SWAT stands for Sensuous Women Attaining Teamwork. The SWAT Team currently consists of Pam, Smokey, Sarazan and Jesse.

L to R: Jesse, Smokey, Pam & Sarazan Photo Credit: Linda Cleaver

Smokey
AKA "The Recycling Queen," has only missed one WIW in its history. Favorite activity: floating for hours in the long narrow meadow pool with eyes closed in liquid meditation.

Pam
Taurus, artist, activist, community rouster, costumer and trusted servant of WIW. Her favorite activity is watching women moving around the Breitenbush grounds and the drumming circle.

Sarazan (sz)
Very feisty Italian who wants to be a Buddha when she grow up. Sz has worked at the Washington School for the Deaf for the past 14 years … and at a ripe old age has earned her BA degree and is aiming for her MA in Deaf Ed. Sz is one of the resurrectors of Women in the Woods and has missed only one since its origination.

Jesse
Women in the Woods' greatest fan, Jesse is an easy-going, fun-loving Virgo who keeps her sock drawer tidy. Passionate about domestic violence (against it), teenagers (for them) and lesbians (love them).

Every year the SWAT team plans and coordinates this one-of-a-kind event. They work all year on various aspects of making sure Women in the Woods happens: accounting, negotiating the contract with Breitenbush (which changes every year), producing a newsletter, registrations, web site management, managing the mailing list, buying fruit, desserts and craft supplies just prior to the event, assigning cabins, designing and having t-shirts made … the list goes on and on.

The Original Swatettes, L to R: Jesse, Keri, Pam, Elise, Sarazan (back) Marrianna, Karen (back) and Smokey

We now have a new category of WIW workers: Swatettes. Karen invented this category which began as the SWAT team's girlfriends, since they invariably got sucked into doing WIW tasks during the year and at the event. This category of workers has expanded and now includes special "angels" who do WIW work:

• Queen Jessica: designed our first website, organizes crafts and our photo journal
• Queen Karen: creator of the "Swatette" title, editor, proofreader and grammatical dominatrix.
• Queen Elise: accounting guru
• Queen Marianna: the wind beneath our wings and graphic consultant
• Other Angels: Becky, Jack, Cameron, Keri, Renee & Ila Suzanne