Saturday, September 21, 2024 offered a beautiful “Second Summer” day as about 40 people gathered to attend the annual meeting of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association at Live Oak Park. The event followed a well-attended morning Path-a-thon, with a long 6-mile walk led by John Ford, a medium 3.6-mile walk led by Signe Burns, and a short 1.5-mile walk led by Alina Constantinescu.
Board members Emma Morris, Stephanie Bodoff, Patty Callahan, Eileen Chen, Angus Dunstan, Bob Gomez, Nancy Graham, and Kirsten Mickelwait helped run the meeting and serve refreshments. (Note for next year: the chocolate cookies went the fastest!)
Emma Morris kicked off the meeting by welcoming attendees and introducing former walk coordinator John Ford. He outlined the typical walk schedule: two walks each month, one long walk (10–15 miles) annually, as well as a fun “bingo walk” for kids. He also encouraged other people to volunteer as walk leaders.
Stephanie Bodoff gave a report on finances, sharing that BPWA currently has about $40K in the bank. This year’s $55K in income from donations was comparable to last year. To date, we’ve sold about 800 maps and 900 bandanas, a total of $19K in merchandise sales, compared to $15K last year. We installed handrails on four paths (Betty Olds, Shasta, Stoddard, and Tilden) at a cost of $72K. The bulk of our donation income goes towards handrails, and this is the most handrails we’ve ever done in one year. Stephanie reminded attendees to be on the lookout for our annual appeal letter at the beginning of December. Fully 100% of our donations directly support the paths, including maintenance and improvement.
Bob Gomez, whose crew works four hours each week, spoke about our efforts to keep the paths safe, and explained the difference between path building and rebuilding. He showed an example of a 20-year-old step to illustrate how wooden stairs can erode from underneath, and cited the cost of replacing steps. He encouraged audience members to report any problems they might notice on the paths by going to the BPWA website. Bob’s team is looking forward to widening Keeler Path soon. He also said a few words about Steve Glaser, who passed away earlier this year, and his leadership in motivating volunteers and building more than 20 paths.
Alina Constantinescu spoke about volunteering opportunities and encouraged audience members to volunteer with her and Mary Lynch in sweeping and cleaning up the paths.
Emma introduced the Board members, with a special welcome to Nancy Graham, our new treasurer. Emma and Bob then honored Susan Wengraf, who’s retiring this year from the Berkeley City Council. Susan has been a long-time path advocate, with more than 50 paths in her district.
Susan talked about the critical nature of the paths and asked why private citizens must pay to maintain them; why does the City not have greater involvement on this municipal issue? She vowed that she wouldn’t stop advocating for greater support of the paths from the City and thanked BPWA for all our contributions that the paths safer and our city more beautiful.