Kiwanis Club of Historic St. Augustine
Newsletter –
29 March 2007
President’s
Message:
The Geography Bee was a
smashing success!! Clearly everyone enjoyed it, except maybe the losers. A fine
contingent of Kiwanians showed up, as usual, and most of us were stumped by at
least one question. Our newest member, Barney,
had volunteered to help and was pressed into service his first time out. I’m
sure he is like every other member who has ever attended the Bee; he is looking
forward to the next one so he can see what he forgot since junior high. (Barney, like most of us, went to junior
high and not middle school.) I must say, however, that the personnel running
the show were not very familiar with the rules. We had at least two fits and
starts that I was aware of, and that didn’t look good. Most people there didn’t
know what was to happen, so I guess no harm no foul.
Coming Events: [Advise the
editor of events of interest at 797-4332]
March 30 - April 1, 2007: The North Midyear Conference for divisions 1-15 to be held in Lake City in conjunction with the Hog Wild Pig Crazy Barbeque festival. See our website for details.
6 April 2007: First Friday Art Walk, check out the local galleries
downtown and taste their food and wine.
7 April 2007: Uptown Saturday Night, check out the local galleries
uptown on the first Saturday of each month, and taste their food and wine.
30 April 2007: The Noon Club is sponsoring their annual
golf tournament at Marsh Creek. Shotgun Start is at noon. The price is $100 per person or $375 per
foursome. I’m not a golfer, but many in our club are, so go and support another
Kiwanis project. You’ll know most of the folks there. Prizes and lunch are
included.
Guests: Back for another visit with our club and our fair
city is Harry Matteson, from Malone,
New York. Snow is melting up
there, so he will be leaving us soon.
Programs:
(Check the website for your speaker assignment date.)
LAST WEEK:
Otis Mason introduced Charles Ellis, a former President of
the Fort Mose Historical Society. He was accompanied by Steven Carter, of the Florida Park Service. Together they gave a
brief but complete history of the fort, and included some of the future plans
for the site. The new building will be opening soon and there is movement afoot
to put this site on the map. St. Augustine
gets short shrift in the history books, basically because it was Spanish and
Catholic, so Plymouth and Jamestown get much more notoriety. So we need to get
the word out that not only is this the oldest European settled city in the country,
but it was also home to the first free black community in America. We get
enough bad press concerning the 1960’s and the Civil Rights movement, so we
need to get a few brownie points for having Ft. Mose
here. I can hardly wait for the new building to open.
THIS WEEK:
Rudy Xue has the job and he has had
a speaker lined up for some time.
NEXT WEEK:
We will have our committee meetings and
Board of Directors meeting. Come next week with some ideas for new projects and
new Interclub destinations.
⅓-⅓-⅓ DRAWING WINNERS: The winning tickets were drawn and the winners were Charlie Stevens and Frank Nemec. (As Ray learned the week before, you can’t win if you’re not present
and buy a ticket.) Congrats to both. Remember to mix those tickets well (put mine
on top), and to buy your tickets early and often.
Late Breaking News:
March Madness is upon us; and
Florida keeps
on winning. This should be a good game on Saturday when they play UCLA, the
team they beat to win the title last year. And did you see that Georgetown game? Man, who
would have thought that North
Carolina would go to sleep for that long. No doubt
about it, this is the best time of the year to watch basketball.
The regular baseball season kicks off in a couple of
weeks. Anyone want to make a trip as a group to see the Suns play? We did it a
time or two in the past when Bart
was active in the club. If you are interested I could check and see if there is
a smoking area so we can puff cigars while watching. Some stadiums do have a
designated smoking area now a days.
Otis Mason
was good enough to help me in one of my annual projects. For several years (its
eight or nine) I have helped to judge a 4-H/Tropicana speech contest at Webster
Elementary, along with two other people. This is for the fifth grade class of Jack Edwards. Don’t ask how it I got
started, but one of the things was that I was a Toastmaster. It is a joy and a
learning experience to spend two hours with a room full of young people. This
is similar to the Geography Bee; once you get involved you look forward to it
again. Thanks for your help, Otis.
Quote(s) of the
Week:
“NASA has announced plans to
build a space station on the moon. When asked where they would build the space
station on the moon a NASA spokesman said, ‘Right between the two Starbucks’.”
—Conan O’Brian
“The belief in a God All Powerful wise and
good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of
man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor
adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities
impressed with it.” —James Madison
“When the San Francisco
Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought... they [behave] less like a
dove or a hawk than like an ostrich—convinced it would shut out the world by
hiding its head in the sand... When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control
negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco
Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.
But then, they always blame America
first. When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central
America, the San Francisco Democrats don’t blame the guerrillas
and their Soviet allies; they blame United States policies of 100 years
ago. But then, they always blame America first. The American people
know better.” —former UN ambassador Jeanne
Kirkpatrick
“Clearly, a
civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the
energy and conviction to defend itself.” —Jean
Francois Revel