Question for residents of Smallwood: can you explain the difference between the following entities: the Hamlet of Smallwood, the Town of Bethel, and the Smallwood Civic Association (SWCA)? Go ahead, take a minute and try.

For the first few Aprils I was living in Smallwood, this question leapt to mind every time I drove my little Chevy into a pothole somewhere within the Hamlet. Not yet a member of the SWCA, I didn't really know what the heck a Hamlet was to begin with. Meanwhile, the town of Bethel seemed a distant entity, a powerhouse run over on Horseshoe Lake Road from Town Hall.

I wondered if the Hamlet of Smallwood had a town council called the SWCA and, if so, whether the council had political parties or warring factions. I even went so far as to think it might be a good idea to change my city of residency from NYC to Smallwood if it meant that I could help my political party hold or gain a Congressional seat. As it turns out, these are crazy and downright ludicrous ideas, not a one of them correct. Just how crazy they are only becomes clear when you understand the difference between the Hamlet, the Town, and the Smallwood Civic Association.

Reader, have you formulated your answer? Help is on the way. Hurry on over please to the newly-reconfigured SWCA website, smallwoodcivicassociation.org, and take a look on the homepage for “Smallwood FAQS.” The new website, the product of obviously herculean work by SWCA President Jonathan Hyman, Legal Commitee Co-chair John Demas, Membership Secretary Bill Moss, Webmaster Zach Romano, Treasurer Rich McKenna, Board Member Mary Scofield and SECA members Pax Whitfield and Adam Pincus, is fresh, rich in information, and visually snazzy.

I kid you not: if you are a Smallwoodian, you will wander around this new website in awe and wonder at the richness of content. You can read an up-to-date water quality report listing results from different testing points around the lake, examine the 2020 financial report of the Association (2020 income: $80,267; 2020 expenses: $69,840), study the revised and toothy Member Code of Conduct, and look up some vital SWCA dates this summer (three General Membership meetings planned for Saturdays falling on May 29th, July 3rd, and August 7th).

Also noted are important membership deadlines like membership renewal (due by June 30th for the following 12 month period). There is, in fact, so much information here that we must pause and congratulate and thank the newly-elected Board for providing us Smallwoodians with a bounty of information that is otherwise impossible to find in one place.

The website, which is publicly viewable, constitutes a kind of “Britannica Smallwoodia,” the centralized and focused explanation and recounting of most everything important and noteworthy about our little Hamlet in the forest in the Town of Bethel in the County of Sullivan in the State of New York. An amazing job, thank you SWCA for educating and communicating with all us Smallwoodians driving into and dodging potholes!