Friendship Connections The Friendship Force of Oregon s Mid-Willamette Valley April 2017 APRIL GATHERING BY KATHY BUTLER Due to the Easter Holiday falling on our usual gathering day, there will be no gathering during the month of April. Instead, consider joining Mary Ellen Lind for the MEG luncheon details below the more the merrier! APRIL BOARD MEETING BY KATHY BUTLER In April, our board meeting will be on Thursday, April 13, at 1pm at the Umpqua Bank, 333 SW Ellsworth, Albany, OR 97321. As always, all members are welcome to attend. MEET EAT GET ACQUAINTED (MEG) LUNCHEON Tuesday, April 11, 11:30 a.m. IXTAPA MEXICAN RESTAURANT 1320 SW Fairview Ave, Dallas, Oregon We visit Dallas this time for the location of our luncheon gathering and indulge in Mexican foods as we visit with one another. Come, bring friends whom you would like to introduce to Friendship Force club members. Come and share your experiences with Friendship Force journeys and with hosting ambassadors from countries around the world. Please RSVP by April 7 th to Mary Ellen Lind, melind@peak.org or call, 541-231-6973. 1 P a g e
C A L E N D A R O F E V E N T S APRIL 11, 11:30AM, MEG LUNCHEON IXTAPA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 1320 SW FAIRVIEW AVE, DALLAS APRIL 13, 1PM, BOARD MEETING UMPQUA BANK, 333 SW ELLSWORTH, ALBANY S U N S H I N E N EWS Contact Sue Stein, 541-791-7144, with news. Dear Friends: PRESIDENT S MESSAGE BY JOHN WOLCOTT Our 40 th Anniversary Celebration was a very successful event. Everyone I talked to afterward agreed! Plenteous and profuse thanks to Chris Duval for organizing it all, and for leading the program. The same to Evedene Bennett for getting out the publicity. A front-page article with pictures in the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper was quite a coup! Also, the 20-minute interview on radio station KGAL. Gail and I, and Kathy Butler were the interviewees, and I thought it went great, though I may be a bit prejudiced. Getting the Albany Mayor, Sharon Konopa, there to recognize our contribution to her city added a special touch of class. Thanks also to Marilyn Peterson for putting together the slide show and showing it, and to those who contributed pictures from their trips. I always enjoy seeing pictures from our members trips and sharing my own. And I want to thank Mary Ellen Lind for getting the beautifully decorated and delicious chocolate cake! Anyone else who helped, thanks also! We did good! And thanks to all of you who came and helped make this a truly great celebration. In Friendship, John Friendship Force Pledge As a member of the Friendship Force, I recognize that I can make a difference. I recognize that I have a mission. That mission is to be a friend to the people of the world. As I embark upon this adventure, I know that others will be watching me. I know that through my example to my fellow citizens and the people of other nations, the cause of friendship, love and peace can be furthered. I can make a difference. This Issue of Connections, and more information about our club, may be found on our website: http://www.fforegon.org Contact us at: fforegon@comcast.net or PO Box 1703, Albany, Oregon 97321 2 P a g e
FRIENDSHIP FORCE 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION BY CHRIS DUVAL Our 40 th Anniversary event was held on Sunday, March 19, and was a huge success. Thanks to the efforts of many club members, 45 members and guests enjoyed an overview of what Friendship Force is all about. Everyone who attended was able to choose from an array of door prizes, and look at mementos of past activities and travels. The cake and flowers were beautiful. Thanks also goes to the Honorable Sharon Konopa, Mayor of Albany, who gave an address. It was really special to have her there. Here s to another 40 years of Friendship Force! 3 P a g e
SAVE THE DATE: MAY 13 BY MARILYN PETERSON Columbia Cascade will host a World Friendship Day and 40th Anniversary Celebration on May 13 in Portland. The event will run from 11am to about 3:30pm. It would be fun to have a good number of us attending. RSVPs are suggested and more information will be sent out by email. FIELD REP NEWS BY MARILYN PETERSON The new Field Representative for the Pacific Northwest/Northern Rockies region is Judi Smith who can be reached at judismith@comcast.net or by phone at 360.636.3012 Please welcome Judi to her position. For those who are unsure what the Field Rep does: we re the connection, especially for communication, between Friendship Force International (FFI) and the clubs. Often communications come from FFI to the Field Reps and then to the club presidents. Club presidents then share with their members that information. John will be sharing what he receives from Judi s communications. Thanks for all the help during my tenure as Field Rep (over 4 years). It s been fun and interesting. GLOBAL SOLAR ECLIPSE JOURNEY BY MARILYN PETERSON Thank you to everyone for the applications to host, day host and dinner host. If you haven t turned in an application, we could use a little more help. We are especially interested in finding a few folks to host pieces of our progressive dinner. It will be on Sunday, August 20 the day before the farewell party, late afternoon so that folks can get ready for an early Eclipse day. The progressive dinner will be three courses (salad, main and dessert) and we d like to have dinners in Salem, Albany and Corvallis. If you would like to help with the dinners (and we could use transportation as well as hosting), please let Mary Ellen Lind or Dennis Murphy know. Marilyn Peterson will be gadding about most of April and part of May. MAY 3-5, 2018 (YES, 2018) PLEASE PUT THIS DATE IN YOUR CALENDAR. WHY? BY MARILYN PETERSON These are the dates for the first biennial Super Regional Conference for the clubs in the western states. This conference includes our region (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana), the Rocky Mountain States (Wyoming and Colorado) and the Western States (California, Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico). Beginning in 2018 regional conferences and festivals will alternate with the World Conference (next World Conference will be 2020). Please put the dates on your calendar and start planning to attend the event in Elk Grove, California, sponsored by the Greater Sacramento FF club. Participants will stay at the Holiday Inn for the conference. Post-conference hosting will be provided by the Nevada and California clubs. If you have ideas for workshops and speakers, please send them to Marilyn Peterson at peterson.marilyn@comcast.net OR if you have a topic and would like to present on that topic during the conference, contact Marilyn. Wouldn t it be fun to take the train to Sacramento for this event? 4 P a g e
FRIENDSHIP SHARED BY VAN NICHOLS Each Friendship Shared event is special and the gathering at the home of Kay Macpherson was no exception. Kay and Pat Byers joined forces to provide us with a delightful meal of appetizers, tacos and dessert. The assortment of delicious appetizers led us to believe that this was the meal. Appetizers included Kay's famous 7-layer dip with chips, fruit and cheese, spicy sausage and cream cheese dip with more chips, and tiny Franks in a Blanket (I asked Pat for the sausage and cream cheese dip recipe). Kay is shown explaining the assortment of food and beverage to all. We filled our plates with appetizers shared stories and got to know Kay s dog. The dinner bell sounded and we were served both chicken and beef tacos with all the taco toppings. I went for the hard-shell taco first (limited room for the toppings and a little messy). The second-time around the soft tortilla held more goodies and was a little less messy. Dessert was another Kay creation, Fabulous Mint and Chocolate Frozen Squares. The tables were cleared and it was time for several action-packed games of Mexican Train dominoes. It doesn t matter who wins each game everyone has a marvelous laugh filled time. After the experience, I was going through the toy section at Fred Myers with my 2-year-old grandson and there was a set of Mexican Train dominos. Now I just need to find a time to break the game in. Thank you, Kay, and Pat for a great evening! Chris Duval hosted a St. Patrick s Day feast for Friendship Shared. She invited 10 people to participate in her cozy home. She enlisted her sister to help with the cooking (Chris claimed shortcomings in the kitchen). Green was the order of the day. There was green punch, green dip with vegetables and deviled eggs with green filling topped with a green olive. Guests were encouraged to wear green. Lloyd won the prize for costume with a kilt and Irish sweater. Chris went around pinning signs on the back of each person making them something to do with the luck of the Irish. A person had to guess their identity by asking yes or no questions of people that had read their tag. I ended up as a lucky horse shoe Ted was a leprechaun and so on. Dinner was served. Traditional corn beef and cabbage served up in large bowls made up the main course. Irish soda bread graced the center of the tables. We all quieted down while consuming the delicious food. Dessert consisted of cake with a special frosting. The tables were cleared and out came some word games. We had to figure out how to match parts of Irish sayings that had been divided in to two columns. Ted and I figured out about half of the sayings and received some gold foil covered chocolate pieces as reward. We did a lot better on a cross word puzzle with clues based on St. Patrick s Day words. We all left satisfied with good food, good times and good friends. 5 P a g e
J O U R N E Y S A N D C O N F E R E N C E S 2017 INBOUND: June: Big Canoe, Georgia USA August: Solar Eclipse Global Journey Our club is on Facebook. Please LIKE us at: The Friendship Force of Oregon s Mid-Willamette Valley. 2017 OUTBOUND September: Indonesia October: Big Canoe, Georgia USA Deadline for May Friendship Connections is April 25. Send copy to duval15@comcast.net Thanks! Chris Duval, Editor St. Patrick s Day at Chris Duval s Membership Application or Renewal Please complete one form for each member. Annual dues cover the cost of the monthly newsletter and expenses for Journeys and activities of the Friendship Force of Oregon s Mid-Willamette Valley, as well as membership in Friendship Force International, which provides discounted prices on Journey travel and other benefits. Memberships expire on December 31, 2017. Please PRINT clearly. Annual dues: Individual: $30.00 This is a NEW or RENEWAL application. Name: (one person per form, please) Address: City: State: Zip: Phone: Cell: Email: Mail to: Friendship Force, P.O. Box 1703, Albany, OR 97321 6 P a g e
GLOBAL SOLAR ECLIPSE JOURNEY BY MARILYN PETERSON Have you seen all the press that the Solar Eclipse is generating? The latest estimate I ve seen is 1 million visitors may try to view the eclipse in Oregon. This brings up an issue with our farewell/welcome/eclipse viewing party on August 21. Friendship Force members of other clubs have asked our members if they could come visit at the time of the eclipse without paying the ambassador fees. These requests are raising some issues. Our eclipse viewing party is for our ambassadors, our club members and their immediate families, and the club members from the Columbia Cascade club. If we permit one member to bring guests, we have to accept guests from all our members and with the crowds expected, we could easily exceed the capacity of our viewing party s location. In addition, we need all the hosts we can find for home hosting, progressive dinner hosting and day hosting for our 20 ambassadors. We need you to host for the journey (exchange) August 16-21. Our ambassadors have paid $957 to participate in this journey which is hosted by our club and by the Columbia Cascade club (Portland/Vancouver WA). Allowing others to be unofficial ambassadors without paying is not treating everyone equally. Thank you, all, who are helping to make this journey an adventure to be remembered. If you have any questions, please contact one of the journey coordinators: Marilyn Peterson peterson.marilyn@comcast.net; Mary Ellen Lind melind@peak.org; Dennis Murphy dmmurphy1@comcast.net Board of Directors 2017 Elected Officers: President: John Wolcott, Corvallis 541-230-5336 johnwolcott@mail.com Vice President: Kathy Butler, Albany 541-926-9897 4192butlerkw@comcast.net Secretary: Nancye Ballard, Corvallis 541-752-4441 ballardjn@gmail.com Treasurer: Van Nichols, Salem 503-581-1414 vpncheer@comcast.net Appointed Chairpersons: Newsletter Editor Chris Duval, Salem 971-218-0361 duval15@comcast.net Membership: Currently unfilled. If you would like to volunteer, contact John Wolcott. Journey Coordinator: Pat Byers, Shedd 541-738-7000 pmac@proaxis.com Journey Treasurer: Peter Harr, Corvallis 541-752-0990 harrhaus3@comcast.net Journey, Host, and Ambassador Coordinators: Inbound: June, 2017 Big Canoe, GA HCs Rita Powell and Chris Duval August, 2017 Solar Eclipse Global JCs Marilyn Peterson, Interns Dennis Murphy and Mary Ellen Lind Outbound: September, 2017 Indonesia ACs Ted Powell and Van Nichols October, 2017 Big Canoe, GA ACs John Wolcott and Gail Wolcott ===================================================================================== Other Leadership Positions: Field Rep. for PNW/NW Marilyn Peterson, Albany 541-926-7431 peterson.marilyn@comcast.net Website: Marilyn Peterson, Albany 541-926-7431 peterson.marilyn@comcast.net Membership Outreach: Caye Poe, Dayton 503-864-3933 johnfrancis4444@comcast.net John Francis, Dayton 503-864-3933 ladycaye001@comcast.net Inventory & Merchandise Rita Powell, Dallas 503-831-3755 deerpathrita@gmail.com Sunshine: Sue Stein, Albany 541-791-7144 sstein12345@comcast.net Historian: Kathy Butler, Albany 541-926-9897 4192butlerkw@comcast.net Archivist: Rosella Workinger, Albany 541-926-4105 rworkinger@comcast.net Friendship Shared: Van Nichols, Salem 503-581-1414 vpncheer@comcast.net Navigators Barb Callner, Albany 541-928-5550 smilecall@hotmail.com Meet, Eat & Get Acquainted: Mary Ellen Lind, Corvallis 541-231-6973 melind@peak.org 7 P a g e