Officers Of Avalon 2013 Board Of Directors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Amber Moon
ambermoonie@gmail.com


OFFICERS OF AVALON WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS AND WEBSITE

Florida (January 25 2013 ) – Officers of Avalon (www.officersofavalon.com) announced today the individuals who will join the newly structured Officers of Avalon Board of Directors and unveiled a new website.

President: Timothy Flanagan, who has been an member of Officers of Avalon since it's inception and a former Vice President, has now taken on the responsibility of the President. Tim is Wiccan and a retired police officer from New Jersey.

Vice President: Amber Moon, has been a member of Officers of Avalon for two years and is a current law enforcement officer from Florida. Amber is the group's web mistress and public relations officer as well as being a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin.

Secretary: Caroline Knowles has experience as a secretary and account manager in real estate. Caroline follows a Celtic path and has been a member of Officers of Avalon for 2 years.
 

About Officers of Avalon:
   
On 15 December 1999 Corporal Tricia Mullensky of the University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth) Police Department created the Yahoo e-group Officers of Avalon as a "way for Pagan law enforcement and emergency personnel to talk, discuss, vent or ask questions to others of like mind."

In its infancy, Officers of Avalon was a small e-group where Pagans in the emergency services could chat.

That all changed on 12 May, 2002, when Tim Flanagan posted on the e-group about forming a non-profit group.The initial burst of enthusiasm expanded the membership.

Officers of Avalon isn't just an e-group anymore. It has become a benevolent association for Pagan professionals in the emergency services. We will offer Pagan police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, military and rescue personnel a safe place to vent, to share ideas and to disseminate information that affects us. 

The Officers of Avalon is a fraternal, educational, and charitable organization. We seek to provide a community and network for Pagan first responders and to serve as a voice for them. We seek to provide accurate information and improve public perception about Pagan spirituality through education. We seek to defend followers of Pagan spirituality by working against misinformation, discrimination, defamation, harassment and intimidation. We are an outreach to Pagans in the Emergency Services. We also seek to demonstrate that Pagans are a charitable people. To that end, we work on the collection and distribution of donations to communities in need for natural disaster relief. Join us today as an Officer of Avalon or as a Friend of Avalon.

Crazy New Project - Indoor Aquaponics

Sometimes, I feel bad for "Super Hubby"...he has to put up with me and all my crazy ideas. This time, it is indoor aquaponics!

As you know, from a previous blog,  S.H. made me a seed starting rack about two years ago. It has four shelves and one shelf has grow lights. Now I start most of my seeds this way.

I was looking at the three unused shelves...What could I do with the space? I am a big fan of Youtube gardening videos and I saw one about Aquaponics.

Aquaponics is  is a sustainable food production system that combines a traditional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or shrimp in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. The plants filter the water which contains nitrogen, the plants use it as fertilizer, the clean water goes back to the animals, the animals "poop" in the water and the cycle starts again.

Our youngest son had a fish tank with two gold fish and a huge mystery snail, we call "Goliath". The fish were the kind you win at the fair, but they lived for two years. After they died, we moved "Goliath" to a smaller tank, that was easier for the kid to clean. The fish tank sat in the closet unused. Until now.... :-)

S.H. went out and bought tubing, expandable clay balls, a submersible water pump, pvc pipe and a shallow plastic tote. It cost about $35 dollars at Lowe's. He put it all together on Saturday while I was at work.

Today, I am off and will be going to buy a few fish to put in there with "Goliath". I plan on growing lettuce. I will try and make a video of the entire system when it is up and running!

Coming All The Way Out!

Today is International Pagan Coming Out Day. I never had any intention of ever coming out to anyone, who does not already know. My Husband knows, my Mom knows, most of my friends (Hey MPP Chicas!) know. That is how it is and how I like it.

When asked by someone if they should come out, I always ask them, “Why”? It’s no ones business but your own. I never felt the need to stand up and tell anyone I was Catholic, when I was, why should this be different.

I always felt that as long as your significant other knew and was at least comfortable enough with it not to freak out, things were good. Why tempt fate, and all the ugliness that may show itself now that you are seen as “different”. I help run a great little pagan group called Moon Path Pagans, so I was not exactly “in the closet”. I never really thought of it as hiding...

But I was hiding. Afraid. Wondering what would the guys at work say, would my friend “Joy” still talk to me, would this put a wall up between me and those I love.

Today I am “Coming Out”.  All the way out! Why?

On Monday, I was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis. If you do not know what that is, don’t feel bad, neither did I. If you have heard of it, you may know, it is the disease that killed comedian Bernie Mack and NFL player Reggie White. The American Lung Association describes sarcoidosis as a disease characterized by the presence of areas of inflamed cells that can attack any organ of the body but is most frequently found in the lungs. I have it in just my lungs...for now.

To say that Monday was an eye opener of a day, is an understatement. I was happy to finally have an answer to why, I had not felt like myself since the beginning of the year. I was short of breath, and had chest pain behind my breast bone. I always tired, with a continuous cough. Sounds like a run of the mill pneumonia. Most pneumonia gets better with antibiotics and some time. Mine didn’t. A few tests later and now my life is different.

I may go into remission and be fine, or I may get worse. What does this have to do with coming out as a pagan? All I know, is the control, I once had over my life is no longer mine and I have things to do! There is no time to fear. I am Pagan. And I don’t have the time to argue about it. :-)

A Not So Lazy Saturday!

So far, the March photo challenge has been pretty easy. I have been posting the pictures on Facebook. I will post them here at the end of every week, like a week in review.

This challenge got me thinking that I may start one of my own in April. A Pagan one! I have to give it some more thought, and today there is no time for that.

I have to take the 6 year old to his baseball game, hit the store, drop by The Herb Corner for a chair massage and grab a few stones and herbs for a Mojo bag, then off to the Central Florida Pagan Association office.

Tonight is our general meeting and I could not be more excited! I will be meeting some new people who are interested in joining! We have a great year of events planned already! The first one is a Past Life Regression class, then we are having our Auras photographed. If you live in the local area and are interested look for us on Facebook under Moon Path Pagans or our Website.

Work was not so good this week, as we had a small plane crash and all aboard were killed. My department did all it could but the damage was catastrophic. This is the first crash I have ever had to deal with as an officer. Hopefully, never again. I can't explain how it feels when we don't save someone. Even if we never had a chance, it still leaves a strange hole in your heart. Hug your loved ones close and send healing energy to the family of the victims.

The Worm Bin

After reading more about gardening and how it went hand in hand with recycling, I decided to try vermicompost. That's composting using kitchen waste, newspapers, paper towels, cardboard etc with the help of red wiggler worms also known as the Eisenia fetida.

I saw this great video about how to build a warm bin. You can buy already made bins but the cheapest I have seen is around $99.00 and "Super Hubby"built one like in the video for under $25.00. It took me about an hour to construct the bin. Then I set out looking for a place with-in driving distance for the red wigglers. You need this type because they can eat about one half of their weight in food per day. Earthworms and cold bait worms won't do that.

I found a place called Best Buy Worms, which strangely enough was located less then a mile from my Grandparent's place, in Masaryktown, Florida. It's a working farm, you can visit with an appointment but they also do mail order worms too. I bought a pound of worms for $12.50

So, last April, I put the worms in the bin and have been feeding them coffee grounds, egg shells, left over veggies, just about anything except no meat, oils or dairy. It reduced the garbage that I have to put out for landfill to take and my four year old loves to help feed the worms.

It's been almost a year and soon, I will separate the worms from the compost and start over, using the compost in my garden beds. I will be sure to post pictures because I have no doubt it will be messy!

As a Pagan, projects like this one make me happy.

All in a days work - Hog Wild!

I get to see and do, all sorts of strange and interesting things while at work. So, I thought I would do a re-occurring post about some of those things.

Today at work was like every other day, it's all the same, until it's not the same. I work for a city of about 100,000 people, we have urban areas but we also have a lot of undeveloped land. This can cause some fun moments for us at work, because of animals.

We received a call that a feral hog was loose in a backyard. This is disturbing. We have a pig problem! There are an estimated 500,000 wild pigs loose in the Florida woods, they can grow up to 200 lbs, they eat anything and everything and the males can become very aggressive.

Several officers and myself went to the residence, quietly approached the backyard and spend an hour trying to wrangle this fearsome beast!

I don't know if this little piggy was super fast or we were laughing to hard to catch him but we finally did. Several people in the neighborhood came out to watch us look very silly. I saw lots of phones so I am sure there is a Youtube video somewhere! :-)

I put Mr. Piggy in my patrol car and brought him deeper into the woods away from the houses. I thanked him for the fun and that I was happy to have met him.  Hope he stays safe and away from people.