Pinson Street Tour of Homes a Sucess!

Greetings everyone,

The tour was spectacular!!!!
The weather was simply gorgeous. We had blue skies and the sun was shinning brightly. It was little windy but that was a very small negative to such a beautiful day. The weather report earlier in the week called for rain in the morning for Saturday, but not a drop fell.

When we got to the Rosser Center to set up at 9:30 there were four people already there. They eagerly waited for us to get start. The first group consisted of students from Kennesaw State University and several people from Atlanta. As of now we can report selling 97 tickets. We have not gotten the report from one other ticket location. We had decided that 25 would have been good and 50 would be a success. That makes the 95+ a HUGH success. Among the people on the tour was Mayor Brady of Newnan, three city council members, Lynn Smith, our state representative, college students from three universities, two ladies visiting from Seattle, Washington, two interns from India and many people from as far as Athens, Georgia. Everyone was very, very impressed and even people who lived on Pinson Street said they learned at least one thing that they did not know. The hosts of the two homes and the two churches were very pleased with everything.

I would like to send out thanks to the following members and volunteers who helped to make this a great success. Without them it would not have happened.

Jessica Ruckheim:
her hard work, dependability and professionalism shows in the history booklet and her organization of the tour itself. She stayed on top of things with me to make sure that the tour happened with minimum problems.

Brenda Matthews, Bernice Cameron, and Toni Teagle, our tour guides.
They really made the tour come alive and did it with such passion. They really made our guest feel involved and they all came away with nothing but compliments.

Janice Black:
our invited tour host. She came from California to lend her personal experiences growing up on Pinson Street with the people on the tour. Her original interpretation added a very humanistic touch to the tour.

Mrs. Dorothy Jordan and Mrs. Geneva McWhorter, our home hosts
These ladies opened their beautiful homes so that people could see what the homes were like in the best of times on Pinson Street. They showed that the Pinson Street homes can be as sophisticatedly beautiful as the homes on Greenville Street and other historic district in Coweta County. They were so gracious and everyone was made comfortable, so much so they didn't want to leave their homes.

The members of Mt Vernon and Zion Hill Churches, our church hosts
The church members made themselves available to tell of their church histories and were very informative. Mt. Vernon is the oldest AA Baptist church in Coweta County, built in 1899. The Alliance will be assisting them to get the church on the National Register of Historic Places along with Newnan Chapel the oldest AA church in Coweta, built in 1848.
AAA construction VP Anthony Green
He supervised the volunteer camera crew taping the tour. As usual he did a very professional job. We will let you know when they are ready for sale. This project is very important for the future of AAA and future projects.

Synetta Williams, ITC student and CEC students
Taped the tour and will edit it for distribution.

Members Wallene Jones and Elizabeth Beers took the tour and gave constructive criticism that we used to improve the rest of the tours.

Dianne Wood
Manned the museum for the people to continue the tour by going by and seeing the museum and research center. About 20 people went there to "round off" the tour.

Brenda, Bernice, Jessica, Bishop White, and his son helped with the Friday cleanup. I thank them for answering the call for help. The residents of Pinson Street also did a great job before we got there. Also the city's clean up crew came along Friday afternoon. Our loyal Willie Boyd went through Saturday morning and did a quick walk through picking up the Friday night beer bottles, which was a great help. He was also there to help at the end of the tour.

Bernice Sutton, our in-house artist:
Her sketch of Pinson Street homes was used on the tickets and posters for the event. As usual she did a great job.

Larry Morrow, board member:
Larry is always quietly behind the scenes making things happen even without us realizing it. He orchestrated the video team. His company sponsored the printing of the flyers.

Banks Glover, webmaster:
He kept the event current on the website, along with our other news. The website is a very, very important promotional tool for the Alliance and his professionalism shows brightly. Everyone who has visited the site comments about how professional is it.

Sam Edwards, board member:
When called upon he jumped right to the need and incorporated the assistant of his staff to help with the poster.

Anton Alsobrook, member:
He put together the promotional poster and flyers.