President's Message

January 2, 2022 

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! I hope you were able to enjoy the holidays with your friends and families despite that uninvited guest Variant Omicron. It seems like everyone I know has been infected or affected by it.

How lucky we were to be able to celebrate the start of the season with a very traditional GCI Holiday Luncheon. A heartfelt thank-you to Shirley Putman and her crew for putting on a visually stunning - and profitable - event. Shirley's creativity, leadership, and focus inspired us. Many of you contributed to the luncheon's success with your hard work, artistry, donations, and the selling of tables. Now, how do we begin to thank Melodie Moroney and her husband Jay for their exceptional generosity? The Maine Getaway at their lovely beach home brought in thousands of dollars and a new member – our winning bidder! I am so grateful to you all.

We can look forward to awarding fine scholarships come summer as well as continuing our solid programming. We will strive to do this with the greatest consideration of our membership's safety and convenience. As we have come to expect with the pandemic, these conditions are not always as compatible as we would wish. We'll find out how the latest mandate affects our two potential venues in a few days. Each had its limitations (All Saints, no refreshments and North Park, BYO chairs), and each reserved the right to change terms as COVID-19 numbers fluctuate. They will be updating us in early January when their boards have a chance to re-visit their invitations to us.

Once again, I'm begging you to be flexible. Our January general meeting might well be held via Zoom. Our Programs VPs had the admirable foresight to book a capable and willing presenter to make such a last-minute change. Our presenter, Katherine Carney, is well prepared for this eventuality. The good news is, we will have our program. The question is, where? As soon as we know, we will let you

know.
As always, please stay tuned.

In the meantime, I am wishing you a happy, healthy, joy-filled 2022, and I very much hope to see you all soon.

Nancy Kaye