President’s Message

I hope this message finds you well and for those that were at the Mid-Year Conference I hope you had a safe journey home.  All I can say is “WOW” I had so much FUN at Mid-Year Conference!  Our Official Visitor Grand Regent Verna Miller was wonderful!!  We even had a bonus guest from Moose International, the Assistant Director of Membership Troy King and he was great as well.

This Mid-Year Conference I tried to pump up the excitement by bringing in some of the things that the Women of the Moose used to do.  We had music, videos, dancing, Chuck Barber and Mark Klein in tutus, what more could you ask for?  Our Chairs knocked it out of the park!!  We had great fundraisers, amazing booth decorations and a ton of great information.

I also want to mention that the Heart of the Community efforts this weekend were unbelievable.  Dee was in awe of how many donations of blankets and Tommy Moose we received.  She will need a bigger area next time.  You will receive messages from her soon, but she will still need blankets and Tommy Moose for our September Annual Convention in Sparks, NV at the Nugget.  The visits and donations provided to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), Hope School, Ronald McDonald House of Orange County and the Fire Department were amazing.

The theme of this Mid-Year Conference was for everyone to work together, build each other up and of course “Remember your Why”.  It is so important for all Lodges, Women of the Moose and Moose Legions to work together.  When a member joins the Lodge make sure to tell them about the Women of the Moose and Moose Legion.  Have joint functions, make it FUN, make people want to join.  These groups are not in competition with each other. We are all on the same team focusing on different areas of fundraising.  Imagine if there were no more Women of the Moose or Moose Legion all the fundraising efforts would fall on the Lodge and that is a lot.  Appreciate them now and working with them will make everyone’s effort so much easier.

I want to thank everyone who assisted in making this past Mid-Year Conference a great success.  Each member of the Executive Committee played a crucial role.  Our Regional Manager Mo, Liaison Kenny and all the Territory Managers, John, Terry and Karen are always there to support us. Our Sergeant at Arms Mike and his team, we had them running around all over the place and they were fantastic. Donnie & the Audio Visual team did a fantastic job even with my continuous changes. Shannon who drives the truck up to make sure we have all the paraphernalia we need to make the conference go. Again, all the Chairs who did an amazing job.  But most of all, the members who attended the conference donated their hard-earned money and time to our amazing cause. Because of you, and our amazing Moose Charities Chair Jason Evans’ hard work for Moose Charities rocked the house with just under $40K in donations.

While our Annual Convention in September is a little more serious with nominations & elections and other things I still plan on making it FUN.  We will have music and other surprises throughout.  A few things I can let you know now are the theme will be Haunted Mansion/Halloween.  So, you may see some of the booths following that theme and the Women of the Moose and Moose Legion FUN Room will be all decked out in Haunted Mansion décor.  At the banquet you can do haunted mansion or any Halloween costume that makes you happy.  Or if you are not one to dress up you can come as yourself, that is just fine too!

During the last weekend in March several members of the Executive Committee and myself took the Moose International Chairman of the Board of Directors Bob Funkey and his wife Past Grand Regent Cathy around to visit several of our Northern California Lodges.  We were very excited to see some of you again and to visit some of the Lodges I have not yet seen.  I know you are all wondered, “YES” Michael the Moose traveled with us.  He was the navigator for our driver Junior Past President Roddy.

Until next time, stay well, support each other be kind and be great Moose!  As always, I will end this with….

REMEMBER YOUR WHY