BEST WISHES FOR A SAFE AND SUCCESSFUL HOLIDAY SEASON... ... to all Gators in whatever way you celebrate the holidays! Since our last "Best Wishes" post just a week ago (congrats to Jon Crosby and Shawn O'Malley for their successful event finishes!), we have had two massive end of year celebrations. We began with the Holiday Party and ended with last night's 8th Annual Members Meeting and Awards & Recognition Night followed by the Meeting After the Meeting where we toasted to a great 2021 and what we think will be an even more amazing 2022. In case you were unable to attend one or both events, following are some of the highlights. Also, we will be posting the recording of last night's annual members meeting / awards & recognition night as well as the PowerPoint slideshow that was presented... • Thank You officers! We recognized the outstanding accomplishments of our current group of officers whose double terms end on December 31... Thank you to Gina Stango (President), Chris Townsley (Vice President), and Lynn Seuberling (Treasurer) for all of your efforts, especially during your second term as we worked through the COVID pandemic, which meant having more leadership team meetings than you ever signed up for! We look forward to continuing to have you guys as teammates and also look forward to the continued growth of the High Performance Team under Chris' leadership! • Welcome new officers! We welcomed our incoming officers, including Jill Basile (President), David Stone (Vice-President), Rachel Truckley (Treasurer), and Don Mack (returning as Secretary) whose 2 year terms officially begin on January 1, but who have already had multiple meetings and many interactions with our current officers team so that we can have a seamless leadership transition. • Gator Done winner(s)! For the first time we presented two Gator Done awards... This year our recipients were Angela Epelbaum and Cindy Kelecic for their fantastic leadership of our growing youth program as well as for individual athletic accomplishments by both! The awards were presented in a very creative way by Gina and Lynn and the presentation also included two video messages from our sponsors David Michener of Steelman Racing and Stephen del Monte of DelMo Elite Sports that apparently only played well on my computer, so both short videos are attached for your enjoyment! • Individual Accomplishments... We recognized the amazing athletic feats by all of you over the past year! This included many amazing firsts and other efforts in triathlon, running, swimming, and cycling! This ranged from our special group of first time triathletes to first timers at various distances as well as those of you that achieved extraordinary goals such as multiple IRONMAN events, 100 mile runs, 3 mile swims, and 10 hour adventure races. 2021 was an amazing year... We returned in close to full force to training and racing and we plan to do even more in 2022! So what is happening this weekend? We do not have anyone on our "Who's In?" event calendar, but if you have an event PLEEEEAASE post a comment so that we can send good Gator vibes your way! Since we are a 12 month a year kind of operation, we do have a couple of workouts planned... Weekend Workouts: • Saturday, December 18, 8am-9:15am: Zwift cycling meetup... There is no Facebook event posted, but a meetup is set up on Zwift and anyone that is following me is invited. We will be taking on the new Makuri Islands "Temples & Towers" route (20.8 miles with 900+ feet of elevation gain)! • Sunday, December 19, 11:15am-12:15pm: Uncoached group swim workout in the SVY's indoor lap pool Have a great weekend and Gator Done! 🐊