What’s the story on the Achasta Community Directory??
The ALC Community Directory has a long history of uniting the Birch River/Achasta Community by connecting us in many ways.
Each year ALC produces the directory to be provided to members with their annual dues. The ALC Know Your Neighbor (KYN) event kicks off the fiscal year for ALC. Know Your Neighbor is just what the name implies, a chance to meet or reconnect with your neighbors.
This year it will be in September. It’s a great time to meet new neighbors, catch up with existing ones and consider joining ALC if you have not yet done so; ALC membership is not required to attend the event. The new directory is revealed at KYN and handed out to ladies who do join ALC/renew membership. It’s a great “perk” of membership and its proceeds are also a big start on meeting our goals to financially assist charities in Lumpkin County for the upcoming year. All of our funds raised are used for this mission.
The Achasta Directory started in 2002 as the Birch River Directory, created by the secretary of Birch River. It had 51 residential addresses and contained 50 with only a single land line contact phone number.. Only one resident included a cell phone number! Email addresses were provided by about half of the residents. It also included phone numbers for local services mixed in with residential numbers, such as the local phone company, Alltel (now Windstream) Georgia Power, Lumpkin County Schools, and West Dry Cleaners. The entire directory was only 4 pages!
The 2003 Birch River Directory began the tradition of being provided by the Birch River Ladies Club. It had 1 more residential listing than the first edition. It also began including many more email addresses.
By 2004 the neighborhood was growing more rapidly and there were September and January or February additions printed.
In 2005 the very first Know Your Neighbor event was held in conjunction with the release of the annual directory. Karen Mannis was ALC president and was assisted in creating the event by Mary Jo Moffatt.
The first Achasta Directory was printed in Fall 2007, but was still provided by the Birch River Ladies Club. The change of name to Achasta came with the purchase of the neighborhood and club by Reynolds. It contained 133 residential listings and a hand drawn map of the neighborhood. Bear Paw Ridge was called North Ridge Drive at that time. Golden Bear Pass had yet to be constructed and North Ridge Drive was only accessible by its separate entrance.
By 2008 Margaret McGarity, as that year’s Achasta Ladies Club President produced the first spiral bound directory as her husband was in the printing business. It was the first to include information and contacts for the other Achasta Clubs. It also included color maps of each of the individual Ridge sections of the neighborhood along with a 2 page full neighborhood map. The directory went back to a single annual publication.
2009 Margaret McGarity went back to stapled directories with information limited to resident listings and a few helpful phone numbers. It was 16 pages.
In 2013 with ALC President Roberta Allen the first artwork of Achasta was included on the cover. Gail Stentz became involved with production of the directory which now would include 300 listings of residents, property owners and club members that was 53 pages.
Over a period of 3 months, Gail and her husband Ed went through 8 separate lists on file at Achasta sales office and combined them into one master list. Susan Ford was then able to create a sortable list in template form that could be turned into a directory and updated more easily. Shirley Christman and Chris Laws helped proof read this project.
In 2014-2015 with Karin Guy as President, Susie Lewis suggested that Gail meet with the printer that worked with UNG for printing. Directories were again spiral bound which has continued through today, although the printer has changed. Contact information for club leaders was again included.
2015-2016’s directory, also with Karin Guy as president, included the first reverse directory by street address. This street directory was verified by Gail and Shirley in their car driving through the neighborhood. Its cover displayed multiple photographs taken by ALC photographer Mary Flowers.
In 2017-2018 Camille Kittrell was president. Photos of Achasta groups and groups leaders were included and lots of information about each group, including upcoming scheduled activities.
2018-2019 saw the only directory that has been spiral bound in horizontal flip-chart style.
In 2020–2021 Linda Hinkel volunteered to take over production when Gail Stentz was ready to step down from the job. Linda brought in a new software program and dedication to the task and has been managing ever since. Like Gail, she had assistance from numerous people. It’s been especially challenging the last 3 years with numerous residents coming and going and overall growth of the neighborhood. Linda Fresina (and now Vikki Fortner) welcome new residents and offer them the opportunity to fill out information for the directory as does Sue Poynter with Membership. Existing members that meet new neighbors also share information about ALC, welcoming visits, and the directories.
2021-2022 was the first directory since 2014 to have artwork as its cover, provided by resident Ezekiel Miller.
2022-2023- Our current directory.
Work is underway on the upcoming 2023-2024 version with a new procedure to select a cover from artwork and photo submissions from ALC members and blind voting on those submissions by our ALC members. It will be revealed at the Know Your Neighbor event in September and will kick off the 2023-2024 year for Achasta Ladies Club.
Big THANK YOU to Gail Stentz, Shirley Christman, Karen Mannis and Linda Hinkel for sharing the history and their copies of all the years of the Birch River/Achasta Community Directories.
And to all the ladies that have worked in so many ways to make it happen year after year.
