If you wish you were Irish

Hello Everyone - If you did not have Irishness thrust upon you by birth, you should have been at Bolton Banter's St. Paddy's Day meeting on March 19th.  Chair Eric McSolowka created a true Irish environment complete with a "pot of gold",  a multitude of green decorations and of course Irish music.  No one could pronounce the word of the meeting, "Failte" but it means "welcome". 

Certainly, we were happy to welcome guests Tom, Heather and Area 15 Governor Theresa Murray.  Val Koncan and Pat Burness got the blarney off to a good start with their opening toasts and joke of the evening respectively. 

Members did get serious for one moment as they voted on a motion put forward by the executive to extend the break time by five minutes to fifteen minutes.  The extra minutes give everyone more time to mix, mingle and network.  The motion passed. 

Carol Dowell, in charge of Table Blarney, managed a creditable County Clare accent as she led us through the most Irish table topics session imaginable.  Just try making up a story using such unrelated words as "Dublin, tomatoes and gloves".  Catherine Keyes took the ribbon with her recounting of her family's expulsion from Ireland for stealing horses. 

Jane Collier Our Queen O'the Green

There were three presentations this evening.  Lorraine Van Wagner continued the brainstorming session held on February 5th and managed to get the revellers to agree on two suggestions to help ensure meeting agendas are filled three weeks in advance.  Appropriately for a St. Paddy's Day meeting, Terence Canastraro chose as the title of his presentation, "Detox or Die".  Detox in this case meant giving up intake of the solid, not the liquid kind.  Terence pointed out that although there was an extensive "do not eat" list as part of the detox regimen, he managed, for the most part, to stick with the program and developed better eating habits as a result.  Dan O'Reilly told the story of a legendary priest in "Saving what had been lost".  Dan made the point that sadly, too much of our local history has been tossed aside.  His message was if you forget your history, you lose your identity.

Sheelah Rennie - General Evaluator with a green boa.

General Evaluator Sheelagh Rennie was resplendent in a voluminous feathered green boa and striped tights that would make any leprechaun's heart flutter.  Most everyone present appeared in some variation of green in order to honour the patron saint of Ireland. 

Theresa Murray ended the evening with the presentation of awards to members who have recently achieved designations.  Chair Eric presented the best speaker ribbon to Terence Canastraro while Jane Collier and Laurie Stapleton shared the honours for best evaluator. 

To download a photo collage of the evening Click Here.

Thanks to all for a great Irish evening.  We meet again on April 2. 

 Lorraine Van Wagner - Webmaster