2023 in Review
Happy New Year to all Xpats!
Here’s a long narrative to celebrate a good 2023
Hello all, Leslie here. You may have noticed, it’s been a big year of events and changes at the office.
In January, we jumped right into one of our big goals for the year and built a new OfficeXpats website instead of relying on the default front end offered by our member management system. We now have a lot more control over changing up the home page and adding new content as needed. We went live by the end of February.
February was the beginning of a series of three editing workshops with Matt Bennett, an instructor for the UW Certificate in Editing program. He discussed the different types of editing, including developmental, line, and copy editing and gave tons of great examples.
Also in February I started asking around if members would value having access to the locker rooms and showers. We got some enthusiastic yes’s but didn’t figure out a way to move forward. Yet.
In March we put on a workshop with Bob Johanson, a partner with the Institute for the Future. He used his recent book Office Shock to take us through the possibilities companies now have of new ways of working and of “officing.” We later followed that up with a workshop on “How to Think Like a Futurist.” Bob had moved to Bainbridge from the Bay Area during COVID, and this was his first effort to reach out to a new local audience. We are lucky to have him on the island!
Also, in March, Alisa and Joseph started as ambassadors, and Jason started a new job with the Navy out of Keyport as a cybersecurity analyst but is able to work remotely about three days a week.
In April our ambassador Rachel Rothman led us in a workshop on ChatGPT. Our longtime member Jeremy Moff was not new to using AI for his web design business, but he was shocked (and maybe appalled?) that he was able to prompt ChatGPT to write a love poem to his wife very much in the abstract style that he himself wrote in!
On one lucky afternoon in May the new Bainbridge Tapas offered free tastings to our members!
That month I was busy preparing for a trip to Arizona and the Hopi reservation to offer an exhibit of photos my dad took of his Hopi students in 1955. Jason and I flew out there on Friday, June 1 and the exhibit took place on Saturday. Some of my dad’s students showed up and told stories! Others were thrilled to see photos of moms or aunts and uncles. It was one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever done, and I recently created a photo book that I will bring to the New Years gathering, for those who are interested.
In June we also celebrated Cilla’s long tenure as an ambassador and wished her well for a year of return to her native Sweden. She is back for a brief visit right now, then off again for the next couple of tours with her company Cross Cultural Journeys.
With massive support from the ambassador team, we pulled off another popular booth at the Grand Ol’ 4th of July, made all the more challenging because I messed up my knee and couldn’t be weight-bearing until after emergency surgery the next day. Jason pushed me all the way up Madison in a wheelchair so that I could get on the city’s dump truck in the parade along with other councilmembers. The big hit was our slippery colorful gel balls called Orbeez that we stuffed into balloons to make squishy balls. Kids loved them and came back for seconds.
Then, on a Friday in late-July a bunch of Xpats put on our best party pink and saw the Barbie movie downstairs.
In early August we celebrated Coworking Day as we always do, with a barbecue out on the deck. That evening Florence Klein delighted a room full of story-lovers with anecdotes from her many glass-ceiling-smashing careers, as told in her newly published memoir “Under the Hat.”
September is our anniversary month, and the celebration included a chocolate fountain! We’ve used it a few times now, and it’s a pain to clean, but it is very fun. If any of you would like to borrow it, for a kid’s birthday for instance, just ask.
In the fall we also found out that OfficeXpats was a winner of “best coworking” in the Best of Bainbridge contest. First time there has been such a category, and weirdly, we competed with BARN. Thank you to all who voted for us!
By October we got serious about the BIG DISRUPTION to carve up the Event room into three new private offices, and thankfully they got rented right away. It took WAY longer than was promised, clear through November, and sometimes we didn’t get any warning when new loud noises happened, but hopefully you were able to take refuge in a conference room or better yet, in the temporary event room across the hall. Thanks for your patience. Now that it is done, we all have anytime-access to the deck!
We paired up a member meeting and an open house in December with fancy food from Pavilion restaurants, and we had a chance to share our goals and ask about your wants and needs. And we are happy to announce that we are moving forward with plans to start a small gym, along with locker rooms and showers. It’s too early to know much about the details, but it will start happening soon. 2024 will likely be a big year as well.
In community,
Leslie (and Jason and the ambassador team)
This magical scene evolved over a week or two by any number of anonymous coworkers.
