If it’s Continuity, we must have made it another year!

Outgoing Chair Ben Barth arranged a fine venue for our December 13, 2018, Continuity Dinner: upstairs at Pastaria, Clayton. The room was a perfect size for our group of thirty-ish members and SOs, and well shielded from the general restaurant din — so the only din was us.

Due to a discrepancy in announced start time — 6:00 pm here, 6:30 pm there — Ben and his small but merry band of early arrivals were getting a bit panicky by about 6:15-ish when they were still the only ones there. But no worries! the room started to fill with festive attendees in good time.

After about half a social hour, Ben gavelled the General Meeting into gloriously brief existence: no business, move to adjourn. And that … was that.

We did a full-featured but exceedingly brisk Board of Directors meeting — you might even call it business-like — completed before the meals were served. The servers did a yeo-person job toting plates from the kitchen on the main floor to our party room one flight up. Most of us guests took pity and forgoed (forwent? forgot?) the coffee or tea course.

The real business of Continuity Night was taken up after all our appetites were sated.

The Distinguished Service Award was previewed, with Jeff Cornelius the recipient-expectant. Jeff served the Section as Secretary for three years in the 20-aughts and in the Chair succession early this decade, and is up for his third year as Treasurer in 2019, along with all the ex officios appertaining thereto: the Investment Committee, the Audit Committee, the Steering Committee. Why, it almost seems there is not a corner of the Section where Jeff’s imprint isn’t. The award is officially conferred at Recognition Night in the spring, but the suspense was lifted tonight.

The secret Henry Godt Memorial Lecturer (or “Giver of the Godt”) was Jim O’Brien, who delivered the words to the cadence of Twas the Night Before Christmas and the accent, authentically, to Waltzing Matilda. His year-in-review-in-a-minute was well received and is presented below with all the accoutrements its lofty station deserves — or at least that’s what Jim thinks, as he provided both the script and the accoutrements. Hats off to Jim.

And finally, the passing of the Gavel and the Book, from Ben Barth to incoming Chair Suzy Hartmann. You will find posts from Ben and Suzy right around now, with their retrospective and prospective, respectively, of their Chair years. New Chair-Elect Sophia Hayes was on hand to witness the high drama; it will be her turn next year.

The photos accompanying this post are but a tease for the larger selection contributed by default photo-documentarian Jim O’Brien and deputy photo-documentarian Eric Ressner. The full selection can be viewed on our Flickr photostream.