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President Rachel Nicks welcomed us to Uccello’s today.  She led us in the pledge and Mishelle Becker offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the AWESOME weekend we just experienced.  Joining us was our newest member, Karen Bultsma.  For those of you who don’t know Karen, she is a familiar face to us.  She has worked at Indian Trails Camp for the past 10 years in the kitchen and helping out with Administrative duties.  We are thrilled to have her as an official member of our group.  She and her husband Duke have volunteered at many Texas Hold Em tournaments.  They also have attended The AmTryke Lunch at The Outback and Karen worked our registration desk at our convention all day Friday.  Welcome Karen!

Also joining us today was Rachel’s guest, Jeff Ouellette.  Jeff was Rachel’s son Scott’s Rugby coach.  He is a Sales Engineer for Versa Pak and he, his wife and 3 children live in Walker.  I think he was impressed by our group and I expect he will be the next newest Walker AMBUC.

As you may imagine, talk was mostly of the Best Ever Fall Regional AMBUC convention that took place this past weekend at The Amway Grand Plaza.  Everyone who worked so hard at making this happen deserves a LOT of praise.  Everything turned out great.  Friday night’s party (the medical theme) was a big hit. As you can see a FUN time was had by all!

Saturday started off with the Big Hat Breakfast, a lot of fun and a lot of money was raised for Living Endowment. 
The general business session was very informative and fun as well.  The break out sessions were interesting and well attended.
The Living Endowment Lunch featured Brien Dews, a burn survivor telling his story and the story of the Phoenix Society.  For more information on the Phoenix Society, go to www.phoenix-society.org.

The BIG EVENT of Saturday had to be the AmTryke Rodeo.  Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this all come together.  Mishelle Becker and Allen Lemieux really put a lot of time and effort into making this happen.  Steve Davis has been thanked enough (thanks) for his efforts in getting not 1, not 2 but 3 Television stations to come down and cover the rodeo.  If you have not seen the coverage of the rodeo, go to www.wzzm13.com and search AMBUCS.  WZZM did a wonderful job.  WXMI and WOOD TV also did stories of the fun event and we are working on getting copies of those.  We hope to have all 3 of them posted on our website, www.walkerambucs.org soon.  Here is Ellie receiving her bike along with her mom, Tarra.  It was hard to decide who was the most excited.  Thanks go to April Bisonet, Operations Manager at IBS for hooking us up with Tarra and Ellie.

The awards banquet was held Saturday night in the Beautiful Gerald Ford Ballroom at the Amway.  A delicious sit down dinner was served and awards were presented.  Rachel Nicks was announced as District 3 D AMBUC of the year.  Mishelle Becker was named District 3 D Project Manager of the year.  Congratulations to these deserving young ladies.  We also received 1st place awards for: Scrapbook, Local Charities, and a couple of other awards (I can let you know what when we actually receive them)   The Youngest AMBUC (Ed Voss, 95 years young) in the room was honored as well.  Who was that cute young blond you were with Ed?

Thank you Cheryl Lemieux for heading up the convention committee and all your efforts.  Thank you also to our Regional Director Jack Belware for his many hours of work.  There were lots of laughs, lots of accolades and with the rodeo, lots of tears of joy. 

Sunday morning brought a group of AMBUCS and Jack Fettig’s family out to Indian Trails Camp for the dedication of “Jack’s Track”.  The weather agreed with us, the coffee turned out (after a tense moment) and everyone was impressed by the fantastic sign honoring Jack.  His Big Hat, his picture and badge are hanging in the recreation room.  The WONDERFUL sign (thanks Tom Brown!) for Jack’s track is up where everyone can see it. 

Now, if you haven’t given up on reading the bulletin yet, there were a few other items talked about too. 

Steve Davis passed around invitations to the Connect with KFB nights.  It looks like the Monroe’s, Bennett’s and the Davis’ will be attending on October 27 (we’ll all be celebrating Steve & Lisa Monroe’s 19th wedding anniversary) and would be happy to have a few more join us.  Please call Steve at 791-9400 or email him, stevesbdavis@sbcglobal.net. 

Steve also extended an invitation to “That’s Entertainment, a talent showcase of West Michigan Media Personalities.  It will be held Thursday, October 29 from 5:45-9:30 pm at Wealthy Street Theatre.  It is actually a fund raising event for the Girl Scout council.  Many media people will be involved, including Jennifer Pascua (WZZM) and Smita Kalokhe (WXMI).  These 2 ladies were responsible for getting the news coverage of the AmTryke Rodeo.  It seems like it would be a good idea to support something they are involved in.

Our group also has a few other things coming up.  October 24 is our Arts & Crafts show at Kenowa Hills Intermediate School.  So far, we have 50 confirmed booths and another 20 that look promising.  If you know of anyone that would be interested in having a booth, please have them contact Mishelle Becker at 774-9290 or email Mishelle@ibs401k.com soon!  We will need a LOT of help on Saturday October 24 and also on Friday night (to set up).  Please let Mishelle know if she can count on you!

October 24 is “Trick or Treat Street” at Indian Trails Camp.  If you can help out with that, please call Karen Bultsma (our newest member) at ITC, 677-5251 or email kbultsma@indiantrailscamp.org.  I have been told that the Rotary Club of Downtown Grand Rapids has challenged us to supply more candy than they are going to.  Now, we are not going to let the Rotary beat us are we?  You can also contribute cash if you don't want to go out and buy the candy.

Then on October 28 our fall AmTryke Lunch at The Outback will take place.  We are looking for donated items to auction off but mostly we are looking for people to attend.  The cost is ONLY $15 per person.  This is a great deal on a great meal.  The Outback does a wonderful job for us and we need to fill the place.  For more information, please email rnicks@ci.walker.mi.us or call her at 791-6862.  You should also receive a flier and more information via email.

Rachel shared with us scorecard news.  For those of you who are new, we fill out a scorecard 4 times a year and National uses this to determine rankings amongst the clubs.  Our 1st quarter scorecard earned us 136 points.  That currently puts us #7 in the country.  Great job everybody.  I bet we’ll get 1000 points for hosting the fall convention!  One of the best ways to get points is by signing up new members, especially if we do it during Branding Time.  What is Branding Time?  Well I am glad you asked. Branding Time is held each year in October and November and we make a more concentrated effort to obtain new members.  Last year we had 5 new members sign up.  This year we already have 2 (Tom Brown and Karen Bultsma).  We all can earn points in the Branding Time period.  A separate flier will be coming your way soon with all the specifics but the best way to earn the most points is to sign up new members.  The person with the most points will win a special prize to be awarded at our annual Christmas Party.  Please do your part to help our fun group grow!

Cheryl Lemieux is walking in the Diabetes Walk this Saturday morning.  It begins at Rosa Parks Circle at 9:00 AM (She’ll actually be there at 9 AM?  Does she realize that means 9 in the morning?) She would love to have some company.  If you can not walk but would like to contribute to help fight Diabetes, please call her at 308-5500 or email her at cheryl2pp@aol.com.

Don Owen decided he would pay for all our fines today!  What a great guy!  He also shared a conversation he had with one of our members who thanked him for inviting her to join.  She has been blessed with many new friends who have helped her through some difficult times.  Hey, that’s what friends do!  Thanks Don for sharing that.

Don’s ticket (probably because he was so generous and paid our fines) was the first to be drawn and he had the chance to look at the $5.  Cheryl Lemieux went for the BIG bucks and came close with the QUEEN of Clubs (Let’s not even go there!). 

Are you on Facebook?  If so, make sure you join the national AMBUCS group on Facebook.com (and the Walker AMBUCS group too of course).  It’s interesting to see all the people and groups that are connected.  Also check out the pictures and video from the Fall Convention there.  Can you guess which AMBUC club was the very first to have a group on Facebook?  Thanks to President Rachel Nicks for making us the trendsetters.  If you are like me and can’t really figure out all the aspects of Facebook, call Rachel at 791-6862 and she can explain it all to you! While you are out surfing the web, check out our ever improving website, www.walkerambucs.org. 

Happy October Birthdays to:      Mishelle Becker, 10-16, John Becker, 10-19 and Penny Schuiling, 10-29

Why don’t YOU come to Uccello’s next week?

Quote of the week

Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third