The Gift of the Founders’ Circle
This is the "holiday" issue of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, and it will cover all the big winter holidays— Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years. This is the time of year when we celebrate with our friends and family—and the time of year when we give gifts to one another. I can’t think of a better gift than the one that the CAMP Rehoboth Founders’ Circle has given to this community. Nor can I think of a better time to celebrate that gift than the holiday season.

On October 21 of this year, the members of the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center Founders’ Circle were invited to participate in a workshop for several reasons: 1) to examine the history and finances of the Founders’ Circle; 2) to ratify the Board of Directors decision to start the construction of Phase Two of the Community Center Project in September of 2007 (immediately following the end of the summer season); 3) to make a decision regarding the approach to donor recognition; 4) to hear opinions about future funding campaigns.

CAMP Rehoboth, as I said at the meeting, was built on workshops. Throughout our history whenever anything important has happened, members of the community have participated in workshop sessions in some form or other—and in the process have helped us to understand more clearly the issues and directions we needed to take. At the heart of it all, of course, is our ability to communicate with one another. Workshops always make me realize that we can never explain something too much or too many times, so I thought I would take a moment to review the issues we discussed at the October meeting in a little more detail.

The History and Finances of the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center
The Founders’ Circle was created to be a five year capital campaign for the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center. When it was developed, we were still renting a small office in the back of the CAMP Courtyard. Because of the money raised by the Founders’ Circle we have been able to: 1) purchase the property at 39 Baltimore Avenue for $850,000; 2) Purchase the adjoining property at 37 Baltimore Avenue for $1,675,000; 3) Hire an architect (Bob Hotes, Hillier Architecture in Philadelphia); 4) Renovate the front building at 37 Baltimore which now houses the CAMP Rehoboth offices and several public meeting spaces. All the money raised by the Founders’ Circle since its inception in 2001 was designated as restricted funds and has only been (or will be) used for capital improvements. A detailed list of income and expenses for the Founders’ Circle 2001-2006 is available at CAMP Rehoboth.

Something that was not previously understood by all workshop attendees is the fact that the Founders’ Circle is now over. Though members will continue to pay pledges in the years ahead and can even upgrade their level of membership (at least for a time), the campaign itself is over. There will be a sustaining campaign developed very soon, as I will discuss later in this column, but never again will there be an opportunity to be counted among the original Founders’ of CAMP Rehoboth.

Construction Timeline
At the September meeting of the CAMP Rehoboth Board of Directors a motion was passed that we set a construction date—September 2007—for the next phase of Community Center construction. After viewing financial statements and the history of CAMP Rehoboth and the Founders’ Circle, and understanding that we will still need to borrow additional funds to make it possible, I asked those who attended the workshop to essentially ratify our decision to proceed with that timeline. Though the Founders’ Circle in not a political body we (the Board) felt it important that we were all united in this effort. There were no dissenters.

Donor Recognition
One of the most anticipated discussions of the Founders’ Circle workshop centered upon treatment of donor recognition. The original brochure developed for the Founders’ Circle promised names on rooms, doors, bricks, and tiles depending upon ones level of giving. The question under consideration involved a choice of names on actual rooms, doors, bricks, and tiles or on representations of rooms, doors, bricks, and tiles—and we made it clear that the decision was up to those in attendance. Though all of the members of the Board and Building Committee had personal preferences, we agreed that this was a decision we didn’t want to make alone and that we were comfortable with either choice.

At the workshop there was a discussion about the problems arising from using actual doors and rooms that focused on the difficult question of who would get which room or door—basement, attic, multi-purpose room, rest-room, for example— and the unequal treatment of donors that would inevitably arise.

The whole issue quickly disappeared when our architect, Bob Hotes, arose to speak about what he had in mind for the treatment of the Founders’ Circle levels. His design includes a permanent glass wall that is a part of what will be the main entrance of the large multi-purpose room of the Center. Using the colors of the rainbow and glass representations of bricks, tiles, doors, and rooms in appropriate sizes for each level, the wall will be a beautiful work of art, carefully lit, and set in the heart of the Community Center CAMPus. It will be visible from both the inside of the main room and outside in the courtyard garden.

Bob’s vivid description of the Founders’ Wall and assurance that it would be a beautiful and permanent structure created a lot of excitement at the workshop and quickly brought about a decision to proceed with his plans. Again, there were no dissenters.

Future Funding
The last item discussed at the Founders’ Circle workshop concerned the development of additional funding efforts. The first would be a short term, courtyard paver campaign and the second would be to develop a permanent sustaining campaign called (for now) The Rainbow Club. Neither one would have anything to do with the Founders’ Circle. As I’ve already said, the Founders’ Circle is closed.

The feeling at the workshop was that we should proceed as quickly as possible with the development of the permanent campaign. There was, however, some concern that the courtyard paver campaign might be confused with the Founders’ Circle so we decided to slow down its development in order to put a little distance between the two.

The Gift
I mentioned in the opening paragraph that I felt the Founders’ Circle had given our community a great gift. It is a gift that will continue to grow long after all of us are gone. The members of the Founders’ Circle have built a strong foundation upon which the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center will continue to grow.

Next year we will add: the kitchen; additional bathrooms, storage, and workrooms; the courtyard renovation and exterior information kiosk; and the all-important large multipurpose room for conferences, workshops, exhibitions and intimate performances. At the same time we will continue to maintain a part of the property as rental units, providing both mortgage income and life and vitality to the courtyard area, as well as giving us future community center space as the need arises.

The coming year is going to be a very exciting one for all of us at CAMP Rehoboth and for our whole community—though we will continue to need support in all areas from funding to volunteers.

I believe with all my heart that we are building something unique and wonderful in Rehoboth Beach. The Founders’ Circle will always be remembered as the ones who made it possible.

My thanks to all, have a wonderful holiday season and a very happy 2007.