Downtown Optimist Club of Columbia

Zoom/In Person Meeting Newsletter

Monday, February 3, 2022 at the Clubhouse

Members attend in person President Tony Parisio, Larry Fick, Jerry Sullivan, Nadia Ryakmyatullov, Mike Russell, Red Leighton, Steve Winter, and Rick McKernan  By Zoom Ed Musterman. Special Guest were Lauren Dell, Lister Dell  and Columbia Mayor Brian Treece.

Prayer- Larry Fick, Pledge Steve Winter

Birthday/Anniversary:  N/A

Rick McKernan talked about the upcoming International Optimist Day on Thursday, February 3th. This event will take place at 3:00 pm at the clubhouse. We will have other club members from the Columbia clubs join us and celebrate this day. Please make sure to wear you Optimist shirts, hats or anything else you have that has the Optimist logo on it. 

I talked about how our Optimist Day zoom went. We had some attendance from Kids First and there was a reporter from the Columbia Tribune who wrote an article on it. Columbia mayor Brian Treece read us the proclamation. Lauren Dell and Lister Florence attended and spoke about Optimist day. Special thanks to Rick for putting this all together.

Steve told us that he talked to Koeze nuts and found out that our club was 4th in the nation for the top selling organizations in 2021. So good job to us.

Mary Dewey let everyone know that 2^nd 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.

Rick McKernan talked about the Bill of Right Geocaching Hunt. This will be about $2 thousand, which will help with the bus to take the kids to Jefferson City to see the Capital, Supreme Court, and the meet the Governor. While they also have lunch in Jefferson City. Right now, we have $400.00 from the Boone County Republic Group. He is still working the Boone County Democratic and Libertarian Groups for money to help with some of the cost of this event. 

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 had move come over to the Senior Citizen where club members can get a meal that we did Monday at the clubhouse. 

John Jones checked out Your Pie Plate a Pizza place south of town. They have a private room that we can use on Monday for our meeting and they wave the room charge. They have a meal gift card for $10.00 we can buy or sell for a fundraiser. This card is for a meal and drink.

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. 

I didn’t mention it at the meeting but would like to give a special thanks to Chuck Boots for cleaning the snow off of our lot. He came out Thursday February 3rd and cleaned it off.

Mary Dewey also hand out the Dime A Day forms for everyone to join for only $36.50  

Closed with the Optimist, Jerry Sullivan

Meeting end at 12:45 pm

Tony Parision, President