UW-Whitewater/Community Optimist Club

Happy August, Optimists!

We are 10 months into our Optimist year and have lots to celebrate.

Here are just a few updates for this week:

Thank you to those who were able to attend the summer Optimist potluck at Angie’s and my house last Tuesday.  See the attached photos.  We were happy to have two guests—John and Lori H.  The weather was beautiful, and the food and company were great.  Some folks even stayed to play a couple rounds of a new game.

Our next club meeting is on Aug. 12 in UC 259A.  Jeanine will be facilitating our discussion—looking to our next year.  We do not have a meeting this week.

Dave, Jeanine, Kelly and I are in the process of planning other promotions for the club, and Kelly has drafted two write-ups about our Optimist Park and Trivia Night.

Please mark you calendars for Trivia Night—Friday, Feb. 20 in the Hamilton Room.  Doors will open at 6:30pm and the event will begin at 7:00pm.

Jeanine and I will be meeting with Lanora Heim and Joe Lynch this Tuesday to discuss setting up a NOW meeting for teachers in the Whitewater Unified School District this September.  Lanora has also pledged to rejoin our club and wants to be an involved member.

Lastly, please send your positive energy to the Burkina Faso Group.  They head out on their journey on August 15.  Thank you to Duane who is helping to drive the group to the Chicago O’Hare Airport.  They are in need of one driver with a moderate to bigger vehicle to help transport them home on Aug. 27.  If anyone is able to assist with this task, please call or email me.  They will be arriving in Chicago at 3:30pm on the 27^th.  Thank You!

For the next two weeks, I will be participating in the Yellowstone Travel Study and will have very limited access to email.  I am hoping to continue our weekly emails through our Optimist Board.

Thanks—and enjoy your week,

Kim

Optimists,

As July winds down, I wanted to thank you for all of your fund raising efforts in June and July.  We now have several months to plan and promote our Trivia Night, scheduled for Friday, Feb. 20, 2015.  Please mark your calendars—and assist by spreading the word about saving the date.  This event will be co-sponsored with the Student Optimist Club.  If you would like to be a part of the planning team, please email me.  We need creative planners and plenty of good worker bees!

Please note that we do not have a noon meeting this week, however we do have our summer picnic/potluck on Tuesday evening from 5-8pm.  This gathering will be held at Angie’s and my house—640 Stonefield Lane.  Please see the RSVP list.  If you would still like to attend, please let me know by Monday at 3pm so that we are able to prepare enough meat.  We will provide beverages, along with the meat for our gathering.  Remember the pool, hot tub, backyard and board games will be available for “kids of all ages!”

Finally, a few weeks ago, we inquired about the new sign for our Optimist-sponsored park.  The Park and Rec Dept. was able to install the sign shortly after our inquiry.  Thank you to Mills for taking a photo of our new sign.  See our “Photos” page for Mills picture.

We’ll see some of your soon.  The next Optimist meeting on campus will be Tuesday, August 12 at 12pm in UC 259A.  Remember to bring your own lunch.  There will be more details to come on that meeting by next week.

Jeanine and Kelly are continuing to work on promotions for our club and recruiting our next intern(s).  More to come…

Always with Optimism,

Kim

Optimists,

This will be a short note.

We do not have a meeting this week (July 22), but we do hope to see many of you at the summer picnic that Angie and I will be hosting on Tuesday, July 29 from 5-8 pm.  We will provide the meat and beverages, and we ask those attending to bring a dish to pass.

Thank you to those who have signed up so far.  If your name didn’t make it to the sign up list, please R.S.V.P. to me via email so that we know how to plan.

Thank you to the group who helped to paint the pavers for the orders we took through the “Relay for Life” event.  We had nine orders to fill and we collected another $105 to contribute to the American Cancer Society on behalf of our team.  I attached a few photos from our painting party!

Hope to see many of you next Tuesday!

Enjoy your week,

Kim 🙂

Happy Monday Optimists,

It’s hard to believe that we are at week 40 for our Optimist year!

Another terrific fund raising project took place this past Wednesday–and we had picture perfect weather.  Thank you to Don and Lou Zahn for coordinating our workers–and to all of our helping hands (Optimists, family members, and one UC student volunteer–Elaina) for the Jefferson County Fair!  We’ll look forward to learning how much we raised.

We had a board meeting this past Tuesday.  Here are a few highlights:

*  Our slate of officers is almost complete.  Thank you to those who have agreed to serve–including Dave Halbach as president.  The rest of the slate will be announced soon as we are waiting to hear back from a few individuals.

*  We are recommending to try two meetings per month next year–one noon meeting and one evening meeting.  More discussion will follow at a club meeting.

* We need to review the planning and budgets for larger projects for next year, such as Breakfast with Santa and Trivia Night.  The goal is to ensure we continue to serve needs, have successful projects, allocate appropriate funding, and/or raise budgeted monies.

* Jeanine will facilitate a discussion at the club meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 12 to address various topics like the ones above, as well as how we implement Youth of the Month in the future.  We invite you to attend the noon meeting in UC 259A.  Discussion about a less expensive approach for our installation banquet will also take place.

This week’s meeting will be at noon in UC 259A and will feature Steve Bertagnolli as our guest speaker.  Steve will share an informative presentation about many of the grounds projects on campus that he and his team oversee.

Next Sunday, July 20 from 12pm-6pm at Kim and Angie’s House will be our second paver painting party.  We have some orders to complete from Relay for Life. Please email me to let me know if you would like to participate. Even if you don’t think you are very creative, you are welcome to participate–to share ideas (and to partner up with someone).  We are confident you will have fun.

Finally, this is a reminder that we will have our summer picnic–also at Kim and Angie’s house on Tuesday, July 29 from 5:30pm-8:30pm. Please R.S.V.P. to let me know if you can attend and what you will contribute to the potluck.  We will provide the meat and beverages.  We look forward to having some good fellowship time with you.  The pool and hot tub will be open, and several backyard games will be available.  For those who don’t want to be outside, we  will have some tables with board games set up inside.  Please note that Angie is very hard to beat in “Bananagrams!”  We hope you are able to join in the fun!

Have a good week!

Kim 🙂

Greetings Optimists,

I send a great big Thank you to all who helped with the 4th of July Gyro Stand.  I have learned that $5,800 was taken in on gyro sales over the three days of the festivities.  This is a fantastic number given that the fair was one less day this year.  Kelly has already posted pictures and info on Facebook.  Barb also wanted me to inform the group that  there are four tubs of the gyro sauce for sale to any interested members.  Please contact Duane or Barb if you would like to purchase one.  Thanks, too, to those who were promoting our club at the event.  I understand from Brenda O’Beirne that there were two interested individuals.  I have already sent a follow-up email to them.

This Wednesday (July 9) is the Jefferson County Fair.  I know that Lou has emailed the schedule to all workers.  I am requesting that you check and re-check your availability to assist with any additional hours.  We are very short on help for the 10am-2pm and 2pm-6pm shifts.  Please consider asking family members, friends, and/or colleagues if to help out–even if it is for two hours at a time.  I have several “asks” out there, and will follow up with Don and Lou tomorrow. 

Our next board meeting is tomorrow (July 8) at 5:30pm at Jessica’s.  If you haven’t responded to me yet, please email me to indicate your attendance.  A review of finances, slate of officers for 2014-15, membership recruitment/letter to new teachers, and planning our trivia night for next year will be among our agenda items.

July 15 at 12 noon will be our next on-campus Optimist meeting in UC 259A.  Our guest speaker will be Steve Bertagnolli who will discuss our campus grounds–current and future projects.

We will have another paver painting gathering on Sunday, July 20 from 12pm-6pm at Kim and Angie’s House.  We have some orders to complete from Relay for Life.  Please email me to let me know if you would like to participate. We had a great time at our first session.  It’s a fun fellowship activity for sure!

Thanks–and enjoy your week!

Kim 🙂

Happy 4th of July Week, Optimists!

We have a lot happening these few weeks.  Here are the highlights:

June 28 –thank you to Jan and Kate for chairing our Relay for Life Team.  Thanks, too, for our other Optimists who supported our team by walking and staffing our site.  Don and Lou, Hans and Carla, Carla’s daughter and son, Angie, Kate’s daughters Shelli and Laura, Jim Mc. and I were all involved at different times.  Our intern Kelly also helped to set up our site–which included hauling all of the pavers.  I learned from Jan that our team came in third place with the fund raising, bringing in a total of $3,098!  Way to go team.

This Tuesday (July 1), we will have a meeting to set up and clean the gyro stand at Cravath Lake.  We will also have an informal social meeting and will order food the the crew.  Duane will send out an updated work schedule for the 4th of July festivities this week.  Duane–could you please confirm what time you would like folks to show up?  THANKS!

On Wednesday, July 9, we will be staffing the Jefferson County Fair (for “Kids’ Day).  PLEASE check your calendars to see if you can volunteer for even a few hours.  There are still many open slots and we can’t put all of the pressure on the Zahn family to staff the entire event.  I have reattached the sign up sheet for the fair.

Kelly is doing a great job sending out updates on club activities via Facebook.  She just sent out another update.  Feel free to check it out!

Our next board meeting is Tuesday, July 8 at 5:30pm at Jessica’s.  If you haven’t responded to me yet, please email me to indicate your attendance.

July 15 at 12 noon will be our next on-campus Optimist meeting in UC 259A.  Our guest speaker will be Steve Bertagnolli who will discuss our campus grounds–current and future projects.

We will have another paver painting gathering on Sunday, July 20 from 12pm-6pm at Kim and Angie’s House.  We have some orders to complete from Relay for Life yesterday.  Please email me to let me know if you would like to participate. We had a great time last Sunday.  It’s a fun fellowship activity.

Thank you–and Happy 4th!

Kim 🙂

A few new photos from recent Optimist Club events have been added. Click the “Recent Photos” link in the banner above to see and enjoy.

Dave

Happy first full day of summer!

We had a great day June 22 painting pavers for Relay for Life—which is scheduled for this Saturday, June 28 at Whitewater High School. Thank you to Angie for organizing the paver party. Special thanks to all of our creative participants: Angie, Kate and her daughter Shelli, Jan, our friend Edie, Angie’s sister Monica and her daughter Anna, our intern Kelly and her sister Bridget. I enjoyed being part of the process, as well. I have attached a few photos. Kelly will be putting some of the photos from our activity on Facebook within the next few days. I have shared 46 photos in Dropbox.

Please remember that we have an evening meeting June 24 at 5:30pm at the Lakefront Pub. This is also the banker’s night for Relay for Life. Jan or Kate will be stopping by our club meeting for a short time to collect any final donations for Relay for Life, and then they will head off to turning in our money.

The gyro stand and Jefferson County Fair are also just around the corner. Thank you to the coordinators of these important fund raising activities for our club and to all of our hard working participants!

Board members, please respond to the note I sent out on Friday regarding our upcoming board meeting on July 8 at 5:30pm at Jessica’s. Thank you to Jeanine and Angie for putting together our slate of officers for 2014-15.

See many of you soon.

In Optimism,

Kim 🙂