NEXT MEETING:

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Otis Park Community Center

731 N. Iowa (at Dale)

Meeting starts at 10:00 AM.   Please try to be there at 9:45 to sign in, look over publications and say hello to other members.  Pot luck luncheon follows .   Mary Kellerhals will bring the main dish, roast turkey and gravy, and Julie Pfarrer and Jill Reid will bring the dressing and mashed potatoes.    Please bring your favorite Thanksgiving side dish. If you cannot bring a dish, come anyway and enjoy the fellowship.

PROGRAM

          Diana Begin

Saturday, Nov. 3,  Breakout Sessions:

Members will break out into two groups:  one for people with Parkinson’s and one for their caregivers.  This is a good chance to ask other people how they handle certain issues (such as freezing, medications, caregiver resources, and etc.).  This is a very popular activity for most attendees.

Saturday, Dec. 1, The Skylarks Group will be here for our annual holiday program.   They will be bringing along their song sheets so we can join in the holiday music with them.   We’re looking forward to their presentation.

Note: Also on December 1 we are also going to have a “Gift Exchange” for the people who would like to participate.  The women bring a gift for a woman and the men bring a gift for a man.  The value of the gift can be up to $5.  Let’s make this the best holiday season ever.

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ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITTLER

NOTES FROM THE PFARRER SIDE

          Ric Pfarrer

I’m not quite ready for the holiday season but we’ve turned the corner to Christmas nevertheless. It is the season when many charities are asking for donations because this is when we feel most generous and compassionate.  We have tried large scale events as our single fundraiser for the year and because of their complexity, they took all year to plan and a great deal of volunteer hours. Remember our annual Walk-a-thon?

Recently, we have been trying another approach. We have been planning and conducting more frequent smaller events like the April Parkinson’s Awareness Month booths in front of Wal-Mart. We have done this for many years. Now, there are new initiatives by members of our chapter.

The efforts made by individuals among you resulted in the garage sale (Allen Killebrew’s brainchild), the up-coming event at the Fine Arts Center ( Gary Street ’s initiative), Bob Haworth’s Concert for the Cure in Denver (2 Dec)(see p. 4) and the April Race for Parkinson’s (Dan Harding’s project). They need your support to get people to attend and a few volunteers to work the event but they had ideas that they knew would raise money to fund your needs in our Support Group. They are pro-active in dealing with their disorder. Are you willing to help them?

I know of many Parkinson’s support groups that meet in free public or religious facilities for group discussion and throw spare change into a donation jar to pay for the coffee. That is fine but it limits participation to those who can get to the meeting. These kinds of groups provide no additional programs and are not involved in funding research that may cure us or heal us. Thankfully, we are able to offer more so long as there are members willing to give of themselves so that we all might benefit.

At the November meeting, I will be asking you if our group is going in the right direction as far as programs, services, fundraising, etc. is concerned -and asking for volunteers to assist in the operation of our support group. Bring your suggestions on a piece of paper so we can consider your ideas at the executive committee meeting in case there isn’t time to discuss it at the Nov. 3 ^rd membership meeting.

I will also encourage you to become more involved in the leadership of our Support Group.  We would like to have more of you attend our monthly executive committee meetings to give you an insight into the leadership process.  To this end, Bill Stempson and his committee are compiling job descriptions for each of the board positions.  This way, when it’s time for next year’s elections, more of you will be knowledgable about and prepared for an appropriate elected position.  You can call me to discuss your interest beforehand if you like.

See you on November 3 ^rd .

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WINTER COAT DONATIONS NEEDED

Recently Ray and I drove by Marion House Soup Kitchen and I noticed a family walking towards the building.  The mom was carrying a small child wrapped in a blanket. The rest of the family did not have any jackets or coats on and it was quite windy and cold outside. 

After seeing tha