President’s Letter – February, 2008

Greetings Fellow Skålleagues!

Our February meeting was held at the West Palm Beach Marriott Hotel. The cocktail hour, with open bar, was greatly enhanced by the great hot and cold hors d'oeuvres which they presented in our private dining room. There was more than enough to go around.

The opening toast was given by our newest transfer member, Mark Flager of Voyages of Discovery Cruises.

With the club 49 members strong we acknowledged the presence of many guests, and potential new members. Perspective members were, the guest of Bernie Falkow, Martin Baum (Tele Travel) with his wife Ruth, Jawayne Kaiser's guest Didi Nori of Aimo Travel in Lake Worth and Becky Reincke the Director of Sales for Pelican Bay Resort in the Bahamas. The wives of Bernard Falkow (Marilyn), and Scotty Cassidy (Marianne) were charming additions. The following guest SKAL members were present, Jan West from Washington DC, was with us as was Sheila Schwartz from the Miami club with Lots of Yachts. Stefan Richter had 2 guests, Dexter Tutein, a Nantucket hotel owner, and Manny Bonomo a retired American Airlines executive. Bernie Falkow also brought Eric Hinman a golf pro at PalmAire as his guest who was our first guest from the golfing community. Both perspective member Mike Hartfield and his wife JP were welcome guests at the dinner. Our newest member, James Hansen brought Maria Matz as his guest and perspective member from the West Palm Beach Hilton. We are continuing to grow.

SIUSA recently introduced a SKAL Passport which each member is to receive and will be stamped whenever the member attends a SKAL function other than his home clubs meeting. Be sure to get yours the next time you attend our meetings.

Our 50/50 winners were members Bill Pullen and Ron Stevens, who donated their proceeds to the Joe Neary Fund.

The closing toast was given by our new member, James Hansen.

Those of you who have not logged on to our website recently, www.skal-ftlauderdale-palmbeaches.org, are encouraged to do so. Look for all of the pictures from the February 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 travelizme@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 Young SKAL introduction is planned for our March Dinner at which time there will also be an industry presentation.

The locations for our upcoming meetings are as follows:

March 18, will be held at the Embassy Suites in Deerfield Beach. This is our clubs General Annual Meeting at which officers will be giving their respective "State of the Club" messages.

April 15th, The Hilton West Palm Beach will be the site of our Annual Black Tie Installation Dinner.

Our annual Golf Tournament is scheduled for early June.

Remember that unless otherwise indicated all our meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of each month except July and August.

Upcoming SKAL events are:

In May the NAASC conference will be held in Jamaica and in October the SKAL International Annual Conference will be in Taipei, Taiwan. All are welcome.

I look forward to seeing you all at the March Meeting.

SKAL!

Wayne Lampert
President