UW-Whitewater/Community Optimist Club

Good Evening, Optimists,

Wow–what a successful Breakfast with Santa event!   Angie and I do not know where to begin with our thanks!  Please accept our heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped to plan, arrange and order items, manage the sign up sheet, promote, decorate, cook, staff, play Santa–Mrs. Claus–Frosty–or an elf, pay for items, and clean up for the event, as well as other tasks in-between!  It was great to see so many folks (including children of members, UW-W Student Optimists, and Octagon Optimists) helping to ensure that the event was a success.  The parade helpers (Student Optimists, Intern Brandon and Frosty) are greatly appreciated, as well.

I know we lost a number of our workers by the time we got around to taking the group photo–but it’s still an impressive group.  We will post more photos on the Web site this coming week.  Our numbers included serving 760 guests for the breakfast.  My best guess is that we took nearly 2000 photos (including candids and 2-4 photos per family– depending on their situation).  We were also about 8-10 goodie bags short for our last few Santa seekers.  I will share some photos and other updates at our meeting on Tuesday.

Thank you to those who scooted over to Perkins Stadium to take tickets for the Warhawks’ football playoff game.  It was disappointing for the Warhawks to not come out on top again, but we are grateful for a successful season.  It was a fun run for our Hawks in 2016!

Please note these additional tidbits:

1)  Dues were due by December 1.  Some members still need to pay for the quarter or year.  Our Club’s budget is counting on folks to pay soon in order to balance our budget and to carry out the many activities for youth in our community.  Please connect with Kate or Ken for paying dues–and THANK YOU!  We will review our progress at our next Board meeting.

2)  Caroling at Fairhaven is scheduled for Friday, December 9.  Please email Kim if you are planning to be a part of spreading holiday cheer.  We will meet in the lobby of Fairhave at 4:15pm to begin warming up our voices!  We will be done caroling by 6:00pm.

3)  “Gifts with a meaning” and the mitten tree will take place at our noon meeting on December 13.  You are encouraged to bring hats, mittens, gloves, scarves, children’s underwear or socks for the mitten tree presentation.  You are also invited to bring a gift that represents you–your interests or hobbies (e.g. music, sports, playing games, books, gardening, animals, etc.).  Participating members will guess who brought which gift.  We then bag up the gifts and they will be contributed to the toy wrapping activity for the Whitewater Food Pantry on December 19.

4)  Our next Executive Board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 14 from 5:00pm – 6:00pm at Second Salem.  Board members, please let us know if you can not attend this meeting.

5)  Our last meeting of the semester will be December 20​.  Our next meeting (in the New Year) will be Tuesday, January 3 at noon in UC 69.  There will not be a catered meal for this meeting.

That’s it for now.  Hope to see many of you this week!

Just Keep Smiling,

Kim and Angie 🙂