More thanks for 5Point films

Dear Editor:

I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on the Carbondale 5Point Film Festival, and I want to express my family’s gratitude to founder Julie Kennedy and program director Michele Cardamone, to the sponsors and to the Roaring Fork Valley outdoor community for the work you did. It is one thing to have a fine idea, to want to bring the outdoor adventure “tribe” together, to conceptualize a gathering, to dream about doing something new and original. Yet it is quite another matter to bring the dream to fruition and attend to the myriad details that allow it to unfold. What a wonderful weekend created for the audience, participants and organizers.

What Julie Kennedy did ” and, by extension, her family and team, the MC/moderators Jim Gilchrist and Malcolm Daly, and many others ” was truly remarkable. In this era of “digital everything,” our shared interpersonal experience that used to form the “core of experience” among outdoor community members has gradually been diminished and diluted. Julie and her team brought together the Roaring Fork Valley outdoor community members in person, in real time, and with great focus around the “5Points” of respect, commitment, humility, purpose and balance. Julie created a powerful and potentially transformative experience for the outdoor adventure community and Carbondale.

I was particularly impressed with how much time, energy and resources the sponsors invested. Mayor Michael Hassig and the town of Carbondale hosted us in a beautiful new community center. It was not lost on the participants and attendees that the building was energy efficient, comfortable and constructed green. Carbondale recreation director Jeff Jackel has reason to be proud! Sponsor R.A. Beattie, of Beattie Outdoor Productions, did an outstanding job in concert with Julie brainstorming, catalyzing, inspiring and promoting the festival from the beginning concept to the final details. Sponsor Patagonia made a large financial commitment, and company founder Yvon Chouinard, plus CEO Casey Sheahan, surf ambassador Gerry Lopez and athlete manager Kristo Torgersen all were in attendance, giving Julie’s team huge support.

As I talked about the event over the weekend with the various participants, the audience, Roaring Fork Valley parents and children, and with moderators and spectators, it was universally acknowledged that something much greater than “the sum of its parts” occurred. Julie set out to strengthen bonds among the outdoor community members and to create inspired dialogue within that community, and she succeeded. The weekend was one of the high points of my outdoor professional life.

Julie, your many months of work created a deep, and, I have no doubt, lasting bond between the outdoor community and the community of Carbondale.

Mark and Kate Rutherford

Dillingham, Alaska