2025 OHECA Membership Drive Underway

The 2025 OHECA Membership Drive has officially started. Online membership access was activated this morning,  October 1. All the information you need to extend your 2024 membership into next year can be found here.

We urge you to enroll online, and we encourage you to do this early during the October-December preferred open enrollment period. Income from membership enrollments funds the operating expenses and projects of our civic association. We considerably base our next year’s budget draft on early fall enrollment trends.

There is a paper form option, but that option creates considerable extra processing work for our volunteers. If you have trouble navigating the instructions for online enrollment or have a question about the process, please contact president.oheca@gmail.com, and someone will contact you to help.

Please assist us to reach new residents by referring them to oheca.net and the Membership tab on that website. Let us know, too, if you have new neighbors that we can contact. It is important that OHECA maintain and preferably grow it’s rolls to keep up with rising costs. This requires making new residents aware of the benefits of membership. Thanks to all of you who choose to return year after year.

🎃 Fall 2024 OHECA Halloween Contest 🎃

It’s time to get spooky! As the crisp fall air rolls in, we’re kicking off the Halloween season with OHECA’s Halloween Contest. Get ready to transform your home into a haunted masterpiece! 💀 ⚰️

Do you have a knack for haunt-crafting, or a fang-tastic flair for spooky decor? Then it’s time to bring out your ghoul-den touch and join our neighborhood Halloween decoration contest! 🏚️ 🧟‍♂️

Witch house will win the title of Scare Master (first place) this year? We’re dying to find out!  🧙‍♀️ 🪄

Also, this year, we’re brewing up something *new* – nominate the spookiest street for our frightfully fun showdown! 🕸️🕷️ 

So, sink your teeth into decorating with all the fright and delight your imagination can summon! 🦇🧛‍♂️


🔮How to enter:

  1. Decorate your home with your most creative and boo-tiful spooky décor.
  2. Put your name in the cauldron and nominate your haunted house or take a spooky stroll through the neighborhood to nominate a neighbor’s bone-chilling home!
  3. Email your nominations to ohecacontestchair@gmail.com by October 15th and include your name and the address of the frightfully festive home you’re nominating. *With every nomination a confirmation of receipt will be sent.*  

👻 Judging: 

Want to be a part of the frightful fun? Put your judging skills to the test—if you dare! Email Michelle at ohecacontestchair@gmail.com to join our ghoulish panel of judges. 

🎃 Important dates: 

  • Registration: Now open! Send nominations by October 15th to stake  your claim in the competition.
  • Judging: October 16th-23rd. 
    • We’ll be conjuring up a message to let nominees know their eerie abode has been nominated for judging!
  • Winners Announced: October 24th. 

🥀Helpful tips:

1. Use Natural Elements

  • Keep it gourd-geous with pumpkins and hay bales that can rest in compost after Halloween!
  • Go out on a limb with fallen leaves and branches for tree-mendously spooky decor.

2. Opt for Reusables

  • Don’t let your decorations ghost you—choose reusable ones that come back year after eerie year.
  • Give old sheets a second life as ghostly figures that won’t haunt the landfill.
  • Keep it sustainable and spook-tacular with decor made from wood or recycled materials.

3. Solar-Powered Lighting

  • Light up the night with solar lanterns that are easy on the planet.
  • Brighten your haunt with LED lights that won’t drain your energy (or the environment’s).

4. Repurpose Household Items

  • Turn old jars into boo-tiful lanterns with spooky designs and eerie glow.
  • Can-do creativity with old tin cans turned into frightfully fun decorations.
  • Bat-tle waste by crafting bats out of egg cartons for a fang-tastic display.

5. Choose Biodegradable or Paper Decorations

  • Go green with confetti that won’t come back to haunt you in landfills.
  • Streamline your decor with compostable creepiness by using paper streamers.

6. Upcycle Old Items

  • Get scarecrow creative by turning old clothes into spooky figures that will up-cycle the fright.
  • Thrift or treat with unique items from secondhand stores to give your decor an old-fashioned fright.

7. Compostable Trick-or-Treat Bags

  • Offer ghoul-friendly compostable or paper bags that can be personalized by trick-or-treaters—no plastic tricks here!

8. Minimal Plastic Use

  • Skip the plastic spider webs and go for webs that won’t tangle the planet by using cotton or wool string, or DIY paper webbing.
     

Let’s make this Halloween the best one yet – we can’t wait to see what eerie creations our neighborhood comes up with!

Happy Haunting! 👻 🪦

Michelle

OHECA Contest Chair 

Happy Halloween Banner International ...

Updated: September 25th Semi-Annual Membership Meeting

The semi-annual membership meeting dictated by OHECA bylaws is scheduled for Wednesday, September 25, 7:30-9:00 p.m., in the Pohick Regional Library.

Agenda:

  • Treasurer’s report
  • Recent actions
    • Pedestrian crossing updates
    • Entrance sign repair status
  • Upcoming events/actions
    • Yard Sale – Oct 5th
    • Median Trees
    • Fall Adopt-a-Highway
    • Halloween and winter decoration contests
  • 2025 membership drive
  • Streetlights on Huntsman Blvd status
  • Field Master Dr blighted property update
  • Resident zoning permits for backyard chickens
  • Fall quarterly newsletter
  • March officers election