SKAL Club of Vancouver – Accomplishments in 2005
(As of January 11, 2006)

Prepared by: President Linda Hagen

The following lists the accomplishments achieved by our Club for the 2005 term:

1. Implementation of Director’s Insurance. Thank you, Harvey Lee, for following this through.

2. President’s Chain donated to Toronto North. Thank you, Ron Waterhouse, for personally delivering it to them.

3. An upgrade was completed on our President’s Chain giving it a far more professional look and making it far more comfortable to wear.

4. Club members Linda Hagen, Ron Waterhouse and Ivano Corazza attended the annual NAASC Congress in Calgary and accepted the 2004 SKAL Club of the Year Award on behalf of our Club.

5. Another successful Annual Fish ‘n Chip event. 93 members and guests were in attendance. Thank you, Randy Vannatter and Bill Rowe, for all the work you both put into this.

6. The inception of our Annual Silent Auction at the Fish ‘n Chip event. 30+ prizes were available and $3,000.00+ was raised. Thank you to Ron Waterhouse and his loyal Secretary, Vivian, for all the work you did on this.

7. Monthly Raffles continued for the 3rd consecutive year, Mexico the destination for this year. Thank you, Randy Vannatter, for all the work you do on this and thank you, Mike Hagan, for donating the prize.

8. Hardcopy of SKAL Directory for our Club was produced again. Thanks to Doug Keough for putting this in place for us and for distributing copies to other Clubs across Canada.

9. Inception of our Annual Old Friends Night in October. A total of 14 Old Friends attended. It was great to see them and rekindle friendships.

10. SKAL Vancouver CD was produced and given as a gift to all in attendance at Old Friend’s Night. Included were tunes with friendship themes from 1954, the year of our Club’s inception, up to 2005. Thanks go to President Linda Hagen, member Craig Norris-Jones and Coast Hotels & Resorts for creating and sponsoring the production.

11. Our Club banner now holds a place of honor at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Many thanks to Allison Eaton for placing it there for us and congratulations to her on completing the climb and raising funds for the Make a Wish Foundation in the process.

12. The President’s Table was re-instated at our monthly meetings. Thank you, Bill Rowe, for all the time and effort you put into this each month.

13. A $1000.00 donation was made to the Katrina Relief Fund. We raised $500.00 from members at our September meeting and the Club matched that amount. Thanks to all of you who participated.

14. We tried something new by inviting a guest speaker to our October meeting, John Winter, President and C.E.O. of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. Thanks to Mike Hagan for coordinating this for us.

15. We again awarded $500.00 scholarships to four deserving B.C.I.T. students. Thank you to John Oram for presenting these scholarships to the students on behalf of our Club. Thank you also to the four recipients for 2005 who have joined us this evening: Michael Miezlaiski, Andrea Schmidt, Becky Parker and John McLaughlin.

16. In September we invited the membership of the Vancouver Women In Travel club to join us for our monthly meeting. Those that attended assured us they had a wonderful time and also found some of our Club’s ideas could help them improve their organization.

17. In November we invited members of the Vancouver Executive Travel Network to join us for our monthly meeting. They, too, had an excellent time and discovered some new ideas from how we conduct our meetings.

18. We presented our 3rd Annual Tourism Award to this year’s recipient, Franziska Kaltenegger. Thanks to Bill Rowe for all the work he does throughout the year on this project and thanks to Franziska for agreeing to join our 2006 Board.

19. We carried on the Mystery Night tradition with our trip to River Rock Casino. Thank you to Randy Vannatter for coordinating this and to our member Rudolf Tize of West Coast Sightseeing for donating the buses.

20. Tradition was also carried on in the form of our Annual Christmas Luncheon. We had 123 in attendance, the largest on record for this event, and a great time was had by all.

21. We received an incredible amount of media coverage this year. Many thanks to Mike Hagan, our Communications King, who never misses an opportunity to get our Club’s name out there.

22. Post meeting Poker continued this year under the expertise of Randy Vannatter. Thank you, Randy, for adding this extra value for our members.

23. We retained our title of largest SKAL Club in Canada. Thanks to all of you who work to bring in new members and especially to Brian Veitch and Gordon Chatry, who co-chaired our Membership Committee this year.

24. We organized our Club’s tie in to the Annual 2006 NAASC Congress. We changed the date of our May meeting to May 3rd and had this meeting designated as an official make-up meeting. Thank you to Alan Clogg and The Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, who have very kindly agreed to hold the event at that property.

25. We have taken the opportunity to start discussing the possibility of holding a joint meeting with the SKAL Club of Seattle sometime in 2006. We hope to make this an annual event.

26. Our Sergeant at Arms, Gordon Chatry, took his duties to heart this year, fining members at an outrageous rate to help plump up our Volckaert Fund. Well done, Gordon.

27. Our Treasurer, Joe Matheson (a.k.a. Mr. Moneybags), kept us riveted to our chairs each month with his financial reporting and ensured we kept ourselves clear of financial quagmires. Thank you, Joe.

28. Member Craig Norris-Jones of Coast Hotels & Resorts volunteered to serve as our Auditor for 2005 and has agreed to do so again in 2006. Thank you, Craig.

29. Our trusted Secretary, Ivano Corazza, has kept us in line with his excellent agendas, minutes, Presidential Notes and, most importantly, with submitting all our required paperwork to SICAN in a timely manner. With his help that coveted Club of the Year Award may be headed our way again. Thank you, Coach Reggie.

30. And, last but not least, our inception of tonight’s theme, the Hotel Manager’s Night. We have 4 GM’s and 5 DOS’s as guests in attendance tonight. Thank you all for joining us and we look forward to welcoming you as official members of our Club in the very near future.