We have this year created a special award for an outstanding volunteer, our MVP Volunteer of the Year, if you will, to honor the service and special guidance provided to the TLA Network by John L. Swainston.

As a new member of our board, John has guided us as Treasurer on a path to financial health. He volunteered his services to us as a retired accountant with years of experience, including teaching accounting at area colleges. He has provided accessible and comprehensive monthly reporting to our board that continually helps us plot our course ahead. Because of John, our books, accounting, and tax status have been put in order, working closely with our bookkeeper. And because this has been a year of heavy transition, we have benefitted from John’s calm, cheerful, and witty presence, helping us keep our direction clear, and at times sharing his own poetry – as he is an artist in his own right. We are immensely grateful for his time, his talents, and his skills.

John says of the TLA Network: “At a young age I liked to dance. Then I discovered oil painting. When my grandpa retired he would come over and we listened to opera. Very late in life I became a poet. I never could find a place where I could enjoy all art forms. Until TLA Network. I just had to volunteer and help support the mission of TLA however I could. Discover for yourself all that they offer.”

You can see more about John and his poetry at his website and his book of poetry, Memory Box, here.

Outstanding TLA Network Volunteer: John L. Swainston, presented by Kathryn Lorenzen at the 2023 Power of Words conference.