You know what this guy did? He raised his kids. Now, his youngest is finishing their last season with the Boulder Nordic Junior Race Team and approaching graduation.
Al didn’t just get kids through the BNJRT, he helped. He got things done. When the board of the BNJRT needed to select a liaison to the BNC’s board, they picked him because he’s easy breezy to work with.
‘Bored’ meetings are another night a month up in smoke spent away from your home, family, and friends. The liaison does not get to vote or necessarily contribute. But, quickly, the BNC’s board figured out that Al only speaks when he’s got something to say and the only things he says help the BNC understand its mission, membership, and community.
Then the BNJRT’s board told Al, “hey, those tightwads at the BNC said that if we give them another groomer, then they can help us out with some stuff, you oughtta go be a groomer.” So Al was a groomer. In grooming operations, he was heard saying things like “I can help” or “I’ll take a turn” or “I’ll be there;” and he was.
When grooming work is cold and dark and it seems like a good idea to tie a stick of dynamite to a fuse and drop it in the gas tank of the uncooperative snow machine, there was Al, easy breezy, making things better. The groomers will miss him.
Al recently replaced himself as a groomer by delicately coercing another BNJRT parent, making them feel guilty and obligated in just the right way. Good job, Al.
Al stated that he must defer the matter of the liaison role he served in to the board of the BNJRT. That’s how the mechanisms of institutions work well, by doing a job and properly passing that job on.
A decade or more of service to the nordic community and everything left better than he found it.
That’s how it’s done and that’s what this guy did.
