Mr. Dale Grady
Rochester, New York 14618
November 15, 2008
Dear Dale,
I wanted to take the time to thank
you for your involvement with the Monroe County Fair and Recreation
Association, an affiliation that has lasted over ten years. During those years, you have
volunteered your time and committed yourself to furthering the mission of the
Fair Association in many different ways, all of which have helped to move the
Association forward.
Serving as president of an
association requires a huge commitment of time and resources. Not only did you serve two consecutive
terms but you also stepped up for an additional term several years later. During those years, you consistently
attended meeting of our many committees and led the Association through the
negotiations of the land sale to Wegmans, which was crucial to our Master Plan
and growth potential. Once the
land sale was complete, you continued your involvement with our Master Planning
Committee as our fairgrounds was redeveloped. Your leadership was instrumental in the success of this
project, and it was only through long hours of planning, and many, many
meetings, that this was accomplished.
Another aspect of your volunteerism
has been your willingness to use your expertise as a web master to help us with
our website – both when we first began our site and later for the recreation of
it, as well as with technical problems that we faced along the way. Since web
design is not my area of expertise, and since I tend to divorce myself from that
aspect of our marketing, I appreciate that you have been available as a
resource when needed and that you worked to design a new sight for the Fair
& Expo Center that we can all be proud of.
Perhaps the thing I most appreciate
is your development of Spaceport USA, which has become an integral part of the
Monroe County Fair. Since
technology is part of our mission, that component of the fair that focuses on
space technology and its relevance to our everyday lives is important to our
credibility in the community. Pursuing ideas for these exhibits, doing the
research to be certain that all information is correct, literally transporting
pieces of exhibits from places like Baltimore and Cleveland, assembling the
exhibits, and then staffing them for 80 hours during fair week, shows a real
dedication to excellence and to the desire to educate. Affiliating the New Frontier Society
with the Fair Association has created a wonderful partnership that has
benefited both organizations and afforded the public some outstanding
educational opportunities. I thank
you for putting these associations together and for working with both
associations to achieve something neither of them would have accomplished
alone.
With all that, you have also
consistently volunteered your time to help with various projects and events
that the board or staff has undertaken, doing whatever is necessary to get the
job done. This is the kind of
volunteerism that is so vital to the success of an organization. Volunteers like you who follow through,
who can be counted on to do what needs to be done, and who have creativity and
energy are hard to find and so very much appreciated.
In closing, I thank you again for
all that you have done for the Monroe County Fair Association. It is sometimes difficult working with
a large board with many diverse personalities and viewpoints. Though I haven’t always done everything
right, you have been there to support and guide me and to shepherd the board
through difficult as well as joyous times. Thank you for your commitment, your energy, your forbearance
when things don’t go exactly as planned and your expertise in dealing with
challenges. It is greatly
appreciated.
Sincerely,
Frances I. Tepper
Executive Director
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