Gums January 3, 20025 (Jan. 03, 2025)

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nding in for our greeters this morning are Tom Overton and Gary Strowbridge. It feels like winter and the air is crisp. Andy Towt, once again standing in for Harry Fegley, rings the bell promptly at 7 and shouts out the greeting. Bryce Slaby and Karl Geil gives us the Remembrance Reading this morning. As we enter into another year, we want to remember those who are no longer with us. The people who built this club, their names will be announced since the founding of this club. And the bell rings for each. This club was started in 1976 and has a long and storied history. Bryce then leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

GUEST

Guests joining us this morning: Matt Dollarhide introduces his neighbor and friend, Berni Jauregui. Berni is a big sports fan, especially for those teams in his home state of Kansas. Welcome Berni.

PRESIDENTS'S CORNER

Presidents Announcements: President Harry Fegley has been in the hospital recently and feels that his health is preventing him from performing his duties as well as he would like. Harry has decided to resign as President and asks that someone be named as replacement at the next Board meeting, which will be January 13. Members are encouraged to speak with Board members to voice any concerns or suggestions.

CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS

Greg Hurd, is one of three charter members (with Bill Litchfield and Kent Gloor) who is still active with the club has 2 things for us. First he tells us that during the 3^rd year the membership went down to 13 members, and he believes in the strength of this club as an institution that will continue. Kent Gloor says he has known Greg Hurd since Junior High, in Springfield IL., and thinks Greg would make a great Club President.

Greg also endorses Grouper as a great way to reimburse membership dues. LET GROUPER PAY YOUR DUES. There is now a link on the Monaco South website to GROUPER. It is: hellogrouper.com/join-a-group/?utm_source=corpsite&utm_campaign=get-started-v2

GROUPER has partnered with OI, and if you your health plan qualifies, GROUPER will pay you up to $100/year to remain active in your club.

TREE LOT COMMITTEE

E-mail from Denny Dressman to committee members:

Hello All: Thank you for being part of our 2024 Tree Lot marketing effort. Thanks to you, we put flyers in more than a hundred businesses, made it onto local television and appeared in print in numerous publications online and in print. As Mark announced at yesterday's meeting, we're going to have a post mortem meeting next Friday, immediately after our regular breakfast gathering, in the front room at the Legion Hall. I hope you can join us. At this meeting, we hope to learn about successes and flubs from your experience and point of view. We'll use your input to try to make next year's effort even more effective.

I truly appreciate everyone stepping up the way you did in so many ways.

OPTIMIST GEAR

Michael Chavez has shirts, long sleeves, short sleeves, and polos available for order on the bar, as well as baseball caps. Sign up and see where we can get the price point down to.

SPEAKER

Andy then introduces Karl Geil who will speak to the importance of the Brain Bowl, which is coming up this month. The Brain Bowl is coming, the award winning Optimist Brain Bowl. Started back in 1982 by the Buckingham Optimist Club. It’s an academic competition for Middle School grades 6-8. Who is invited? Every public and private school in Colorado and Wyoming is invited to participate. The deadline for registration is December. Central Region is at Heritage High School, in the North region 49 teams from 15 different schools participated. What do Optimists do at these competitions? They can be readers, score keepers, time keepers, runners, and data entry along with a couple of people who handle the protests that come up. Some Optimist clubs sponsor schools and pay their registration fees. You can attend training sessions for each location. This training will show you what to do and how to set up for each day. More than 35 Optimists clubs provide volunteers and /or funding . Go to the website www.OptimistBrainBowl.org where you can find out more about what you can do and create an account to become a volunteer. Please volunteer for one of these events and Karl promises you will enjoy the event. The Brain Bowl has earned a reputation as a premier academic event for those kids participating. Dates are January 25 at Heritage High School, North competition is February 1 at Standley Lake High School, and February 22 is the Championship competition at Hamilton Middle School. Andy Towt tells us that taking a picture of the classroom before the days events, to which Karl adds that drawing a map can help with putting things back the way they were when it all started.

Jake Baker announces he has 7 bags of clothes to donate to Hamilton Middle School for kids and adults. Thanks to those who donated.

DRAWING

Do we have a drawing? $150 in the pot, 6 of Hearts is the lucky card this morning.

Cup winners: Kent Gloor, Matt Dollarhide, Kent Gloor again, Gary Jerman, Pat Bush, Kevin Dempsey.

Card drawers: Kent Gloor, Phil Perington.

Pat Bush’s name is drawn out of the plastic jug and draws a card. He is not successful.

We recite the Creed and go forward to spread Optimism.

A LITTLE FUN