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08/30/2017 08:30 AMWhen you move to a new town, you want to be friendly to the neighbors. So what if your neighbor is the Essex Library? Well, join the Friends of the Library. That’s what Pam Peters, a new member of the Friends of the Library Board, did, and now Pam is one of the members of the Friends who will be hosting a fundraising dinner at her home on Saturday, Sept. 9.
This is the second time the Friends group has sponsored the dinner parties. The group held a similar event three years ago to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the founding of the library.
All the funds raised by the dinner will help the Friends in its continuing support of the library. Hostesses bear the cost of providing the food and wine for dinner. Whatever else is on her menu, Pam is planning to end the meal with one of her specialties.
“I make a really mean cheese cake,” she says.
Guests at the event won’t know ahead of time where they will be dining. A cocktail reception at the library will kick off the event and there the attendees will find out where they will be eating.
“I understand it’s such a fun reception with the anticipation and excitement of finding out destinations,” Pam says.
She and her husband, Jeff Croyle, weren’t part of the first dinner program because they moved to Essex last year.
JoAnne Carter, who helped organize the 2014 dinner and is doing so again this year, said that people who buy tickets can indicate food restrictions and allergies when they sign up and these preferences will be relayed to hostesses. Some hostesses, she added, are already planning to make two different entrées to accommodate all their guests.
The funds that the Friends of the Library raise are vital to the library’s ongoing programs, according to Essex Library Director Richard Conroy.
“The friends do an amazing job getting us the money for things like buying as many books, getting new computers, getting new programs,” Conroy says.
Maintaining services while staying within budget has become a greater challenge, according to Conroy, in the face of government funding cutbacks to libraries. The state for instance, no longer pays for the Internet connections for libraries and schools. Maintaining the Internet connection will now cost the library $1,200 a year. In addition, the state has already severely restricted delivery of interlibrary loan books and Conroy expects that the restrictions will get even more stringent.
As a result, the LION consortium of libraries to which Essex belongs, is developing its own delivery system so Essex patrons can request and receive volumes from other libraries. Participation in the LION delivery system, will cost the library $2,000. The town of Essex pays about 55 percent of the annual budget, but the library has to raise the rest independently every year.
Pam and Jeff first discovered Essex on Google Maps looking for a community along the Connecticut River where they could kayak, a favorite pastime.
Before their retirement, when they lived in Nyack, New York, they regularly kayaked on the Hudson River.
“Kayaking is a lot easier on the knees than snowboarding,” says Pam, who snowboarded for a time in her 30s.
Recently she and Jeff participated in the first annual Conquer the Current, a paddle regatta sponsored by the Connecticut River Museum for its educational scholarship fund. The regatta, for kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddle boards, covered a nine-mile course starting at Eagle Landing State Park in East Haddam and finishing at Connecticut River Museum in Essex.
Pam came in first among women kayakers. In 2003, she and Jeff participated in a 150-mile, 10-day kayak trip from Albany to Manhattan to focus attention on environmental issues, particularly as they related to the Hudson River.
Pam and Jeff’s first visit to Essex coincided with the Burning of the Ships parade, sometimes known as the Loser’s Day Parade. When Pam saw the local fife and drum corps, The Sailing Masters of 1812, leading the parade, she was at first mystified until she learned the history of the event.
“I couldn’t believe a fife and drum parade, and it wasn’t even Memorial Day,” she recalls.
After reading about Essex Ed online, they also showed up for the annual Groundhog Day parade. Between parades and real estate agents, they bought a house in town.
In her professional life, Pam was a consultant largely working with companies looking for guidance on how to effectively outsource human resource services. It wasn’t what she had originally planned. She was an art major at Ithaca College, and got into human resources as a result of working as an office manager at an advertising agency. Jeff did the same kind of work, but for a different company.
“There were times we just couldn’t talk about business because we were bidding on the same work,” she says.
Retirement, she says, has given her the time to garden, to sleep past seven o’clock, and to read a book in several days rather than several weeks.
“I was ready not to be traveling from Monday to Thursday every week,” she says.
She would like to start painting again after more than a decade of doing pottery, but she says her days as a potter are now finished. She ensured that by not relocating her kiln to her Essex home.
Pam says she is not fond of walking; nonetheless she is wearing a FitBit to encourage her to walk more. In Nyack, she and Jeff lived in a four-story house. Climbing stairs, she says, forced her to exercise. Now she hopes the FitBit will do the same thing.
She looks forward to the upcoming Friends of the Library Dinner.
“It’s really going to be interesting,” she says. “Different people, mixed ages, sharing stories. All of that makes for fun.”
Festival of Dinner Parties
A fundraiser sponsored by the Friends of the Essex Library on Saturday, Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase at the library. For more information, call the library at 860-767-1560.