** THANK YOU ** to Shawn and Anne Marie McGinty for donating the basketball goal installed at the back of the parking lot! Also, a great big thanks goes to Michael Jensen for helping Shawn and Anne Marie install the goal. Your time, energy and generosity is appreciated.

As of January 2nd, the recreation lot special assessment fund has a little over $19,200. We can now order items to be installed on the lot. Ordering will depend on how soon money is available. As all monies are due by March 31, 2002, we anticipate the lot being complete by the end of May.

A rough timeline of installations is as follows:

January - Order playset, swings, woodcarpet, benches, and fence        Jan/Feb - - Develop landscaping plans, define budget, identify optimal timeline for plantings Submit plans to Grounds and Architecture Committees for approval March - - Install playset, swings, woodcarpet, benches, and fence. Complete appropriate inspections prior to permitting children on the equipment April - Install gazebo and picnic tables; pave walkway and curb.

All necessary signs, permits, committee/HOA Board approvals, and trash receptacles will be completed at appropriate times as corresponding items are installed. A flier will be distributed to all homeowners announcing when each area is open and safe for homeowner use along with applicable rules and guidelines. Please visit the Charleston Village Website (www.CharlestonVillage.org) for continuous updates. We are very excited about this enhancement to our community and we look forward to seeing this project complete! If you have any questions, feel free to contact Karen Randle.

Submitted by the Recreation Lot Committee

At the Holiday Open House in November, I had so many requests for Scrapbook Workshops and Crops that I’ve done something about it! After asking many of you for your opinions, I have arranged for us to have the Charleston Village Clubhouse on 3 dates in Jan. and Feb. All are welcome to come and catch up on your scrapbooking! Yes, I am a Creative Memories Consultant. No, I will not be selling at these gatherings. I will be there to organize, teach newcomers, share techniques, and hopefully get a lot of scrapping done myself. Table space is at a premium so all I ask is that you call or email me if you think you will be attending one or more of these dates so I can try to get enough tables. If you have a card table or other suitable table to bring, that would be great! Also, if you are willing to share your supplies (I will be), please consider marking them with your name so they don’t get confused with other people’s supplies. The dates and times are:

Sunday, January 20th from 11 am - 4 pm
Tuesday, February 12th from 6 pm - 10 pm
Sunday, February 24th from 11 am - 4 pm

Come for part or all of the time! If attendance is good, we’ll talk about continuing in March, etc. Thanks, I look forward to seeing some of you soon!

Contact Theresa Rubes with any questions.

I am looking for someone to take over The Charleston Villager. It is published four times a year and responsibilities include: contacting committees to get article submissions via email; putting the articles into a newsletter-like format; coordinating with Drees Homes to get copies made; delivering the newsletters to street representatives; and other small tasks. Most of the streets have representatives, so the most time consuming task is taken care of.

Please contact Laura Trubey if you are interested or want more information.

We would first like to thank everyone who helped make the Food Drive a huge success! In November, we collected about 175 bags of food from our neighborhood and delivered them to the NC Food Bank in Raleigh. Once the bags were weighed, the total weight came to 1,548 pounds! This worthy cause helped to feed 32 soup kitchens in the Raleigh/Durham area. Thanks again for your donations, we hope to participate in the food drive again this year!

On December 3rd, the ladies of CV gathered for "Ladies Night Out"! We had a great turnout and enjoyed a night of food and fun! It was a great way to get to know your neighbors as well as enjoy some great cookies! We plan to schedule another "Ladies Night Out" soon, so keep your eye out for fliers in your mailbox and plan to attend.

A big thank you to everyone who brightened the spirits of a child this season with their donations to "Toys for Tots."

We hope everyone enjoyed the holiday house decorating contest. Our neighborhood looked great; however, only three houses could be awarded prizes. Congratulations to the following winners:

	1st place -	2014 Templeton Gap
	2nd place -	2028 Battlewood Road
	3rd place -	2022 Catskill Court.

Social committee meetings are held at 7pm on the 1st Monday of each month at the CV Clubhouse. If you would like to join, please plan to attend a meeting or contact a social committee member. See our committee pages for contact information and more.

Money...Good Food...Days by the Pool...
Sound good? A number of your neighbors have volunteered to look for ways to make life better for all of us. You'll find more than you expect on the committee pages on the Charleston Village Website. Check out the pages, or better yet, join a committee and help your neighbors help you. A new Clubhouse Committee page was recently added to the site. Also, several committees have new leadership and could use your ideas.

Leaving Charleston Village
Our site has an ever-growing list of recommendations/opinions for restaurants, auto repair, doctors, etc. that is designed to help you enjoy the very best our community has to offer for those times when you have to leave Charleston Village. Please check this list often and submit your own recommendations/opinions where you can.

Hoping This Helps
After the horrific events on September 11, we added a number of resources to the site for coping with stress, talking to our children, providing aid, and quickly accessing information. We hope that this will help you. If you know of additional resources, please send them to us.

We also started a Consumer Tips page to help neighbors with issues that are common to owning a home such as deck cleaning and remodeling. We plan to add tips and encourage you to submit tips as well.

Where Do We Go From Here?
We are reviewing the current Website design. Visit www.CharlestonVillage.org and let us know what you like and don't like. Do you like the menu system? What do you want to see on the first page? What do you use most? Least? What would you like to see on the site that isn't already there? The site belongs to all of us. We hope to hear from you. Please e-mail the CV Webmaster with your comments or to join the Web Committee. Thank you.

Board Member Resigns/New Board Member Selected
Rob Dixon was elected to serve on the Charleston Village Board of Directors at the September 12 annual meeting. Before the Board's first meeting, Rob found out that he was going to be transferred to Arkansas. The Charleston Village Bylaws give the remaining Board members the power and responsibility to select a replacement Board member. We chose to offer the position to the runner up from the September 12 election. Rob Sauerwalt has accepted the replacement Board position and will serve as Treasurer. We are sorry to lose Rob Dixon and also Suzanne Dixon, who has served as Chair of the Social Committee for 2000-2001, and we wish them success. We are happy to have Rob Sauerwalt join us in serving the community.

New Manager
The Board held a meeting with John Lawton, President of HRW, inc., on October 30 to discuss expectations for service. The meeting was very productive. HRW will make some changes that should benefit everyone in our community. The main change is that Mary Norbech, Regional Manager for HRW, is now also the Manager for Charleston Village. This in response to our request for a manager with experience and an end to the instability of having a new manager every nine months. Our thanks to John for being so receptive to our comments, and we welcome Mary to the team and look forward to working with her in the future.

THANK YOU to all the people who volunteered to help deliver the newsletter. We have almost the entire subdivision covered; the only places that could still use volunteers are the Cumberland Gap/Battery Bee area, Catskill Court, and Castleburg up to and including Weehawken. Contact Laura Trubey if you are interested.

COOKBOOKS - There are extra Charleston Village cookbooks available for purchase. The cookbooks are $7 each. Please contact Laura Linton if you would like to purchase one.