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| SAS Update April 2008 |
Dear members and friends of the SAS of Atlanta, This is not a joke that I am writing this update today! Happy April Fool’s Day! On behalf of your board I would like to send a few lines to you to keep you updated and informed what has been happening over the past couple of months. We started 2008 with our traditional Fondue event where well over 80 members and guests were present. For one time in so many years our Fondue cooker Toni Buehlmann enjoyed the food at the table since he was recovering from surgery. Our board members stepped up and rotated to take over his job. All board members and several members have helped getting the event ready and clean up in time to leave. A big thanks goes to everybody! General Assembly Just after the fondue weekend we sent out the invitation for our annual meeting March 16, 2008. This year we tried something new: the proxy vote. We wanted to give members that are not able to attend the opportunity to designate another member to vote for them. We received 8 proxy votes which we think was a good start. We will continue to use the proxy vote option at future General Assembly Meetings to give all our members the chance to make their voice heard. 28 members enjoyed an exclusive brunch at the Marietta Conference Center and Resort. Our board lost member Alfred Mettler with much regret, but his schedule will not permit him to provide enough of his time to be fully committed to his position on the board. Please join me in expressing our gratitude for the years he served and we look forward to seeing him and his family at our events. The rest of your board was nominated for re-election in addition to Anita Akerman, which was nominated from the floor and everybody unanimously accepted her. We wanted to welcome Anita to our board and thank everybody for giving us the opportunity to serve your club another year! Our auditors Toni Elmiger and Hans Broder Jr. reviewed our books and had no complaints. They both agreed to serve another year and were also unanimously accepted for re-election. We thank you both for giving us your time to perform the audit. During our preview of our program for 2008-2009 we had presented some of our upcoming events and had open discussion with inputs from our members. We heard that there is interest in children specific events, as well as events that cater to the older members of the club. We have reviewed our upcoming spring event (invitation enclosed) and made appropriate adjustments to make it more attractive for families with children (toddlers) and also elderly people since it is volunteer work day. I think we found a great solution and hope a broad variety of members will be able to join this spring event. Our August 1st celebration has given us board members a lot of headaches. We are looking for a local solution where we can bring our own alcohol since the licensing is so expensive. We had some hope for the old Atlanta Waterworks Lodge, but unfortunately they are not renting the facility to the public. If you have any idea of a location that might fit our event and give us a bit more freedom of planning, please contact Rene Welti immediately. Of course we are looking also for something a bit more central than the Gainesville option since that is so far away for many of our members. But please mark your calendars to join us for the event on the weekend of August 2nd 2008. In addition to our local celebration we are offering members to join some of our board members on a trip to the Grüetli Laager in Tennessee. There is interest from our members to explore this option for a 2009 trip, so Rene Welti and Max Huerlimann will be the organizer of this year’s exploration trip to Tennessee and work on the logistics for a possible 2009 club trip for our members. Member’s showed interest, but as mentioned it should first be checked out. If you would like to join Rene and Max please contact them to get the details. This year’s event will be held on July 26th. In fall we are working on another historical trip, but also have to consider some modification for our youngsters or members that are not so much interested in the historical portion. Samichlaus has already agreed to plan a stop in Atlanta to visit our children again; we are penciled in for December 6th! Well, I think we want to stop here since the summer has not even started and who wants to think already about December again… Anyways, the General Assembly was overall a success and we sure missed you if you could not make it. If you like a copy of the minutes from the meeting please contact Tanja Alemany. Ladies Luncheon March 18th 12 ladies met at the home of Barbara Gruenenfelder for a farewell/Easter brunch. They all enjoyed some “EierTütschen” and also a visit of our youngest members the twins from Carl & Beatrice Carlson. We wish Barbara and her family good luck with their move to Quito, Ecuador and will sure miss them. If you like to become a member of this group that meets about every quarter contact Sybille Hoegger. Membership 2008 Our membership is for the calendar year, so from Jan – Dec each year. The membership fee ($65 for families, $35 for individual) is due now. If you have not sent us the renewal for 2008, please do so as soon as possible (if you became a new member, “never been member before” after 10/01/2007 your fee is not due until January 2009). Keep in mind this fee keep your club afloat and help us with planning and keeping the individual event fees as low as possible and of course you benefit of the membership price on events you join. In closing this update I would like to express my gratitude again to all board members, many volunteers, and our vendors and sponsor to make our events a success. Let’s have a great 2008/09 club year. On behalf of the board Tanja Alemañy President SAS of Atlanta, Inc.
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