| President’s Message
It’s been a busy time since my last report so
let’s get down to what’s been happening. First of all we held elections
as required by USA Dance. As in the past, a slate of officers was
presented and since there were no contested
positions, that group
will serve for the next two years. I
bring this up because in two years I will retire as President.
This
will be my 10th and final term as President of SouthernStar. If anyone
reading this is interested in taking over
in 2014, I will be more
than willing to work with them in preparing for the job. Call it a two
year training period. I have
been blessed with a great group to work
with, and the President’s job has been made much easier due to the
dedication
of the Board of Directors. You must be a people person in
this job and realize that this is a group of unpaid volunteers
who
just want to make Ballroom Dancing in the Tampa area affordable, fun,
and respectful. Tyrants and micro managers
need not apply! It is my
sincerest wish to see the chapter continue forever and continue to be a
source of pride for all of us.
Speaking of pride, I
am delighted to report that our latest Holiday Charity Ball was a great
success with a final donation
of $4,700.00 to
Brighter Tomorrows. That
brings the total charitable contributions of the chapter to $55,000.00
since
inception. My thanks and gratitude to all who worked on this
Charity Ball. Sarah
and Scott Coates and Patrick and
Marianne O’Neil
were the organizers. They were assisted by
Karen Glenn who handled the raffle items. Committee
members,
Sherry Basile, Elaine Derby, Glenn Fetty, Lurlene Gough, Nancy Martin,
Marynell Palmer, Stan Shepherd,
Christina Tsui, and Shirley Wood all gave of their time and talent to make this a memorable evening, and
I thank all of
them for their contributions! We had a special guest
for the evening,
Mr. Olin Mott. The
7th of December was the 70th
anniversary of the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and Mr. Mott was a 21 year old serviceman at Pearl Harbor on
that fateful day.
Early in the evening we had him talk for a few
minutes about his experience at Pearl Harbor, and then he joined two
other
WWII veterans,
Pete Peterson and Larry Evans,
on the floor to present the American flag while we played the national
anthem. It was a great way to remember our history and to start the
evening.
Carrabba’s provided a delicious
dinner at cost and cooked the meal on premise so it was very fresh and
excellent tasting.
We thank the raffle donors who
included
Martha Hughes, Mary Kay Products, Kim Magnusan
, Guerlain Perfume,
Hector Quiles, Christopher Skates,
Southern Hills Golf and Country Club,
Kathyrn Schaffer Skates, and
Frank Sliwa.
We sold a lot of tickets for the raffle and
for the many dance hosts and hostesses who gave of their time that
evening
to help raise money for this worthy cause. It also helped
that we had Scott Coates selling tickets as he is a natural born
hustler you just can’t turn down. I’m amazed each year how many tickets
we sell for dances and raffle prizes. Good job Scotty!
The entertainment was
fabulous with 7 couples performing everything from Theatre Arts to a
crazy Jive. I wish to thank
Richard and Laurie Collett
for their dramatic Theatre Arts,
Frank Sliwa and Olivia Peng
for their lovely International
Rumba, and
Hector Quiles and Debbie Alberti for their beautiful Foxtrot. We also had the pleasure of
Nikki and
Jerry Dvorak
dancing their funny/cool Foxtrot Jazz number, as well as
Sergey Kopylov
dancing a funky Jive
with
Angel Bermejo
that you would have to see to believe – I especially like the jumper
cables used to keep her going.
We finished up with
Hector Quiles
dancing with his professional partner
Luda Orlova
in the fast moving
and dramatic
Viennese Waltz.
I must stop here and thank
Yulia Kopylova
for dancing an American style Viennese Waltz with yours
truly as the
3rd dance number of the evening. We only had one hour per week to
prepare this dance, and I’m still amazed
that it came together so
well. The Russian language song was about a
soldier returning home. That is the reason for
the uniform I wore
that evening. Peg claims the ladies like the uniform. She may be right
as I collected several dance
tickets after the show and none before
the show! Thank you, Yulia, for your patience and persistence with
training this
not so young dancer. It was great fun. I hope everyone
enjoyed this outstanding group of dancers. My thanks to all the
performers!
I would be remiss in not thanking
Richard and Laurie Collett for the donation of the
Rhapsody Ballroom
this magical evening.
Once again, you can take great pride in your
local chapter for helping a great charitable cause and having such good
time
and
doing such great work.
That’s it for now. Please read about our
monthly dances as well as the details of the charity ball in this
newsletter.
I will see you on the dance floor.
Mike
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