“Oh what a night…” As always when we get together such a great group of Santa Cruz Woodies folks, we have quite a happening.
We had a great attendance. We served somewhere over 104 dinners and the food was really good. We’ve had rave reviews, including special appreciation for the hand made fruit turnovers warm out of the oven!
And of course, there was no lack of “special recognition” awards. Awards for spending time in Tahoe and spotting bears! Awards for making creative use of office space that, to me, looked suspiciously like an outdoor toilet. There were awards for inspiring each other, entertaining each other and, of course, poking fun at each other.
This part of the evening is always one of my favorites. It continues to reminds us to not take ourselves too seriously and gives us the opportunity to creatively recognize the group’s many unique talents! And of course, we capped the recognition off with another unique slide show by of Jim Vickery, which we all watch holding our breath, hoping we won’t be someone Jim recognizes!
The planning group did an outstanding job of honoring our out-going president and welcoming in yours truly! Arlene was presented with one of Bob Barbour’s exceptional photographs as a thank you for all her commitment and hard work for the club this last year.
Most of our Past Presidents were a part of the celebration, dressed in appropriate educational attire, competing to answer challenging and entertaining questions and about their past Woodie experiences.
In addition to celebrating all the special events of the 2016 year for Santa Cruz Woodies, we also had the privilege of celebrating the 80th birthday of one of our members. With a little help from the club, Pete Passof’s family was able to surprise Pete with a cake and recognition of his upcoming 80th birthday. For an event like this to be as successful as this one always is, an enormous amount of planning takes place in advance. Attendees show up to the dinner to see a hall decorated from floor to ceiling, with great food and wonderful music to keep us groovin’.
I want to thank all of the many, many, many dedicated members that completed the work before the event, during the event and, of course, after the event to make this another amazing Installation Dinner. A special thank you needs to go out to Jim and Malinda Alves for being the point folks for this one. The Alves have the planning for this event down to a science! Overall, an amazing way to start off our 2017 year!
Santa Cruz Woodies A Chapter of the National Woodie Club
