As they have every New Year’s Day since 2008, members of the Edmonds Uplift Society will meets at Daphnes Bar in downtown Edmonds and prepare to hoist a few Rainier beers — all in preparation for their annual Polar Bear plunge into Puget Sound.

While you have to be an Uplift Society member to participate, all are welcome to join society members during the actual plunge, which takes place at 1 p.m. Jan. 1 at Brackett’s Landing beach, just north of the Edmonds ferry terminal.

The plunge was founded by Daphnes owner Brian Taylor, who grew up in Edmonds but moved to New York City in 1990. While there he participated in several New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunges at Coney Island.

Here’s some history excerpted from a story posted last year by My Edmonds News correspondent Larry Vogel:

One evening over a few drinks, Taylor and some friends decided the time was right for a Polar Bear Plunge in Edmonds. Looking around for a name for the group, they came upon a 1932 photo from the Edmonds Historical Museum showing members of the Edmonds Uplift Society enjoying a prodigious number of Rainier beers in what appears to be the basement of historic Beeson Building. Prohibition was still the law of the land at the time, so these beers were likely bottled before the18th Amendment and the subsequent Volstead Act became law in 1919 (lucky for them it would be only another year before the 21st Amendment would repeal Prohibition and once again make it legal to hoist a few brews).

The name stuck, and the Edmonds Uplift Society was reborn. The historic photo now occupies an honored spot next to the bar in Daphnes.

After the beer is consumed, Uplift Society members — dressed in embroidered terry cloth robes– take the four-block walk from Daphnes down to Brackett’s Landing. “In year’s past, the larger crowd is already at the beach by the time the Uplift Society strolls down,” Taylor noted.

At the beach, a check from the Uplift Society will be presented to the Edmonds Museum, an annual donation made to thank the museum for allowing Daphnes to display the historic photo.

As for Taylor, he and his wife Louise Favier moved to New York City in 2013, and Taylor says he will be participating in the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge.