At its 98th annual meeting on Monday, Nov. 15, at the Colonnade Hotel, the Back Bay Association (BBA) bestowed its Heavy Lifting Award on another longserving neighborhood group, the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.
Elliott Laffer, chair of NABB’s board of directors, said in accepting the award on behalf of his group that the Back Bay Association and NABB, which represent the neighborhood’s business and residential communities, respectively, both “see what a special place the Back Bay is and work to make it better.”
In her opening remarks for the meeting, Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president and executive director of the Back Bay Association, extended her gratitude to David Colella, the Collonade’s vice president and managing director, and Ron Druker, owner of the hotel, for hosting the event. She also reminisced about knowing Druker longer than anyone else in the room after first meeting him when she was at the helm of the Downtown Crossing Association, an organization she described as the “precursor” to today’s BBA.
Mainzer-Cohen also welcomed Carlos Bueno, a board member and managing director of The Newbury Boston, as the Back Bay Association’s incoming chair and said besides Gary Saunders of the Saunders Hotel Group, Bueno is the only other sitting board member whom she has ever personally lobbied for to become the group’s chair.
Meanwhile, the meeting’s keynote speaker, M. Lee Pelton, CEO and president of the Boston Foundation, was on hand for a discussion with David Leonard, president of the Boston Public Library.
The next annual meeting of the Back Bay Association is expected to take place in May, said Mainzer-Cohen, “so it won’t be too long.”