson County Open Space. The project is a turf baseball field and, if we get the grant, it’s going to be awesome! This turf product is a bit different than the crumb rubber field on the soccer field. It is a padded turf without all the little rubber bits. There will be fencing around the field to prevent foul balls from traveling too far (and to keep the cars from doing donuts on the field). There will be nice clay dirt on the pitcher’s mound and all along the bases. The project will run us about $100,000, of which we are asking for $50,000 from Jeffco Open Space. We are partnering with the Jeffco School District to try to make this happen in 2017. Thank you for your support in the past and, when the field is in, we hope you’ll come out and play ball with us!! I want to personally thank Jeremy King, our newest board member, for his enthusiasm and vision. His daughter just entered Kindergarten and he really wants to see the school grounds become more versatile. He would love to see his little girl get to play baseball, as well as soccer, and he joined our board of directors with this in mind (actually, to be honest, he also wants a skating rink!) We love having a new board member with great energy and we thank him for helping us get to this grant proposal!
With the additions of Jeremy and John Baich, we are a board of 5 once again. Kristy, Miriam, and I are very excited to have the extra people power. John also proves to be an energetic and organized visionary, who is also adept at getting his hands on needed information within seconds. We miss Joelle, who stepped off before summer, but we wish her well on her current adventures. She is still our contact for hikes and we hope she remains active with us.
At the CCC EXPO last month we enjoyed talking to folks about the turf field project and we were thrilled to talk to one newer resident who bought property that had been previously excluded from our District. She would like to opt back in! Yay! That feels really great! We’ve never had to do this before so it will take a little research but we are excited at the prospect of learning to do it because we hope to have to do it again!
Homesteaders’ Club
This month, please join the CCC Homesteaders at the Hall on Thursday, November 10th at 7pm as we learn about Baking With Sourdough Starter with Kristy Campbell. Last month’s Knots, Ropes and Basic Backcountry First Aid with Ryan Cummings was a real treat!
Coal Creek Canyon Skywatchers
The November CCC Sky Watchers meeting is on Sunday the 13th. Local Sky Watcher Leonard David will give a presentation on his new National Geographic book Mars – Our Future on the Red Planet which is a companion book to the National Geographic TV series “Mars” by film producer Ron Howard’s team. The six-part TV series is a docu-drama that actually premieres the evening after the meeting on Nov 14th at 7 PM (MT) on the National Geographic Channel. Leonard’s book which sells for $30 will be available for purchase at the meeting for $20. For more details, please see the Sky Watchers article in this issue of Mountain Messenger. Our CCC NASA Solar System Ambassador John Williams will also give a brief presentation.
Watercolor Painting
Each Thursday, 9:30-12 at the Hall, Kathy Bremers shares her wonderful knowledge about Watercolor Painting with other watercolor painters, enthusiasts and wannabes alike. $15 supplies fee.
Special event: Holiday Drop and Shop
On December 3rd, from 10-4, we will be hosting a “Holiday Drop and Shop” babysitting event at Wee Creekers. For $5/hr, you can drop your kiddo(s) off with us and do the shopping (or whatever you like, really) without the help of the little ones! If you are planning to attend Inge’s “EAT WELL for the Holidays” talk at the Hall that day from 3-5, we will give you special grace until 5:15 🙂 This babysitting fundraiser will benefit the CCCPRD for projects such as the turf ball field and will be limited by classroom size so sign up early!
Visit our website at www.cccparkandrec.org, “like” us on Facebook, come to a board meeting, 1st Wednesday of the month in the backroom at the Hall, call us (303) 642-0273, or write us PO Box 7411, Golden, CO 80403. Whatever you do, stay connected with us! Health, Joy, Community. We mean it!
