Our visit to The Country Club of Virginia!

Sorry for the Delay! I've been having technical difficulties and didn't want to do this post until I could get the pictures from my phone onto the computer. I can't get them to email, but will post them at a later time if I do figure it out.

We met with Anne and Kevin (Manager and Professional Development Specialist) last Tuesday to take a full tour of The Country Club of Virginia and learn how this facility functions as a community.

There were 15 original members and now there are about 7,400. To become a member you either have to already be apart of a family who's enrolled or you can gain sponsorship. There's an extensive 3 step process required to obtain membership, and an initial fee of $35,000 per member. On average the typical family pays about $550 a month to belong.

The club is very proud of their culture which consists of a cohesiveness between members and staff, long tenured employees, shared vision, shared values, and "walking the same walk, and talking the same talk."

Kevin shared a 4 minute video with us which featured the Bangles "walk like an Egyptian." This mainly displayed the staff striking an Egyptian pose, a few members partook also. It was supposed to reflect how the staff enjoys their jobs and the good relationship between them and members.  

The images above are info cards for the staff (which is very diverse). There are about 250 full time employees and 500 altogether.

Going to the country club

Zwelethu Mthethwa Reception

Work in Progress Crit

Presented Today

• Kate
• Jaclyn
• Mark
• Casey
• Breonca

Showing of work and research material collected thus far

Progress in project and exchange of valuable feedback, written and verbal

Discussion of idea or other ideas of presentation of final project

Direction or way to approach project to further strengthen it

What communities they are involved in and engagement

Mike Interviewing Jaclyn

http://soundcloud.com/mikew6890/sequence-1

Mike: So tell me about yourself?

Jaclyn: Tell me about….(chuckles and composure)

Mike: Where you come from? What’s your family like?

Jaclyn: Ok. Um.

Mike: Parents, Siblings, …

Jaclyn: Well um.. I was born at a Petersburg Hospital. Southside Regional and spent my first five years of life living in Chesterfield Virginia. Then my family: me, my mom, my dad at the time moved to Colonial Heights Virginia and they bought my dad’s parents house. So um, from that point on from year five to like the end of high school I lived in my Oma’s house, that’s what I call my dads grandma. So yeah then they bought a nice new expensive house in a rich neighborhood in Colonial Heights. I hated that house. They still live there now. It’s just not really like homey. I never felt at home in that house.

Mike: It’s kind of foreign to you now uh?

Jaclyn: Yeah. Definitely. I don’t feel, I feel I don’t really have a home right now cause I have been living in an apartment for the past 3-4 years and that’s really a temporary residence, you know.

Mike: Right.

Jaclyn: But more about my family. I have two little sisters, Madison and Tori. Madison is ten years old and Tori is twelve years old. So

Mike: They are both currently in middle school or…?

Jaclyn: Madison is in five grade this is her last year, she goes to Tussing Elementary School and Tori, this is her first year in middle school so she is in 6^th grade. So

Mike: How is she enjoying that?

Jaclyn: I think she likes it. She does cheering, which is totally the opposite of what… like I hate cheerleaders..

Mike: Cheering

Jaclyn: Yeah

Mike: That’s pretty early to start in middle school isn’t it?

Jaclyn: Yeah so she’s like in 6^th grade cheering squad. 

Mike: Is she thinking about doing that in high school or is it to early to tell?

Jaclyn: She really likes it so um she probably will.

Mike: What did your parents do? In terms of work?

Jaclyn: My dad is a police officer. He has been doing that his whole life. He’s done a lot of things on the police force. He was a detective, he was on the drug task force, he did you know street work. Right now he is doing a mixture of street work and deskwork.

Mike: Oh wow.!

Jaclyn: He’s a sergeant, so he’s like not the lowest of the low, but he’s not the head guy in charge, so.

Mike: That must be interesting as a role model for a father and I can’t imagine what that would be like?

Jaclyn: It was pretty difficult, I think growing up. I would never want my husband to be a police officer because I just, I remember what it was like as a child kind of growing up with that. It was good and it was bad because I had to like watch my back and like never step out of line. Really as a child and as a teenager and I guess that affected my personality now. I don’t, I’m not too crazy.

Mike: In terms of that being an occupation and him being a parent did that kind of show through his parenting?

Jaclyn: Yeah definitely.

Mike: He interrogate you very much?

Jaclyn: Uh.. yeah a little bit, but he was just disciplined, a disciplined father. And my mom, she is a schoolteacher. She has always been a schoolteacher. She teaches K through 3 and reading for kids that need help, though with reading. 

Mike: Now those are completely drastic, two different sides. So in terms of education who helped you most? Your mom?

Jaclyn: Um, that’s hard to say. I think my mom with reading and stuff, but my poor subjects were math and like spelling and still are. My dad would like, since I hated it so much, my mom couldn’t take teaching me. So um, he would like get me to do it and like I would have to show him my homework and that kind of thing. So he would do the hard subjects with me.

Mike: So being born in Petersburg as you said and have been moved around to Colonial Heights, what as your childhood like?

Jaclyn: Well Petersburg was next to Colonial Heights so it’s pretty much the same place. It’s like where everyone goes to on Friday for the arts thing. Everyone goes to downtown old town Petersburg and hangs out there with all the cool restaurants, galleries, and stuff like that and its like right over the bridge from Colonial Heights so its pretty much right next to Colonial Heights. I never use to, use to get my hair cut I remember as a child in Petersburg because it was like really nice and up scale and my parents had money because they didn’t have, I was the only child at the time and um, but I never really like experienced Petersburg until like um the end of high school and going to college there. But it’s a really cool town and I wish I had like hung out there more.

Mike: I catch ya.

Jaclyn: Yeah

Mike: And so…Are you married or single?

Jaclyn: I’m married. You know that. (laughter)

Mike: I’m trying to act like I don’t.

Jaclyn: Um yeah. So, October 22^nd is our Anniversary date so it’s coming up on a year now and my husband

Mike: So it was 2011?

Jaclyn: Yup, um my husbands name is Josh, Joshua Keith Brown. He’s a cute guy. What do you want to know?

Mike: What does he do?

Jaclyn: Right now he is working at Wells Fargo as a teller and he’s currently applying to teaching positions. He got his degree in history from VCU a couple, a year ago and a year and half ago, something like that. So he’s just been like working and he really has got the motivation recently to actually this is it I got to apply for jobs to get the job, you know.

Mike: Right

Jaclyn: So he really wants to be like a high school history teacher and so he’s just been applying.

Mike: I thought it was interesting how you said he is a history major and he wants to do teaching but he is doing the middle step in terms of being a bank teller.

Jaclyn: Yeah he really…

Mike: I always pictured him as a kind of like in office building. He appears that way.

Jaclyn: He worked actually at a office building type thing called retail data, but he had a horrible boss and so he left there. It was making him same amount at his teller job so he’s better off there now. He’s really good with kids and he’s really good at learning information, especially history and math. Like he helped me with math all the way through community college because I like really struggled with that. So…yeah.

Mike: You talked about community college. In terms of your education, I guess, what high school and then from high school why did you go to community college and then decide to come here?

Jaclyn: That’s a good question. So as of high school senior I was really involved with everything. I was captain of the soccer team, captain of the field hockey team, I ran track, I played travel soccer, I was, u know art club president, I was national art society historian or something of that sort. So I was doing so many things that’s not even everything and I was constantly told I always need to have stuff on your resume like to get into college and stuff like that. So I was like good at art and I knew that I want to go to VCU, well I was actually debating between Liberty University, its like that Christian college in Lynchburg I knew a lot of people that were there and I had been there a couple of times and it was nice but I was really interested in art. I wasn’t sure exactly what area in art I wanted to go into so I just put something like graphic design down or interior design and my high school was very very small there was like a hundred and fifty, a hundred and seventy five students in my senior high class. So high school was small and we didn’t have any art classes besides like the regular normal art class. We didn’t have photography, we didn’t have design, and we didn’t have anything. So I just put something down and I was thing I was interested in design, applied to VCU, did not get in, so I was like what am I going to do, should I go to Liberty I was accepted to Liberty, but it was a lot a lot of money. My dad was like really against that and was like well if you go to community college for two years im going to pay for that and then I’ll pay for the rest of your college because my parents did the Virginia 529 savings plan. So um that like helped them out finically. So yeah I went to Richard Blan and then I guess I can just tell you the rest. I went to Richard Blan, stayed there two years, applied to VCU and I didn’t get into VCU for the second time. Well they said I was accepted into the college, but not

Mike: Not the arts program

Jaclyn: Right, yeah

Jaclyn: So I was really really upset because I knew I was good enough by then like I had a really good portfolio at that level and so I went up to Tracie Taylor’s office at the Photography and Film floor at VCU and I asked her like I need to know why I didn’t get in so she dragged me into her office, and she was like first off never put a cat in your portfolio. I was like I didn’t have a cat in my portfolio. So she was like, “What that’s crazy.??” So we found my correct portfolio thati had sent in and she was like well your pretty good, um we are probably going to have to accept you. So I pretty much got on the spot, except in some of her after I went through that.

Mike: So with your determination, you went in and sought out somebody and helped you get in.

Beth and Mark have a ten minute conversation via the strange and wonderful world of the internet

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Mark: Maybe talk about, if you were to do a timeline of your life, if you were to draw it, in under two minutes verbally, imagine you were drawing on a piece of paper a timeline of your life, with all your successes, losses, the most important moments

Beth: I was born, and I lived in Fredericksburg my whole life, I was pretty good in school but not the best.

M: Can you talk about, what was Fredericksburg like, talk about the house you lived in

B; It was a normal, middle class neighborhood, and there was a bunch of kids in the same age range as me, and there was a pool in front of the neighborhood, a playground

M: What was the longest lasting friendship that you had?

B: My friend Brittney, we don’t really talk to much anymore, she lived across the street from me for 15 years maybe, and then she moved away because her parents got divorced, but we’re still friends

M: On the facebooks?

B; Yeah

M: Was there ever any, did you ever get in trouble, did you ever have a little rascals moment?

B: Not really, there was a creek behind her house, and her mom that would get really mad at us because she thought that we were going to drown. And one time we thought, yeah, it’s rained a lot so we should definitely go swimming right now, wearing lifejackets, and then her mom was like, “No! don’t do that, you’re not allowed.” And then there were just some petty fights between the different groups of friends in the neighborhoods.

M: What was your school like?

B: I guess pretty average. It was a lot of white people. And I guess Fredericksburg is pretty ‘red-necky.’ 

M: Did you feel like you fit in there.

B: Not really. No, I was pretty quiet my whole life.  I mostly hung out with people that were in the same art classes as me.

M: What was your first introduction to creative expression? Was art always in your life?

B: I was into art as long as I can remember. From grade school on. And it was always one of my favorite classes to take.

M: Is there one artist that you most connect with? That really inspires your work?

B: I guess my favorite artist would be Catherin Opie

She took pictures of Queer people. And they’re against fabric backdrops.

She took the pictures in the studio, the backdrop is not a piece of paper, some fancy looking fabric, to give it some art historical type of…

I guess she makes people question gender in her work.

M: Can you explain why that is important in your work? What connection you make to it?

B: Its awesome to see other queer artists taking pictures of other queer people and being really successful with it. And making people question gender norms. And her work is really popular which I think is really cool.

M: So it normalizes it?

B: It brings it into more people’s thoughts.

M: When was the first time that you…when did you come out?

B: I’ve always been shy, so I never really had a big coming out moment.  I remember, this is really silly, but I put it on my myspace at the time, so then I was like, everyone will know or whatever, so yeah, I never really told anyone, I just assumed they would figure it out.

M: Did anyone say anything?

B: My mom actually, she was stalking my mysapce and she was really mad that I didn’t tell her about it. And she was crying because I didn’t tell her. And I was like, mom its kinda awkward I don’t know how to tell people that, its kinda funny, wow.

M: So it wasn’t the stereotypical disapproving mother. It was more like she wanted to be in the loop.

Yeah.

M: Did it effect anything in your family?

B: I don’t think anything really changed. It wasn’t really dramatic or anything. It was just like, ok cool.

There’s certain people I waited to tell till I was dating someone.

M: Were you dating someone at the time? Or , I’ve been interested in this, or this is how I feel, or this is the right time to make it public? Were you beginning to date someone or was it a feeling?

B: I wasn’t dating anyone, it was just a feeling, and I know it is guess this is kinda stereotypical, but I started watching the L Word. Oh yeah cool, I think I’m queer.

M: So how did your classmates react

I don’t know if a lot of them knew? I remember I told this one girl. And at the time I felt really anxious about telling her. But she was also gay so I guess that’s why I felt comfortable telling her. I don’t know, I guess I never really told a ton of people about it, so I don’t know how they reacted.

(cats fighting…aka…catattack!)

M: If you could make a monument to one moment in your life

B: That’s a very serious question.

One moment that I thought was an awesome moment, when I first started dating Jessica, and it was, I think it was valentines day maybe, and she hid me a bunch of clues and sent me on a scavenger hunt and that was so adorable and memorable. It was pretty adorable.

M: How long have you been dating?

B: We just took a break, but before that it was 3 years and 8 months.

M: Was that your first partnership?

B: My first real one. We get a long, it’s just kinda awkward now.

An Interview with Casey Collier

Transcription Interview

Breonca: Can you state your full name for me please?

Casey: My full name is Casey Lynn Collier

Breonca: And where are you from?

Casey: I am from Washington DC

Breonca: Ooooo so how is that different from Richmond, Virginia?

Casey: Um, its-it’s pretty different. I have spent my entire life in DC. And the only other –like big city I had ever been to was New York. And so I was really use to like this extreme- like (unclear word) kind of city and so when I was looking up colleges, I was only looking up colleges in cities and so I said Richmond was one so I was like oh okay, so I was expecting like to me DC was the smallest city I’d ever been to so I was expecting something like that and then I came to Richmond and it was not so similar. Um, but I really like it. I feel like, at home, is very commercial and shiny and every thing is just the way it is and it’s very centered around the government and a lot of place obviously. Like Richmond is nice ‘cause I always describe it as being very like dirty and old but in a very endearing sort of way, where everything is – there’s just one of it, it’s very unique, like there’s only one Rumors, there’s only one National Theater, there’s only one galaxy, I really like that about Richmond, that it’s more eclectic, than back home.

Breonca: So what would you say it was like growing up in the city? Or a small city as you put it.

Casey: Yea, well I don’t consider a small city anymore now that I’ve been hanging out I Richmond. Um, I –I liked it, I didn’t live in the parts of DC that people usually think about. Like, I’m not from southeast, which is the part that usually ends up on the news. Similarly, I’m not from the area where the federal government is, which also ends up on the news. I guess the coolest thing that I live near is natural zoo and that’s kind of still far away. I live out in the northwest so it was nice, I really liked it. Um, it’s really interesting talking to other people like from Richmond now about things I’m used to doing. Like I grew up riding buses and metros and like I didn’t get a driver’s license until like a year ago but apparently that’s very strange. Like, outside of DC, um but it was interesting because my school was very diverse, um, the public schools in DC are really bad and so I went to private school to avoid that and I guess in DC they try to make the private schools extra fancy so that the dignitaries would be encouraged to send their children there and so there’s a lot of diversity at the schools that I went to ike there’s a lot of people coming in from just everywhere all over the city and then also we had a fair number of people who came from other countries, a lot of people from like…growing up with a Latin American background, and their parents just moved from America, and now they live here, and they’re incorporated that way. Like a lot of my teachers are that way, they just came here from...a lot of Puerto Ricans and dignitary children. So it was pretty diverse which I liked. Um, and then I started going to catholic school, and that was not very diverse, it was very waspish (unclear word), so that was very different.      

Breonca: So what would you say was your start in pursuing art?

Casey: Um, I’m not sure like, I have memories of always just producing art. It was always just something I liked to do, but I guess I never really took it seriously till I was in the eighth grade. And people would notice that my drawings were very very good and would tell me about it. So I guess in high school I started really trying to pursue art. Figuring out that I wanted to go to art school. For a long time I wanted to be a clay maker like in the Wallace and Rabbit movies, like that was like what I had decided I wanted to do. Clearly that is not what I am doing, but it was a pipe dream for a long time.

Breonca: So what made you want to choose art education?

Casey: It was a process cause I didn’t choose art education originally. When I, um, after AFO when you have the portfolio process I had wanted to be a crafts materials studies major because I just like that sort of thing, but at the time I was taking a drawing class and my teacher would look at my drawings and would encourage me to go into painting and printmaking instead. And so I did, and I spent a semester there and I didn’t like it because it was, it was really self focused and I just couldn’t take it, because its like you would sit in your studio and produce art all day. It was just about you producing your own stuff, and I just wasn’t about that. I felt like its taking up a lot of my time that I wasn’t willing to give up. So I switched to art education cause I thought it was more people focused, and like later in life it would be easier to like maintain whatever sort of life, cause if you’re a painter you have to move to New York, you have to move to Chicago. But if you’re a teacher you could move to wherever there is people, like that so, that was my thought process.     

Breonca: So what’s your hopes after graduation?

Casey: Um, I don’t really know. I’m kind’ve on the extended senior plan so im not graduating right away but I am hoping to stick around Richmond for a while cause Im really involved in this church here and I would like to be able to uh give back to it in the area before I went somewhere else. Honestly I would be fine staying in Richmond for the rest of my life, but I could probably say that about anywhere I moved, that I would want to live there for the rest of my life. So.. 

Breonca: are you thinking about doing grad school? or…

Casey: No, I am not doing grad school

Breonca: I agree (laughs) um, what community are you focusing on?

Casey: I’m focusing on the homeless community of Richmond. Specifically there’s a health care organization on Grace Street, on grace and Belvidere, called The Daily Planet, which offers health care services to the, the homeless community of Richmond. And they’re very amazing, I’ve never seen a…a homeless organization that does the kind of things they do like they contribute a lot. Specifically I am focusing on their medical respite program, which is in the north side and it is a place where people who are homeless and have recently been in a hospital can go. Um, when usually they are discharged to be on bed rest, um if they’re homeless they don’t have a bed to go to so they go to this program and they can stay there until they are ready to get back on their feet.

Breonca: And what made you interested in choosing that community?

Casey: Um, well the homeless I’m specifically interested in is because I have this sort of interesting relationship with the homeless where like I grew up around…I grew up in a city that’s dripping with homeless people and so you see them all the time. And the ones that approach you are the more aggressive hand handler types and they’re very scary but through school like I would get involved with community service and I got to know a different side of homeless people. Like through volunteering at soup kitchens and the ones that you meet there are very different like they, they aren’t aggressive, they aren’t pushy, they’re not trying to hurt you, they’re just regular people and you can get to know them that way and they’re great. And so there is this discectomy of homelessness out there. Its just something I’ve been thinking about recently so….or doubt that I was able to think about it more through this class.

Breonca: And has being involved in the church that you, um, briefly spoke about, has that also enabled you to learn more about this community as well through different, um, community service events or anything?

Casey: Not really. Kind’ve. Um, it’s more like, the ministry I’m apart of is specifically focused on like trying to live by the bible. And so a lot of the things that I do is to help other people know what scripture says and then teach them to obey it. So on my part I read (unclear words)…and taking care of the poor people and I’m trying to obey that too, and we’re trying to get more community focused, uh and involved in the community so this is a great outreach, but I wouldn’t say that the one springs the other.

Breonca: That’s nine minutes