Haines Family Association, Inc.
TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL FAMILY REUNION & MEETING
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Hello All Haines Family Members and Friends,
Our 28th annual family reunion and meeting! We will be celebrating 235 years of Haines families on the mountaintop. The reunion will be held at the South Lake pavilion at the North - South Lake campground. All are welcome for the day to partake in the activities. Bring family and friends! Remember to bring your lunch and something to drink. This is a time for descendents of the mountaintop settlers and friends to get together and reminisce about their ancestors and current family. Bring photos and whatever you know about your family tree, and hopefully some of our attendees can add info to it. We will have activities for the youngsters, and a table where you can share your special dish or treat or snacks. Ice cream is again being donated by the Haines Falls Stewarts Shop for us to enjoy. New this year – a plant swap, and recipe sharing! If you have plants you would like to exchange or give away, bring them along, and hopefully take home some new varieties. Also bring any recipes you’d like to share - especially old family favorites! If you would like to bring the finished item for attendees to sample, all the better!
2013 was a busy year. We had work parties for cleanup, repairs, maintenance and mowing at the Aaron Haines cemetery. However, the weather did not cooperate when we had time to do cleanup work at the Peter B. Haines and Layman cemeteries. Work parties also completed trash pickup along our Adopt-A-Highway section in May, with additional spot cleanup done in July, August and September as HFA members noticed trash along the highway. There was constructive work done on the right-of-way for the Aaron Haines Cemetery. Thank you to HFA board members and their families for helping at these work parties.
On August 31, 2013 we had a float in the Bicentennial Parade for the Town of Hunter. The Haines Family Association was well represented by our members, wearing blue Haines Family Association t-shirts.
Our volunteer HFA groundskeepers and mowing crew were busy at the Mountain Top Historical Society in 2013, and are working there again already in 2014. With all of the wet weather, the crew is overworked when the sun shines. If you have some spare time – part of a day or a whole day – and like to use a riding mower, let us know.
2014: We started off with a work party on May 19th for the highway cleanup along our adopted section of Route 23A in the town of Hunter. We have plans for future highway cleanup work crews for July or August, and again in September, as needed by the conditions. Cemetery work parties have begun, with the first being the mowing of the Aaron Haines Cemetery. More are being planned for future dates. Let us know if you are able to help.
Membership dues and donations are needed to continue our services to the mountaintop communities. Our dues are only $5 per year, which does not go far; that is why we ask for donations. You can mail your dues and donations in, or hand them in at the reunion. We need updated email addresses so we can send out info without spending dues money on postage and supplies.
We held our annual Board of Directors meeting on May 19, 2014. You can check out our previous and current newsletters and activity updates, or contact any of our officers or directors, on our website at www.hainesfamilyassociation.org.
Our tentative slate of Officers and Directors for 2014-2015 is as follows: President - Harold Palmer, Vice President – George “Gibby” Van Dyke Jr., Secretary - Richard E. Haines, Treasurer - Richard E. Haines, and Directors: Nancy McGowan, Robert H. Van Dyke, Linda Schultz, Harriet Bucca, George Van Dyke Sr., Sandy Palmer, Peg Fries and, new this year, Jim Jones and Tony Coiro. If you would like to nominate someone, let us know, now or at our annual reunion / meeting.
Thank you. I’m looking forward to visiting with you at South Lake on July 12th!
Sincerely,
Harold Palmer
President
Haines Family Association, Inc.
From Sandy Palmer, HFA webmaster: Our website www.hainesfamilyassociation.org is growing and has been very active. There is a myriad of ancestry and other info posted, along with 8 family trees with beautiful photos! If you would like to have your tree included, please send the info to webmaster@hainesfamilyassociation.org . You can privately view the page as it is being built. Guidelines for submission are at http://hainesfamilyassociation.org/descendants.html .
Haines Family Association is also on FaceBook! Find us at www.facebook.com/HainesFamilyAssociationInc. It is a nice way to share news and events with the public. Did you know you can participate on our page? It’s easy! Here are some ways to take part:
v Just visit our page and click “LIKE” – it’s just below the picture that’s at the top of the page.
v When we post new things, write a comment or click “like” below the post. This tells Facebook that people are interested in what we have to say!
v If you have news and/or photos you can share – HFA work parties, your weekend bbq or a family event, wildlife you catch on camera, mountaintop scenery, mountaintop news and happenings, library and historical society and fire company events (they show our community involvement), and whatever else – please feel free to post it on our page!
v If you’d prefer, or if you don’t have a Facebook account, send info/photos for posting to webmaster@hainesfamilyassociation.org .
We hope you will visit our website, and take part in our Facebook page. See you at the reunion.
Sincerely,
Sandy.