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President’s Letter – March, 2009Greetings Fellow Skålleagues! Our March Annual Meeting was held at the Le Bistro Restaurant in Lighthouse Point. The dinner was especially prepared to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day. From the shamrock decorations on the table (provided by our own President-elect Teresa Nix) to the green Akvavit the holiday spirit was present. A special dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage was one of the options and the entire meal was presented sumptuously as well as being delicious. The opening toast was given by our resident Irishman Ben Murphy. As this is my final letter to you as President I wish to openly thank all of you for your support these last 2 years and I look forward to working for your interests on the Board in the future. With the club continuing to enlarge we are now 45 members strong. Our newest members are Laurie Summa of Travel Insured and Robert Betancourt who specializes in and is manager of the golf tour division of Go In Class, Inc. We acknowledged the presence of the following guests and prospective members: Clothilde (Cloie) Morales (Majestic Travel - Boca Raton) brought her friends Dickson Faneite of Connections Tours & Hotels, and SKAL member from SKAL Viken, Norway, Velsa Jakobsen. Bernie Falkow brought Alex Gannon of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and her husband Rick. Tom Miller from the Hilton West Palm Beach introduced us all to his wife Kim Miller who is Director of Sales and Marketing at Gallery One (a Double Tree Hotel) in Ft. Lauderdale. Prospective member Cathy Cappillino, manager of Bess Williams Travel joined us as did Jack Linnerud a consultant with OTO Development a guest of Becky Reincke. The state of our club messages were delivered by Carlos Banks and myself. We are in good shape both financially and with regard to membership growth and if we continue to grow we will have a financial surplus at the end of the year. The Board of Directors, at its meeting, unanimously decided to have both a Holiday Dinner Dance as in the past and also to sponsor a group weekend cruise. The members present were polled and the consensus, together with those who e-mailed their sentiments, was to go with the Dec. 18th sailing of the Ruby Princess. A notice will be sent to the membership shortly asking for deposits to hold the cabin category they desire. From the feedback we received there are many members interested in going. Our 50/50 winners were Steve Barofsky and, talk about the luck of the Irish, Ben Murphy. The closing toast was given by reinstated member Nicola Iannone. Those of you who have not logged on to our website recently, www.skal-ftlauderdale-palmbeaches.org, are encouraged to do so to find additional club news and the pictures from the March Dinner. Additionally, any member wishing to have a link put on the website to their business can do so by sending a 'live link' to rwstaff@bellsouth.net. Those members who have had a change in email address are requested to contact Paul Cook at travelizeme@aol.com and inform him of those changes. In addition any other changes (address, phone, etc.) should be made on the SKAL International website, www.skal.org with a copy to Paul Cook and Carlos Banks. All members are invited to visit the SKAL International website to check on future conferences at www.skal.org. The locations for our upcoming meetings are as follows:
Those of you who did not attend the opening of the new Hyatt Place Hotel in West Palm Beach missed a gala affair. Thanks go to our member James Hansen and the hotels General Manager Marcel Girard for their kind invitation which I and seven other SKAL members utilized to familiarize ourselves with the first new hotel in downtown West Palm Beach in 27 years. The rooms are like mini-suites and I heard only praises from those guests I encountered while staying overnight. The food was catered by various venues surrounding the hotel and to say the least it was sumptuous. Remember that unless otherwise indicated all our meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of each month except July and August when no meetings are scheduled. Upcoming SKAL events are:
I look forward to seeing you all at the April Installation Meeting. SKAL!
Wayne Lampert |