Happy July 4th Independence Day Weekend.
Our last General Meeting, June 17, was well attended. The awarding of prizes for best appetizer and desserts is proving successful. Pat Rudner won 1st place for her delicious cobbler with ice cream. Lauren Beaudry gave a synopsis of our wonderful and varied May outbound Domestic Exchange to Madison, Wisconsin, and four new potential members were introduced.
Our speaker Diane Lindsay gave a fabulous presentation on the Trails of San Diego. She featured her book “Coast to Cactus”. We were so impressed that many of us bought autographed copies of the book.
Mary Prokop, the ED for our incoming Domestic Exchange from Austin, Texas, (starting August 1st), has finalized events and matched hosts with ambassadors. During the week with Austin, our club will be attending the Summer Pops on August 5th. All tickets for that event have been purchased and will be distributed at our July 29th meeting (or by mail).
Tom Schulz, the ED for our incoming International Exchange from Leuven, Belgium, (which Sept. 25th), will coordinate with Mary to assure distributed coverage of members’ participation this summer for both.
Bob Traber continues to encourage all members to log into our club’s website, friendshipforcesandiego.org. You can even register and pay for Exchange activities on the Calendar.
Our International outbound “Journey” to Moscow, Russia is confirmed for the Spring of 2018. Mike Boyko was designated ED for that at our May Board meeting. Mike has already researched extension tours for before or after the visit to Moscow. He is presently accepting $100 deposits from interested members.
Long Island, New York is our outbound Domestic Exchange (suggested month September 2018). Paula Traber and Jackie Portman have indicated interest in the Exchange Director position for this “journey”.
For early 2018, our Domestic incoming Journey is Flathead Valley, Montana. Bob Stafford and a new member have volunteered to be the Journey Coordinators. If anyone is interested in this position for our International incoming Journey from Gisborne, New Zealand (suggested date, July 2018), please contact Carol Babbitt. These positions will be voted on at our next board meeting on Monday, July 10th, at 1:00 PM at the home of Kathy Velasco.
Our next General Meeting will be at Joyce Beers Community Center July 29th at 1:30 PM.
(Note: Not our usual 3rd Saturday). The featured program will be our member Virginia Meyer speaking on our club’s 2016 Journey to Freiburg, Germany and Leuven, Belgium. Sandra Williams also will give a report of the Western Presidents Conference that she attended for us in May.
Carol Babbiitt, President
