2007 Officers and Members Seminar

Twelfth Annual Officers Seminar a big success

This years Officer’s Seminar at Santa Nella was a great success. The enthusiasm, excitement and commitment of the students were so rewarding and if this is an example of the future of Odd Fellowship, there should be no question whether or not we will thrive and flourish. The answer is a resounding, YES! There were 72 members signed up with 6 no shows, giving us a final count of 66 at attendance. However, about 1/3 of these students signed up just the last week. About 1/3 of the class were women and participants ages, (from what was given), ranged from 45 to 81 years old. Golden West Lodge #322 had 9 members attending with Hughson Lodge #461 in a close second having 7. You can tell by the number of members attending from these two lodges alone, just how important this seminar is.

There will be a change in the date of next year’s seminar. It will be held on the 4th weekend of January, 24th & 25th, 2009, instead of the usual time in December. There have been several suggestions to pick a different date from the weekend in which it has been held. It has been right before the Christmas Holidays which is a very busy time. Some people have said they were not able to make it, or that they were being inconvenienced because of the date when it was being held. So, working with Glenn Bailey, GM and Barry Prock, DGM, we decided to try a different date and moved the seminar to January. That January weekend was not available this passed year. Now, I must warn everyone, January is when most lodges hold their Installations and many lodges don’t meet during this period to transact business, so the lodges will have to remember and register its members for the seminar in a timely manner. It is not acceptable to call up the night before or just show up at the seminar.

The hotel food, both on Saturday night and Sunday morning was very good and next year we will provide more snack food appropriate to make up for the early start on Saturday. IOOF Car license plate frames were given to all students as well as the manuals and other helpful handouts. There were raffle drawing prizes of Code books, (both Sovereign Grand Lodge and California Code), plus one ticket for the Tricycle motorcycle from the Rose Parade Float committee.

The instructors Paul Kramer, Paul Pike and Don Lang, with special presenters George Hannaford and Gerald Poarch, would like to thank all those who attended and took part in this year’s educational event. A very rewarding time I believe, was had by all.