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FOUR SEASONS SPOTLIGHT Neighborly Notes By Bobbie Eckel Happy New Year to Four Seasons! Hopefully, we will all get a chance to rest after the holiday activities although it looks as though January will be fairly busy, too. Nominating District Delegates will be a priority for the month of January. A delegate and an alternate are needed for each district. The primary job of the delegates is to encourage each resident to vote and to ensure that the district has a quorum responding. If a quorum is not met, the delegate is responsible for casting the votes of the district as the delegate sees ���t. There will be one director seat opening in the upcoming Board of Directors election. If you are interested in serving your community as a District Delegate, please pick up an application at the Lodge. The General Session of the Board of Directors will be Thursday, Jan. 10, at 1 pm. This is a good way to ���nd out what is happening now and what is planned for the community���s future. Plan to attend. Be sure to take advantage of the Emergency Preparation EXPO at the Lodge on Jan. 12, from 10 am to 2 pm. It promises to be an interesting and informative event. We all need to know that our community is as safe and prepared as we can be for any type of emergency. Find out what you need to do by attending the EXPO. 6 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JANUARY 2013 | COMMUNITY NEWS The Fourth Annual Veterans Expo will be held at the Beaumont Civic Center on Jan. 23, from 10 am to 1 pm. Veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam will be honored. Many representatives will be available who provide services for our veterans. Bring your questions; ���nd out what you need to know. Some residents have reported that all of our bobcat population is not as fearful of humans as previously thought. Take care when walking your pets on the trails. January, February and March can be cold months in the Pass Area. We have experienced freezing weather and snow as late as April. (Remember the ���rst Garage/Parking Lot Sale?) Take the time now to wrap the exposed water pipes around your house. The local hardware stores normally carry a good supply of foam wrapping for pipes. If you wait until the snow surrounds your house, you may have to wait for the stores to restock. Remember, also, that the cold weather may leave patches of ice on the sidewalks in the early mornings. Areas which are in the shade most of the time may be particularly dif���cult to traverse. We may not have four-foot snow drifts or need to shovel our sidewalks, but the unaccustomed ice can still be a problem for Southern California residents. Be extra careful! Our New Assistant General Manager Stays On Task By Leighton McLaughlin When Laurie Owen starts on something, she keeps after it. She began college in 1981 at Citrus J. C., but what with marriage, a family, kids and three jobs, there have been interruptions ��� but she���s got determination and energy. She is well started with credits from three colleges in organizational behavior. She plans to soon ���nish her general ed requirements at Mt. San Jacinto College where she���s now enrolled, polish off a bachelor���s at University of La Verne, then return to Northwestern for a master���s in its on-line program. And all the while working as the new assistant general manager of Four Seasons Beaumont. ���It���s a little roundabout way of getting there,��� she said, ���but it���s doable.��� She showed multitasking ability early. In high school in Azusa, she was a quarter miler on the track team, played volleyball and softball was active in her church group ��� and when she wasn���t competing, she was a cheerleader. She was the middle sister of three girls. Her dad, Gerald was a machinist and her mother, Rebecca, an employee of the Social Security Administration. She married her husband, Dave, the same year she started college. His business, general contracting with a specialty in commercial construction, caused them to move to Murrieta in 1995. They have two grown children, Amy, 27, a teacher and dance coach at Temescal Canyon High School and Nolan, 23, who is in the media business in the Chicago area and is married with two children, grandsons Lukas, 3, and Kaleb, 10 months. Owen has a rich business background. She began her career in the development department of World Vision International, a relief organization that serves 97 countries with medical care, economic development, emergency relief and other services. Later she became an administrative assistant for the City of Hope, the cancer center in Duarte. Then after some years off devoted to child-rearing (an as Laurie Owen always, some college) she went to work for Canyon Lake, a gated community in western Riverside County with many similarities to Four Seasons ��� except it is much larger, with 4,800 homes and over 10,000 residents. She had multiple responsibilities at Canyon Lake. Among other jobs she ran the two restaurants, put out the newsletter, ran the web site, assisted the Architectural and Rules and Regulations Committees with enforcement, handled community elections and oversaw payroll and staf���ng. Overall, she supervised some 60 employees. After nine years she and her husband ��� who had been injured at work and needed time to recover ��� took a year and a half off from their jobs. In a reversal of the typical college graduate moving home in a bad economy, they moved in with son Nolan in Illinois. Owen immediately enrolled in the Organizational Behavior Program at Northwestern to further her college education. On return to California, she started looking for a new job and came across the assistant general manager���s opening at Four Seasons. After three interviews, she was hired. ���It���s a beautiful community - a very pretty community. People seem very friendly. So far it���s been great.��� She expects to handle many day-to-day tasks and serve as a buffer for General Manager Lisa Lynn. ���If I see an area where I can be of some help, that���s what I like to do,��� she said. ���That���s something I have a background in ��� streamlining and organizing procedures. ���I would like to see an expansion of the Bistro area,��� she said. ���There���s a lot of room there and they are very busy on certain days and times. They���re doing a good job now, but if there���s some way to provide better service, I���d like to look at that.��� ���Hopefully, I can take my background and experience and be of help here,��� she said. And there is no doubt she���ll keep after it. COMMUNITY NEWS | FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JANUARY 2013 7

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