1994 - 1997

In the 1993-94 year our General meetings shifted from Tyson=s Corner to Arlington, at the Ballston Holiday Inn. Adjustments to the General Meeting format continued. Attendance at our meetings improved at our new location. We started off our General Meetings with a four member panel discussion of the ADA. This meeting was attended by 44 people and the discussion was informative and very well received.

The 1993 ASPE National Technical Symposium was held in Atlanta and we sent a delegate to this new ASPE venture. The Annual Awards Social was held at the Evans Farm Inn in McLean this year. Our Tenth Biennial Product Show in March 1994 was held at the Westpark Hotel again. We held our Golf Outing, in support of the Schoonover Scholarship Fund, at Holly Hills Country again.

In September we had 67 people come out to Kings Dominion for our summer social. Fall of 1994 saw our meetings continuing to be held in Arlington at the Ballston Holiday Inn. The National Convention was held at Kansas City. We sent 6 delegates and a large number of members made the trip, in part to the very inexpensive airfare and also the generous support of one of our affiliate members, who flew in dozens of members at her company=s expense.

By the end of 1994 our membership had risen to 181, slowly but surely trying to get back up to 200. On the third of December we held a party to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of our chapter. This function was held at the Sequoia Grill on the Georgetown waterfront. With the Sequoia=s handsome view of the Potomac and Roosevelt Island and its general elegance, the party was very pleasant. It was attended by members and former members we had not seen frequently and also by guests from other chapters as distant as Boston. The total attendance at the celebration was 110.

In May of 1995 our guest speaker at the General Meeting was Dr. Janet Stout, of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Janet gave an extremely convincing presentation on the likely causes of Legionnaire's Disease. This capped off a year of very informative technical sessions. In June we had our Golf Outing at Holly Hills Country Club in a major downpour with the sun coming out as we finally reached the clubhouse.

In August of 1995 we had our largest summer social ever at Kings Dominion, with over 100 people attending. The National Technical Symposium in 1995 was in Cleveland and our chapter was well represented among the many attendees. Our Awards Social was held at the Pooks Hill Marriott in Bethesda. At the Awards Social the chapter awarded its first George Schoonover Memorial Scholarship to Bill Duvall.

In March of 1996 we held our Product Show once again at the Westpark Hotel in Tyson=s Corner. The show was not well attended until the late afternoon. Our plumbing community must have been too overworked to get away from our collective desks. Those who came had a couple of technical training seminars from which to choose. We held the annual Golf Outing at Holly Hills on June 10^th.

Our summer social at Kings Dominion was well attended again. In September we relocated our General Meetings to the Fairfax City Holiday Inn. The National Convention was held in Phoenix in October of 1996. Phoenix was pleasant in October (much better than August would have been). We sent six delegates to this convention, as well as a large group of engineers that came out for two days, courtesy of one of our generous affiliate members. Our Awards Social was held in December at the Embassy Suites, in Chevy Chase Pavillion.

March of 1997 saw our membership drop to 162, after the annual purge of members who did not renew their memberships. Efforts to stem the flow and attract new members were redoubled. We all met out at Holly Hills Country Club for our annual Golf Outing on June 9^th and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day and the wonderful atmosphere of being off work on a Monday. Our summer social was held on September 6^th at Kings Dominion and was well attended, as usual.

Ron Payne

May 1998