Retreat

STAR TANNERY, VA. -- Steam wafted off the 104-degree water. Worried that I'd be scalded, I tested it with my toes and timidly stepped into the tub. As the water climbed up my body, the throbbing in my lower back from a morning horseback ride faded. I lasted in the ofuro, a Japanese-style bath, at Virginia's Pembroke Springs Retreat for 13 minutes, shorter than the recommended 15- to 20-minute soaking time. When sweat began to roll down my temples, I knew it was time to wrap myself in one of the inn's summer kimonos, called yukatas, and get a glass of water.

Housing Dept. retreat was a genuine effort to improve serviceAs the person responsible for ensuring that the Housing Authority of Baltimore Citys (HABC) operations do not violate either ethical or legal parameters, I take exception to The Suns editorial Big spender (Nov. 11).The editorial refers to the management retreat held at St. Michaels as misuse of the publics dollar. . . This characterization is unfair. It implies that public money was not used for a proper public purpose, or to improve HABC operations.

ITS NOT the worst misuse of the publics dollar weve ever seen. Yet, Daniel P. Henson III ought to have known better.The soon-to-depart head of the citys housing department and its public housing authority is merely a caretaker now, awaiting the Dec. 7 inauguration of the next mayor. This is not the time for bold plans or 2 1/2 day, taxpayer-funded management retreats in scenic St. Michaels.Mr. Henson defended the trip and its $13,446 price tag, saying the retreat was needed to lay out a strategy for streamlining and making the operation of public housing more efficient.

CALL IT civility, call it congeniality, call it comity. Whatever the politically acceptable label, half of the House of Representatives, with spouses and children in tow, are headed for a "bipartisan retreat" in Hershey, Pa., this weekend.The aim is to restore respect and to soothe strained relations between Democrats and Republicans in an off-campus affair that features a Nobel Peace Prize winner and an actor intoning the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.Please hold the comments about "kiss and make up" and "sweetness and light" at the nation's chocolate capital.

At a time when Bowie State University faces criticism for misspending scholarship funds, President Nathanael Pollard Jr. and at least a dozen employees are planning a two-day, university-paid retreat to a Chesapeake Bay resort.Highlighted by lunches in the Island Room and a cruise aboard the Harbouritaville, the Sept. 21 and 22 trip to Herrington Harbour Marina Resort in southern Anne Arundel County is a planning and training session for workers who handle public relations and fund raising.

The Columbia Council voted 7-3 last night to begin planning a $2.6 million SportsPark for Harper's Choice village that features a skating rink.The council also took up two measures related to private meetings -- voting to ensure its annual retreat will be close to home this year and modifying the rules by which it can go into closed session to elect a chairman and vice chairman.The council, composed of one elected member from each of Columbia's 10 villages, serves as the board of directors for the Columbia Association, the huge homeowners' association that collects liens from Columbia residents and manages their recreation facilities and parkland.

Officials at Terrific Inc. -- a nonprofit Washington group that cares for children ill with the AIDS virus -- say they will hold their first employee retreat in January at a $655,000 farmhouse the group owns on 32 acres in western Howard County.The retreat, to held Jan. 6-8, comes two weeks before the expiration of the group's special exception allowing it to hold weekday retreats with up to 10 people at the house on Ed Warfield Road in Daisy, officials at the county's planning and zoning office say.The group's president, the Rev. Debbie Tate, received a special exception from the Howard County Board of Appeals three years ago.Since then, neighbors of the property have complained, the group has not had any retreats at the house.

As the Columbia Association's governing body goes into its annual retreat this weekend, some of its members are pressing for dramatic changes in the way the massive homeowners association is run.They want to lower CA's lien rates, raise recreation fees for non-Columbia residents, require a two-thirds majority of the Columbia Council to approve expensive projects and institute a more government-like competitive bidding process.The wish list is to be debated during the retreat at the Turf Valley Resort and Conference Center just west of Ellicott City.

Columbia's governing body last night began discussing ways to hold fewer private meetings -- including a proposal to reel in an annual retreat held recently on the Eastern Shore."

Whether a matter of appearance or of ethics, the Harford County school system should have had ample warning that funding an administrator retreat with donations from vendors who supply the county schools was improper.Yes, it may save $20,000 from the education budget to hold the leadership meeting for 180 people in Harper's Ferry, W.Va., today and tomorrow. But it will cost the school administration and school board at least that much in credibility during future debates over awarding contracts and purchases and other business-school relationships.

Baltimore police commanders have postponed plans for an $11,000 overnight retreat, saying the event would be a distraction as the department grapples with crime and budget woes. Using money seized from suspected criminals, the department had planned an overnight training retreat at Leakin Park's Outward Bound center. According to documents filed with the Board of Estimates, nearly 50 commanders would have participated in a program that included "use of low ropes activities, a combination of problem-solving games, and elements of the high ropes course."

With the city staring at budget cuts, the top brass of the Police Department are scheduled to go on an $11,000 overnight retreat next week. But officials are defending the expenditure, with the trip paid for through cash seized from criminals and the destination hardly glamorous - commanders will be bunking at Leakin Park for the night. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said 48 members of the agency's leadership team - from Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to the deputy majors - will attend the training and team-building retreat at the park's Outward Bound center.

For a politician whose stock in trade is language and communication, staying silent for 10 days might seem like a nearly impossible task. But silence and professionally guided meditation is something Del. Elizabeth Bobo has learned to love and use in recent years, she said, and she feels it helps her, both as a person and an elected official. A strong personality and liberal Democrat well-known as a vigorous advocate for causes she believes in, Bobo, who represents a single member district mostly covering West Columbia, said she may not seem that different on the outside, but she's feeling more peaceful on the inside.

PORTLAND, ORE. / / I knew this was no ordinary trip when I got on the hotel shuttle at Portland International Airport. Two nicely dressed women about my age shared it with me, and for the first minute we sat in silence, like every other shuttle rider. Then one woman said, "So ... are you guys here for art camp?" We were. We had flown in to attend Art & Soul, a six-day arts-and-crafts retreat at an Embassy Suites hotel near the airport. The retreat featured workshops in mixed-media collage, jewelry, book arts, painting, drawing, fiber and fabric crafts, and doll-making.

The Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville is best known as a quiet place, surrounded by more than 300 acres of farmland and forest, and featuring walking trails, a tranquil pond, a peace garden and a labyrinth. But as the retreat and conference center approaches its 40th anniversary in 2008, its leaders have decided it is a good time to make a little more noise. That includes the hammering and drilling of a major renovation project and a more outspoken publicity campaign to let the community know about a place that marketing coordinator Barbara Castellano calls "the secret at the top of the hill."

STAR TANNERY, VA. -- Steam wafted off the 104-degree water. Worried that I'd be scalded, I tested it with my toes and timidly stepped into the tub. As the water climbed up my body, the throbbing in my lower back from a morning horseback ride faded. I lasted in the ofuro, a Japanese-style bath, at Virginia's Pembroke Springs Retreat for 13 minutes, shorter than the recommended 15- to 20-minute soaking time. When sweat began to roll down my temples, I knew it was time to wrap myself in one of the inn's summer kimonos, called yukatas, and get a glass of water.

Margaret Blandin Clark, a social worker and University of Maryland assistant professor, died Thursday of cancer at her Charles Village home. She was 56. Born Margaret Blandin in Bethesda, she earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and a master's degree in social work from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. She moved to Baltimore in 1977 and worked for Associated Catholic Charities in its school mental...

CHICAGO -- We all know that when it comes to war, Republicans are strong and resolute, while Democrats are weak and craven. We know because Republicans tell us so. Those have been the constant GOP themes in the congressional debate over the Iraq war. House Republican Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio accused Democrats who want to require withdrawal by a certain date of proposing "a timetable for American surrender." They were cheering for "defeat," charged Arizona Sen. John McCain. President Bush vowed that unlike his partisan opponents, he would not "cut and run."

WASHINGTON -- Conservative Republicans, out of power in Congress for the first time in 12 years, will return to Baltimore tomorrow for a three-day retreat featuring pep talks by such movement lights as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and former Sen. Phil Gramm. On Friday, the members of the House Republican Study Committee will hear a pitch from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has been courting conservative leaders in his run for the Republican presidential nomination.

WASHINGTON -- With the Iraq war hanging oppressively over his presidency, George W. Bush is heading to Camp David today with his top advisers in hopes of gaining fresh perspective on his most pressing problem. The two-day working session at the presidential compound in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains marks an effort by Bush to take advantage of news of the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the forming of a new Iraqi government. The high-level retreat comes at a pivotal moment: Bush is under pressure to show progress in Iraq amid growing calls for a new strategy that could hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops.