The Colonial Hills Civic Association

Even a full moon did not dim the bright holiday lights in our fine community. Thank you for adding some shine and shimmer to another challenging year.

The judges were distracted by the huge buck in the front yards of the 400 block of Park Overlook, but once back on task, the following houses were deemed the winners for 2021:

• Best Overall – First Place: 287 Loveman – Wow!! Just go see it!! Music, lotsa lights, blow ups, retro theme…it has all our favorites all in one!!
• Best Overall – Second Place: 215 Selby – Merry Camping!
• Best Overall – Third Place: 435 Park – An evergreen dripping with huge bulbs.
• Best Front Door – First Place: 5603 Indianola – Earthy and Charming country style.
• Best Front Door – Second Place: 63 Southington – Lovely and classic evergreen swags surround the door and its red “Merry Christmas” sign.
• Best Front Door – Third Place: 212 Colonial – Although the address was hard to see in the dark, you can’t miss the blue and cool toned multi colored lights around the entrance.
• Best Retro: 583 Loveman – Grinch, Spongebob and Elf are now retro!
• Most Artistic: 356 Colonial – An artful display of gifts on a sled and tiny colorful lights beautifully arranged throughout the yard and fencing.
• Most Lit Up: 71 Southington – A sea of white lights. Love the angel.

Have a safe and joyous holiday season!

(And here are the pics, with photo credits to the Secret Judges – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these photos)

_01 Best Overall – 1st Place
_02 Best Overall – 2nd
_03 Best Overall – 3rd
_04 Best Front Door – 1st Place
_05 Best Front Door – 2nd
_06 Best Front Door – 3rd
_07 Best Retro
_08 Most Artistic
_09 Most Lit Up

Continue reading ‘2021 Colonial Hills Holiday Decorating Contest and Photos’ »

Please sign up, using our SignUpGenius for Kit Assembly, for Luminary Kits Assembly, Saturday, December 4, starting at 10:00 AM.

Due to ongoing COVID concerns for our luminary kits event, we will again be limiting the number of volunteers – but not as drastically as for 2020.

That is, to try to ensure the safety of all volunteers and their families at home, we will enforce masks to be worn at all times and we will limit the number of volunteers for each task, so as to maintain social distancing, especially inside the shelter house. The number of volunteers will be limited as specified below and in our SignUpGenius.

Please note that for 2021, volunteers for any task can include any youth middle-school age or older, due to the current availability of vaccines for youth of this age. And based on our experience from 2020, there will need to be only one shift of volunteers for these tasks, as follows:

1. Inside the shelter house component assembly (up to 8 volunteers)
2. Outside the shelter house component assembly (up to 7 volunteers, plus the Event Chair)
3. Bundling supervisor (1 volunteer)
4. Pea gravel shovelers (up to 8 volunteers), who are requested to bring their own standard-size, pointed-tip garden shovel. There will be teams of two people at each of the 4 shoveling station chairs. Each shoveling team can decide how long each member will shovel, while the other team member holds open the grocery bags (team members could switch roles halfway through).

Pease note that as opposed to last year, if you didn’t sign up beforehand on our SignUpGenius, but do show up to volunteer at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning, there may still be an open position for you to volunteer. However, we request that you do sign up ahead of time to reserve the volunteer position of your choice.

Dunkin’ donuts, coffee and hot chocolate will be served, and plenty of hand sanitizer will be provided inside the shelter house – and we greatly thank our two sponsors for our event:

• Colonial Hills resident Erin Glowacki, the Mark Neff Team, New Albany Realty and
• Colonial Hills resident Scott Dahs, Rapid Mortgage Company.

Regarding the Trustees picking up their bundles of kits for their Districts: We are asking the Trustees to start coming over no earlier than noon on Saturday to pick up their bundles, so as not to increase the number of people present in the shelter house area during the kit assembly timeframe, which is expected to be 10:00 AM to about 11:30 AM, especially if it is not raining too hard that day.

Light Your Luminaries! Our luminary display evening will be Sunday, December 12, starting at 7:00 PM, per the instructions which will be enclosed in each resident’s luminary kit.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, or if you encounter any difficulty using our event’s SignUpGenius. Thank you,

Will Pearce, Luminaries Event Chair
365 S. Selby Blvd
614-888-8236
willpearce@columbus.rr.com

This upcoming Saturday morning, November 13, will be a very busy time in the Hills, with these two events:

1) 9:00 AM – The Kilbourne Middle School (KMS) first annual “Hot Chocolate 5k.”

To register, please click the following link, which will take you to the KMS PTSA’s memberhub.com store web page, and click the Hot Chocolate 5k icon: Kilbourne Middle School Hot Chocolate 5k

The registration fee is $20.00 for all age groups, and the KMS Hot Chocolate Run course is identical to the CHCA 4th of July 5k course:
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Please feel free to contact Lynsey Pearson lynsey.serr@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.

2) The annual Neighborhood Food Drive – the CHCA along with local Scouts will be collecting food Saturday morning.

Although we request that you leave your donations on your porch by 8:30 AM, along with the flyer dropped off at your home – due to the KMS Hot Chocolate 5k at 9:00 AM with runners in the streets, we probably won’t be by your house to pick up your donations until starting around 10:30 AM. Or, you can just drop off your items at the Selby Park Shelter House around 10:00 AM.

The most needed items are: canned goods; ready to eat meals; beans, rice, chicken, broths; cereal and peanut butter; and personal hygiene items.

Please drive with the utmost care on Saturday morning with all the runners in the streets, and the many volunteers crossing our streets to pick up the food drive donations.

Your secret judges (who took the pics below) congratulate the winners of the Halloween House Decorating Contest:

Best Activity: 551 Park – Poems posted and on paper to go … supplies list in case you are wondering how this was done. Amazing, really. Apples, candy and dog bones. (Thanks for the Butterfinger!) A very unique and creative display!

Friendliest: 244 Colonial – Charlie Brown welcomes the Great Pumpkin. Sweet and charming.

Spookiest: 363 Loveman – Duh! … graves, skeletons, ghost hologram, oh my! And, the rat on the porch was almost too much!!! Eeek!!!

Most Creative: 583 Loveman – Green Glowing skeletons, scary trees, Giant Pumpkin, a great variety of scary vignettes.

Best Effects: 524 Colonial – The Monster House with the scariest soundtrack ever!! How cool is this?!! It’s Alive!!

(And now for the photos (Photo Credits: Secret Judges) – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the following descriptions)

_01 Best Activity Day
_01 Best Activity Day – Detail
_01 Best Activity Night
_02 Friendliest Day
_02 Friendliest Night
_03 Spookiest Night
_04 Most Creative Night
_04 Most Creative Night – Detail
_05 Best Effects Night

Continue reading ‘2021 Halloween Decorating Contest and Photos’ »

The Worthington Age-Friendly Initiative has been organized by a committee of community partners, city staff members and older adults who are now inviting you to take this Age-Friendly Survey on the City’s website to tell them what you think – about existing programs/initiatives and to hear your ideas for how Age-Friendly Worthington could further impact and improve the quality of life for people of all ages. Please take the survey now, as it closes November 1.

Background, per information on the City’s Age-Friendly Worthington Web Page: In December, 2019, Worthington City Council approved a resolution to join the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, and to create an age-friendly community to promote successful aging and improve the quality of life for all ages.

The City will receive the findings from this survey, and the findings from similar surveys being conducted in the Central Ohio region, and then conduct Worthington-specific focus groups, both in-person and virtual. Thus, your input is critical to inform, update and improve Worthington’s programs and policies, and to help make Worthington an even better place to age well.

The CHCA Webmaster completed the project on 9/24/2021 to migrate our website to one of our host’s upgraded servers.  The project involved some software/content modifications, resulting in our website now running the current versions of WordPress, database software and scripting languages, and implementing other security improvements.

The Colonial Hills Couriers which have been archived to our website are listed below
(if there is a link “Continue reading Courier Archive” below, click it to display the archived items).
Continue reading ‘Courier Archive’ »

A tremendous Thank You! to Worthington Parks and Recreation for completing the Selby Park Playground Replacement Project on July 30, 2021 — this new, beautiful facility is being greatly enjoyed by folks of all ages!

Photo Credit: CHCA Webmaster, taken at 7:23 AM on 9/11/2021 — feel free to use this photo as you wish!

If you’re looking to have some family fun over the Labor Day weekend, check out the Rotary Family Picnic on Sunday, September 5, where there will be lots of games, activities and yummy food to enjoy.

Admission is free to the event – from 3:00 to 7:00 pm on the front lawn of Thomas Worthington High School, 300 W. Dublin-Granville Rd., and which features:

• Giant inflatable SuperGames
• Food and specialty-treat trucks
• Also, Rotarians will sell hot dogs, beverages and Dairy Queen ice cream treats
  And families may bring their own picnic food and refreshments along with lawn chairs and blankets.
• WDLR 1550 AM 92.9 FM will broadcast live from the event with DJ Bob Allen playing Ohio’s best classic hits from the 70s and 80s and more.
• Activities by area boy and girl scouts
• Toy Barn classic cars

COVID precautions will be in place. Masks are recommended for children and unvaccinated persons. Social distancing markers will be placed at SuperGame activity entrances, and hand sanitizer stations will also be set up.

In its 16th year, the event is hosted by the Dublin-Worthington Rotary Club, and was postponed from its usual Fourth of July date this year due to COVID. FCBank is the presenting sponsor. Proceeds are used for service projects, helping youth and their families in the Worthington and Dublin communities.

The Dublin-Worthington Rotary Club is composed of community and business and professional leaders representing different careers, experiences and views but with a common purpose to make a positive difference in the community and globally through service to others. For additional information about the Family Picnic and or club membership, contact rotaryfamilypicnic@dublinworthingtonrotary.org.

The Building Worthington’s Future organization will host a Zoom call during their next bi-monthly meeting, August 18, at 7:00 pm, during which their speaker will be Patrick Maynard, President & CEO of Boundless, a Worthington-based non-profit organization.

Boundless will share a virtual presentation of their upcoming development plan for their approximately 40 acres located at 445 E. Dublin Granville Road. The presentation will be 30 to 45 minutes followed by Q&A.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Building Worthington’s Future will have an abbreviated business meeting to provide a regular update to their Engaged Membership.

As noted above, the Zoom call will be Wednesday, August 18, at 7:00 PM. Please click the “Continue reading” link below to get the details to join this Zoom Meeting

Continue reading ‘Boundless Presentation at next Building Worthington’s Future Mtg, August 18’ »