On 17 Jan 2010, at 17:35, Mayor Billy wrote:

Hundreds come out for Beaufort’s 299th birthday

By CASSIE FOSS
cfoss@islandpacket.com
Published Sunday, January 17, 2010

In celebration of Beaufort’s upcoming tricentennial, the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry is giving residents an opportunity to have a say in its future.

The organization is developing a Beaufort Fourth-Century Endowment Fund as a way to provide a permanent and ongoing source of funding for the community to carry out its “vision for its preferred future,” said Denise Spencer, the organization’s president and CEO.

Over 500 Beaufort residents were on hand Sunday at the University of South Carolina Beaufort Performing Arts Center for the announcement, which was part of an event to mark the city’s 299th year of incorporation and kick off preparations for its tricentennial on Jan. 17, 2011.

The event, sponsored by the Beaufort Three-Century Project, which has been hosting programs since 2008 leading up to the city’s 300th birthday, featured presentations on four projects completed under the Three-Century Beaufort banner, including a series of etchings by students from USCB’s studio-art department depicting the city’s history.

“The Community Foundation is honored to be a part of the 300th anniversary of Beaufort’s charter and we have been impressed and proud of the many events and activities — such as this one today — that have been the hallmark of this project,” Spencer said. “As we continue to build toward January 2011, it is important that planning for the next century of progress for the area be considered while the momentum is building.”

The Beaufort Fourth Century advisory group will begin planning for the 400th celebration and establish funding sources for future events.

“The committee has been established not only to raise dollars for this effort, but also to develop a process for involving the community in determining their preferred future and priorities for moving the Beaufort area forward in a thoughtful and proactive way,” Spencer said.

Mayor Billy Keyserling said he was pleased with the tricentennial project and hoped the new endowment would focus on the people that defined the city’s first 300 years, and create a vision for the future.

“This has been totally volunteer driven,” Keyserling said of the tricentennial efforts. “I believe we can extract from the past to create a better future. What I’d like to see emerge from this is a vision from people of what they would like to see in another 100 years.”

2010 Presents Unique Opportunity For Our Small City

As we move into a 2010, I want to wish you a Healthy, Happy, Safe and Prosperous New Year.

I also want to invite you to engage even more to help make our small city an even better place for us to live.

2009 was a year of many challenges that your City Council and staff squarely embraced.  We succeeded on many fronts and learned how to do more with less while, at the same time, enhancing Beaufort’s hometown spirit and special sense of community that I believe we lacked in the recent past. 

2010 presents many opportunities. We will continue to implement our new Comprehensive Plan which is different from past plans, principally because it includes benchmarks by which we will measure and report progress annually. (It is not like previous plans that are so overwhelming they sit of the shelves and collect dust until it is time to write a new plan.)

Furthermore, within a matter of weeks, City Council Members will replace ourselves on the City Redevelopment Commission with citizens who have business, entrepreneurial, finance and redevelopment experience to help grow Beaufort from the center outward avoiding “sprawl” without increasing the costs of services.  (We had an overwhelming interest from people who have come forward to help us by volunteering their time and energies.)

2010 also provides an opportunity for continued collaboration with the Town of Port Royal and Beaufort County focusing on Metropolitan Planning which will bring more comprehensive and better planning, more seamless growth, more efficiency in service delivery and more harmony among the respective communities north of the Broad River.

 2010 is also a critical time for learning and visioning collectively in the final year preceding our 300^th birthday on January 17, 2011. We must    understand our past as we move forward, to ensure our unique character while avoiding the temptation to become like anywhere else.

While the City’s recently enacted comprehensive plan focuses primarily on the “built environment” and the management of services to our residents, the Tricentennial Vision is about how people in Beaufort will live through the next Century and what we hope to leave to the next generation.

Two years ago, before I had plans to run for Mayor, I helped assemble a movement called the Beaufort Three-Century Project whose mission is to “tap our the community’s cultural memory through a three year process of exploration, studies and special events that honor the past to better chart the future, culminating with the tricentennial celebration on January 17, 2011.”

The end product will be a vision of what we want to leave for future generations through moving forward in the “Beaufort Way” while not trying to copy what others have done.

Under the able leadership of Deborah Johnson, our tireless coordinator, and with financial and in-kind contributions from too many to name and a significant financial boost from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, we have been at work for two years. The initiative will culminate with a tricentennial celebration on Jan. 17, 2011. 

Beaufort Three-Century Project’s final year, 2010, is our opportunity to collectively think about the future.  Please join the conversation!

There will be many opportunities for you to participate and I urge you, your family and your friends to do so, since extensive citizen participation will be required to ensure a collective vision for the future. 

As we progress through the year, planned opportunities will be publicized, but I would be remiss if I did not list a few

The Beaufort Three-Century – USCB Partnership will offer a repeat of the four part History of Beaufort, led buy renowned historians, Dr. Larry Rowland, Dr. Stephen Wise and Dr. John McCardell.  The series will launch on Friday evening January 15^th. There will be four consecutive lectures during the following weeks. The event last year was sold out, so I would suggest marking your calendars and ordering tickets even though tickets for remaining seats will be sold at the door.

The Beaufort Three-Century 2010 Annual Event, the celebration one year in advance of The Celebration, will also be at the Performing Arts Center on Sunday January 17^th.  This session, will display some of the accomplishments of our 2009 query and showcase some of our results including the USCB Art Department’s Three Century Art Project. 

January 20th, there will be the celebration of a new book about Beaufort presented by author Gloria Singleton.

Throughout the 2010 there will be a series of  “Look Back/Look Forward”  community visioning sessions,  covering topics like Business and Industry, Education,  the Natural and Built Environment, Communications,  Arts and Culture, Neighbors and Neighborhoods, Religion and Spiritual Life, Recreation and Government to name a few.

In September there will be an original play by Louise Trask, at the Arts Council’s celebrated venue called ArtWorks.  

In December, there will be a Wrap up Session, from which we plan the final vision to emerge. 

Please mark your calendars and reserve the time to share your thoughts, time and passion for our home town by visioning a Beaufort for the Future.    The tentative calendar of events is listed below and is posted on my website, www.mayorbilly.com,  along with blogs I entered over the past year.

A final word.

Beaufort Three-Century Project is completely independent from the City, County or any other Government and is funded exclusively by private dollars while our work is done through volunteers.  

If you would like to make a tax-deductible charitable contribution to underwrite some of the yet to be covered costs, please send what you are able to The Community Foundation of the Lowcountry either online or through the mail.  Please note that your gift should be “directed” to The Beaufort Three-Century Project.

http://www.cf-lowcountry.org/give/donate-online

Community Foundation of the Lowcountry
4 Northridge Drive, Suite A
Post Office Box 23019
Hilton Head Island
South Carolina 29925
843.681.9100 | 843.681.9101 Fax

Thanks again for your support, for volunteering and/or for helping us move forward through a charitable contribution in this Three Year Celebration of our past as we move into an even brighter future.

Again, Wishing You and Yours a Wonderful 2010.

Billy Keyserling