When I looked out my window this morning I saw a Winter Wonderland – Snow on the trees, sidewalks and roads. When I checked my computer a frantic message from President Bob who was stuck in the snow in Tolland - “What do I do? Do we hold the meeting?” I replied that the snow had stopped, and it looked OK. The best advice came from Lunch Master Sayre – “Hold the meeting or you’re stuck with 24 chicken lunches”. ‘Nuf said, we held the meeting at the Ridge with the sun out, parking lot plowed, and a very Spring like afternoon. The big question – “Will we have a quorum for the Annual Meeting?” With today’s membership we need 14 live bodies, a far cry from day’s long past! Counting members as they paid George, we had our Quorum by Noon!
Sgt. At Arms Jack Sayre rushed through a series of fines levied upon those who liked or disliked his ugly Christmas sweater – negatives won out! A new first – Steve Jacoby paid for being early! The big catch of the day came from Dan Larson who was celebrating (for the 3rd time today) his 70th birthday, and 48 years of wedded bliss. He sure had to pay dearly as he forced us to listen to Jim Watts sing Happy Birthday to him. Jack said he hit up every member in attendance – he deserves to be a permanent shakedown artist!Anwar the introduced our speaker Xin Fang Zheng, a Chinese teacher from the Critical Language Program, who is teaching Chinese at CIBA, and is an English teacher back in China. He talked about modern life in China. He used a lot of video graphics illustrating the many faces of China. His summery was that things are truly improving in today’s China. One interesting point is that very little cash is used - it’s a cell phone economy. Just flash your payment app and transactions are complete. We haven’t gotten there yet!
We adjourned and reopened as the Annual Meeting, led by Marc Glass filling in for President Bob who had to leave to attend a funeral. Secretary Wes Willett called the Roll and determined we had a quorum and asked for an approval of last year’s minutes. Approved! He announced our average attendance to be 58% for the year.
Treasurer George Schoen was then called up to deliver the Treasurer’s Report.
The Account Balances:
Operating 6/30/19 $3,965 12/11/19 3,764
Charitable 6/30/19 24,605 12/11/19 44,347
Includes 5,155
Agnelli Memorial
Note – Golf Tournament Netted $19,147
Charitable Expenditures to date $20,110 (Scholarship, Police, Hurricane
Relief, Koats for Kids, food banks, Turkeys, and Thanksgiving baskets)
Next Election of Officers for 2020-21.
President - Bob Buettner
Past President - Kevin Kickery
Treasurer – George Schoen
Secretary – Wes Willett
Directors – Dan Firestone, Neal Cunningham, Anwar Hossain, Jack Sayre,
Bob Wood, Laura Floyd
New Business – None – Ritual Business – Raffle – Jim Watts
Flowers – Ruth Sheehan
Adjourn – 1:25
‘til Next Week at the Gallery Holiday Party 6:00 PM
Bob Wood, with thanks to Anwar for filling in last week!