Downtown Optimist Club of Columbia
Zoom/In Person Meeting Newsletter
Monday, February 21, 2022 at the Clubhouse
Members attend in person President Tony Parisio, Larry Fick, Red Leighton, Steve Winter, Ken Oster, Ed Musterman, Pat Brown, Mary Dewey, Carl Scott and Rick McKernan By Zoom Deb Swangens, and Jerry Sullivan. Special Guest was Tony’s Daughter Carmelina who is 2nd grade at Beulah Ralph Elementary School.
Prayer- Rick McKernan Pledge Pat Brown
Birthday/Anniversary: Steve and Reng Winter 38th Wedding Anniversary was Saturday, February 19.
Welcome back Carl Scott who had COVID-19 and then the flu for the last 2 weeks or so.
Larry Fick started back working at the Food Bank. Today the worked on package frozen wheat cakes.
There will be a Board meeting this Thursday at 6:00 pm at the Clubhouse We have 3 funding request which are Food Bank, Daniel Boone Little League, and Hickman Review. Board meeting canceled due the weather. Will try to meet this Thursday if the weather bad this Thursday they will try to have the meeting by Zoom.
HyVee is still NO for us to be meeting over there. Your pie was fine but too small. We are going to try to have a fundraiser with them with the pizza card that will have are Downtown Optimist Logo on it with cost of $12.00 each. The card is good for one pizza and a drink.
We might think about having a NOW meeting over there to bring in new members when it warm that way we can us the patio.
Mary Dewey let everyone know that 2nd quarter conference will be in St. Charles on Friday, February 25 and Saturday, February 26 at the Embassy Suites. There will be a chicken wing contest on Friday night to raise money for the OI Foundation. More detail to come. Who is going is Deb Swanegan, Mary Dewey, Tony Parisio and Rick McKernan. Please let us know if anyone else would like to go so we can get registration.
Rick McKernan let us know that the Oratorical and Essay contest will be take place by the end of February or first of March. All the Optimist Club in Columbia will be helping with this event. Deb Swanegan has volunteered to help Rick in finding students to take place in these two contest. We know that Father Tolton High has some students in Jennifer Black’s class who will taking part again this year.
We have 13 Essays right now there will more since the deadline has not came up yet.
Deb Swanegan and Mary Dewey will be going to the CPS Art Chair soon to talk to them about the elementary school visual art contest. This is a contest for students who are the under the age 11 years old who love to paint and draw. Their theme is “Optimism “
We talked about different place to meet for our meeting on Monday. The board decided last month to have our club meeting at the clubhouse. By doing that we will be saving money that, we can give out to the youth in the community. We are going to look into Shakespeare Pizza South of town
The boys and girls club chili contest will be held on Saturday, March 5 at the Holiday Inn Executive Center. Scott Stager will not be chair for this event this year to COVID-19 and his health. Therefore, we are looking for a new person to take over the chili contest this year to take over this event if you are inserted please let Tony or me know. Greg Schneider will be taking over as Chair for this event this year. Steve and Greg went to a meeting about this event last week. We will have two booth. One for the chili and other one is for the Soap Box Derby information. Greg has a chief that will be updating Max Miller Chili Recipe this year. Everything is lay out in the North room. They will need people to help cook and hand out the sample of the chili please Steve Winter or Greg Schneider know if you can help that day.
Today we talked about Optimism: Here are some example of quote we had today:
Jerry read, “If you can’t give a children Optimism, then what are you doing?” by Matt Haig
Mary read, “Be Patient with yourself nothing in Natures Blooms all year.”
Rick read, “Sometime when you’re in the dark place you’ve been buried but you’ve actually
been planted.”
Rick read, “The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser in case you though Optimism was Dead.” by Robert Brault
Red read, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” By Helen Keller
Deb read, “Happiness is like Jam You can’t spread even a little without getting some on yourself.”
Tony and Carmelina read, “A good laugh is Sunshine in the house.”
Closed with the Optimist Creed, by Tony’s Daughter Carmelina
Meeting end at 12:45 pm
Tony Parision, President
Downtown Optimist Club 