Special Holiday Edition

 Volume 3, Issue 1

2003 Recap

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We’re going online this year; what’s more appropriate from a household hosting several websites and email servers, right?!?!  In all seriousness, we hope you will forgive the format; we were worried that you might not get a letter this year if we didn’t expedite the process.

It’s been a big year for us … but no need to update your address books; we’re settling into Charlotte and are enjoying calling it home.   We’ve taken advantage twice of our proximity (4 hours) to the SC beaches, are making our neighborhood’s monthly “cocktail club” a not-to-be-missed occasion and have welcomed JP & Gretchen Flaum to Charlotte from Denver. We’ve undertaken a lot of renovations this year, repainting the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, taking down trees to open up our lot and create a backyard to play and relax in, and finding a wonderful and FAST team of professional painters to repaint the outside of our house (from army green to grey-blue); the latter did the entire house in 4 days while it took us 3 weekends to do one room!  As many of you know, we’re also in the midst of updating the look inside our house.  With the help of a great general contractor and his team, we’ve added wood floors and, by January, will have repainted every room but one downstairs and reworked our great room to include a new fireplace area and bar.  We look forward to entertaining you any time you’d like to stop in – although we recommend waiting until after January 31! (The work won’t be finished until then). 

Jack continues to keep us entertained and is growing up fast.  At the ripe old age of 22 months, he started preschool two days a week  -- and is having a ball.  He’s in a class of five little boys and has brought home some great art projects and, increasingly, stories and songs.  He’s talking up a storm, does a mean rendition of “Frere Jacque”, “The Wheels on the Bus” and, in honor of his grandfather (aka “Big Daddy”), “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea.” (Ask either Jack or Roy for a performance; it’s one you won’t forget).  He has started talking with his many, loved stuffed animals and likes to remind them, when sharing at snack time, that they can have “just one” raisin, cracker, etc. – a comment he hears frequently from Mommy and Daddy with respect to his passion for Daddy’s tic-tacs.  He loves to draw and to kick the soccer ball with Mommy – mostly because it’s fun to watch her sprint down the driveway to stop it before it hits the street – but he’s still in training on the throwing and catching bit (much to his Daddy’s dismay).  We received some much-needed help from cousins David and Michael at Thanksgiving …care to drop by again guys?

Chris is, with the NPower Charlotte Region Board and his fellow consultants, celebrating the successful arrival of NPower in Charlotte. NPower is a national affiliation of twelve community-based organizations that provide technology consulting and training services to nonprofits.  About this time last year, Chris was asked to help write a business plan to create an NPower affiliate in the Charlotte region.  The Charlotte NPower team successfully completed the business planning process to win one of three final slots in the national organization of twelve affiliates as well as three years of grant funding from Microsoft.  To bridge the planning phase and now operational ramp-up, Chris accepted an offer to join the new organization, itself a nonprofit, and is currently serving as Technology Services Director and Interim Executive Director.

He is putting all his past experience to work in setting up the new company, as well as presenting at workshops, writing technology plans and offering technology consulting to a 14-county area. The organization itself will eventually have a permanent staff of 12-15 individuals, but will also have teams of technology volunteers (from Microsoft, IBM, the technology departments of the banks here, etc.) who will serve several hours a month in order to provide local nonprofits with hardware & software installation and support services as well as more strategic technology planning.  We’re both excited about what the new organization will mean to the Charlotte area and are enjoying the side benefit of learning more about the amazing things going on in, and the people serving and supporting, the Charlotte community.

Carolyn continues her practice with Moore & Van Allen in Charlotte and divides her time between mergers and acquisitions, contract review and writing, subdebt financing and the formation of new companies.  Like most attorney work, it sounds like boring gobbledygook but she likes it.  She will freely confess, however, that she still can’t help you out of a speeding ticket; if her clients are headed to court, she’s screwed up somewhere!  In case of true disaster, she’s still teaching kickboxing and Body Pump for the YMCA; what is it about those liberal arts majors that keeps them going in several directions instead of focusing on just one thing?!?! 

We both are serving on the Reunion Committee for UVA’s Class of 1994 and hope to see many of you who are receiving this letter in Charlottesville this coming June.  It’s been a lot of fun just reconnecting with the committee, which has proven that the power of e-mail is enough to get people in all 4 U.S. time zones working towards a common goal – for which Carolyn, as one of the Reunion co-chairs, is most grateful!  Chris also continues his work with UVA’s Young Alumni Council and yes, we are still swing dancing.  We’ve had several fun groups of students through the three semesters we’ve taught this year and are excited about the programming the Charlotte Swing Dance Society has done and continues to do.  As many of you know, we’re taking a quick sabbatical from teaching dance this semester – both because some new faces have stepped up to teach in our place and because we are expecting the addition of a new little brother for Jack on February 20.

Be on the lookout for our announcement; we’ll soon have double trouble as a second boy joins the Charlotte Meade household.  (We are, of course, delighted at the prospect).  Chris also promises to finally update Hooville.com for Jack’s adoring fans – with a new section for checking out Jack’s little brother in February!  Speaking of babies, we were thrilled to meet Maddy Cassidy, Mike & Amanda’s new and very cute little girl, over the holidays.  Also, as a reminder to those of you who were in the Baby Bingo pool – you owe Amanda $5 for her guess (Hmmm, seems like she had the inside track on this one!) which was closest to the actual birthday for their little bundle of joy!  We’re excited about 2004 and wish the same for you.

P.S.  In case you don’t have it, our contact information is as follows:

5623 McAlpine Farm Rd.

Charlotte, NC  28226

Chris e-mail: c_meade@msn.com

Carolyn e-mail: carolynmeade@alumni.virginia.edu

Home phone:  (704) 543-1570

We hope to see you/hear from you soon!

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