MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear CAL Gals,

A special thank-you to those of you who showed the North Idaho pioneer spirit and attended Wednesday’s meeting after the big windstorm with its power outages. It was still a big crowd, but probably down about 30% from the month before. I was a little worried about whether we would have enough people to take care of all the seniors on the Christmas Giving Tree, but you rose to the occasion and many of you took responsibility for more than one senior. Thank you, and a special thanks to Mary Daubersmith and Betsy Walker who kept track of all the paper work for the senior project.

I really had fun at this meeting. I loved the thanksgiving poem that Maribeth Lynch found, loved the story of the man giving Robbie Gleason $20 to get her to stop selling him on eScrip, loved telling you the story of the lady who discovered I had undercharged her by $6.36 and who sent us a check for it. I hadn’t expected the program to be so touching. Mike Ehredt’s telling of honoring the fallen of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was rife with stories told to him as he walked across the country. It was a wonder saga of determination, affirmation, and self-discovery. The whole meeting felt warm and relaxed. If you missed the meeting, you can find out more about Mike and his run at http://www.projectamericarun.com/project-america-run/. He plans to have a book out in the future with the stories.

I’m looking forward, as always to the CAL Christmas lunch. Western Pleasure is such a great atmosphere for having an event. The social committee always out-does itself and they seem to have so much fun doing it. It is particularly nice that we will have buses once again to drive us up and down Gold Creek. The party bus gets us all in the mood for fun. Tickets were selling briskly before the meeting and at break. Get into BizBaz ASAP to sign-up.

I went to the PEO fundraising luncheon last Thursday which I do every year. Don’t ask me what PEO stands for because I haven’t a clue. All I know is that it is a sorority organization, which encourages education for women. Their annual luncheon is much like the old fundraisers CAL used to do. Members donate items for auction and then buy each other’s stuff. This year someone had donated an African print tablecloth, napkins, and giraffe carved napkin rings. Guess who had to have that. One of the friends that I went to Africa with will be getting a nice present and I didn’t have to haul it back in my luggage.

I’m signing off so I can go outside to clean up Cooper’s leavings. As an added bonus I am finding a fair amount of elk deposits. I wouldn’t mind so much, but I would like to see the rest of them. Apparently I have to get up at 5:00 a.m. for that. Not going to happen. I’ll just be content to know they have visited by their calling cards.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, your families, and your treasured friends.

Sherry