President’s Letter – May, 2005

By Dick Stafford

Greetings fellow Skålleagues!

We returned to Pete's Restaurant in Boca Raton for our May meeting having held our first meeting at Pete's in June, 2004. We had a good turnout and Pete's provided us with another great meal. We had several guests this month including two prospective new members Peter Berlin of Peter Berlin's Travel in Pompano Beach and Bruce Seagul the new General Manager of the Holiday Inn at the Palm Beach International Airport. Bruce told us that he hopes to have the hotel back open soon after finally completing the renovations from last year's hurricanes. He also said that they were planning on reopening the Phillips Seafood Restaurant at the property which is good news for all those seafood lovers who are familiar with the Phillips name. Bernhard & Nancy Kainer joined us again as did retired Skalleague Jeff Niven. Bernie Falkow joined us from the Atlantic City club and Ron Stevens famous "gym rats" made their presence known.

Carlos Banks, with the assistance of our own "master of ceremonies" Ron Stevens, handled this month's 50/50 with a new twist. The announced winners had to pick from three separate stacks of bills for their winnings without knowing what the varying amounts were.

Scotty Cassidy is on the mend from his knee replacement surgery and asked us to say hello to everyone for him. Peter Pinkas is in the hospital, and we send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

At the Board meeting we discussed ideas for several special events that the club can host this year over and above our regular monthly dinners. We are considering a weekend family picnic this summer, a 1 or 2 night weekend cruise this fall, and several other ideas for the spring. We will announce these events at the June meeting. The board is very interested in your input and ideas. For those members who have not responded to the questionnaire that was sent out last month please do so as soon as possible. We also discussed having the club participate in a local charity event. By assisting a local charity the club would be helping our own area and at the same time receive recognition for our efforts in the local and business community. We voted to hold our annual Christmas dinner dance on the second Tuesday of December - the 13th - so that the date is not so close to the holiday season when we all have a number of commitments to fulfill.

Carlos Banks reviewed his report on the Congress held this month in Calgary. You can read his full report on the club news page of the website. To read the full report, click on http://www.skalpalmbeaches.org/skal_news.html.

The June meeting will be at the Holiday Inn Oceanfront at Highland Beach. There will be a Hawaiian Luau complete with music for the members and their guests. Mark your calendars for June 21st, and bring your wife or significant other - the dress is casual. Mike Gulotty will be sending out the call to meeting shortly.

The clubs annual golf tournament will be held at the Westchester Golf Club in Boynton Beach on Saturday July 9th. As usual, there will be food, fun, trophies for those of you who play well, and we are making arrangements for overnight accommodations. We need assistance from the members in securing auction items for the tournament - please contact Paul Cook and Mike Gulotty

SKAL

Dick Stafford
President