President’s Letter – February, 2006

By Dick Stafford

Greetings Fellow Skålleagues!

The club held our February meeting at the Marriott Hotel in West Palm Beach. Thanks to General Manager Tim Digby and his staff for hosting an enjoyable evening featuring an outstanding gourmet dinner. As everyone was finishing their third course which included a trio presentation of jumbo cab cake with fried green tomato & white balsamic glaze, buckwheat noodle salad with julienne vegetables and grilled shrimp with papaya-mint relish the anticipation of being able to finish eating their entrée and dessert - yet to come - became a reality. At the conclusion of the meal Tim introduced the chef and his staff to a standing ovation from the club's members. All of the menu items that we enjoyed are featured on the hotels new restaurant menu and we encourage you to visit the Bistro Ten Zero restaurant to treat yourself to another great meal. Len Stone made the comment as we were leaving that it was one of the best meals he had ever had at a SKAL function.

Several guests joined us at the dinner. Prospective new member Joe Ogni. Ricardo Bustamante was a guest of Wayne Lampert. It was nice to have visiting Skalleague and full time Palm Beach resident Jan West back with us as he continues to recuperate from hip replacement surgery. Also joining us and receiving Palm Beach banners were visiting Skalleagues Ken Birch from Ottawa, Canada and Werner Michels and his wife from Bielefeld, Germany. Both reside part time in the Palm Beach area.

Our membership has reached 36 as of this week. We ended last year below 30 and lost 4 members in January who did not renew their membership in SKAL. Since the first of the year we have 9 new members with several more applications in process. The membership should know that as of the first of the year the San Diego Club has been dropped since they were down to 11 members and the Greensboro Club has been suspended due to low membership. When you consider that the Los Angeles Club only has 60 + members with their geographic area and population - our club is doing quite well. We look forward to a strong year of growth and hope to lead the area in new members.

We were very pleased to announce that SIUSA has finally voted approval for our club to add Ft. Lauderdale to our name. Thanks to Lee Smolinski for his tireless work and persistence over the past two years in bringing this issue to a positive conclusion.

Paul Cook and Scotty Cassidy will begin working on our golf tournament for this summer. We will try to arrange a date earlier in the summer so that we can avert last year's problems with hurricane season.

Our locations for upcoming dinner meetings are:

March 21, 2006 - we will be at the Renaissance in Ft. Lauderdale

April 18, 2006 - we will be at the Marriott in Boca Raton

The March meeting is our annual general meeting. The club's officers will give their annual reports to the membership for the 2005 year including our year end financial report and budget for 2006. Additional routine business will be conducted as required. The details of the club's name change will be discussed with the membership. A final vote on the club's new name will also be taken as we move forward to complete all of the requirements of SIUSA and SKAL International.

The April meeting is our formal Installation of Officers Dinner. We will let you know next month details of the ceremony and dinner. Please block this important date on your calendar and plan to bring your spouse or a guest to the dinner.

SKAL!

Dick Stafford
President