Welcome to September, early days of Fall, closing days of Summer and the Monsoon. Enjoy the improved weather!
Sorry for some length this week but I have a few items that need to be highlighted.
Our visit from Nancy Van Pelt and her husband Tom was great! She provided some good insights and ideas. Hopefully she was inspiring to all of us and we can implement a number of those ideas.
Regarding the disaster relief for South Texas and Houston. Let me know if one of you wants to run a fundraising drive for this purpose. Otherwise, I encourage all our members to make a donation on their own to help out. The note that Nancy circulated regarding Shelter-Box sounded like a good direction to go but choose whichever one you feel the most comfortable with.
Bringing back a practice and adding one informal one: I will be asking Larry or Ben to re-institute the practice of once a month having the numbers chips to determine where each member sits so we get to try some new seating arrangements
The informal practice is something a few of us do but I think it's a good idea for all of us. I came across it at a Rotary club in New Mexico and have been considering bringing it into our club. Basically it is each members responsibility to get around and shake the hand of every member present at each meeting and say hello. This is just another way to increase our camaraderie. We still need our greeters to welcome members and guests in at the door. In a way this sets the example for all members to follow through with once inside.
Special Invitation: So for our "Pass the Friendship Trophy (Cactus)" event. Kelly Hong has offered to provide lunch for the Chino Valley club and those of us who come (We cant take 7, I have three already) at her restaurant in Chino Valley in the Safeway shopping center. So if you are interested contact me asap to get on the list.
Our foray into using of ClubRunner has created some unique opportunities for our club. One of those is the chance to examine how we use the newsletter,the bulletin and the website. I hope that all of you who are "Internet/email equipped and ready" have checked out the newsletter and website.
This week you will see one example of how we could proceed with our newsletter/bullet in the future. Rather than having two publications we could combine into the one newsletter and always have a few printed for the tables.
In the interests of previewing this idea, on Wednesday there will be three hard copies of the newsletter on each table instead of the regular bulletin. The current Bulletin cover will be wrapped on each, mainly because these are already printed and we need to keep up the advertising exposure. So this is only a temporary approach.
For the future, one thought is that we can re-design the place mats to carry the advertising which will also be featured on our website and the digital newsletter as a package and at one price to members, another to non-members (Friends). After our meeting on Wednesday, September 06, the Board will meet to discuss the options and how we wish to proceed. Remember this is an opportunity to explore. Please don't focus on "How we have always done it." Let's consider if we can benefit from a change that does not eliminate member involvement, it only changes the presentation and extends our outreach. If you have any thoughts or suggestions please let me know, or talk with any board member and your thoughts can be brought to the discussion at this meeting.
Peace Friends.
Respectfully,
A.J.
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