Membership

It’s the month of love and friendship! How about bringing a loved one or friend to our February meeting? This will be an excellent meeting for guests as we will have two guests from Excelsior Youth Center. Please remember to let Emma H., Carol J. and Jan H. know who you have invited to the meeting. If you would prefer, Carol or Jan would be happy to send an “official” invitation to your guests. Let us know how we can help in our Club’s efforts to see some new faces.

Keep Track of Your Hours

It’s almost spring and we’ll be putting together our report of activities for International soon. Please look back over the last year and add up the hours you’ve spent in Zonta service. As I understand it, we do not count our service committee hours, our monthly meetings, or driving time.

• We DO count our hours selling, sorting and delivering our fund-raiser plants and confections.
• We DO count our hours of committee work, whether it’s writing an article for the newsletter or mailing out save-the-date cards for the golf tournament, or gathering donations for prizes.
• We DO count our service hours, working at a graduation or gala or hosting one of our monthly activities.

If you were getting paid for the hours you put in, you certainly would keep track, wouldn’t you? Let’s all make an effort to consistently keep track and send hours to Jean Griswold each month. She has asked us to send them by the 15th of each month. Whether you track the hours by the month or are sitting down no to do it, please send your hours to Jean by the end of March.

If you have any question about what hours to count, please contact Jean or Sharon.

Service

Excelsior

On February 7, Barb and Suzanne made their monthly visit to Excelsior Youth Center for the Adopt-A-Cottage program with the teenage girls who live in the Sequoia cottage. These girls have a history of problems that require the intensive residential program that is offered at Excelsior. The Zonta II ladies provide a welcome respite and fun experiences for the girls, who know that we care about them. For the February meeting, we had a Valentine’s theme. The girls were very engaged in designing and making some very creative Valentines. They had more opportunities for creativity in decorating heart shaped cookies, which were a delicious treat. We welcome other Zonta II members to join us at Excelsior on the first Thursday of every month.

The Learning Source: Race to Literacy

Come join the fun! Run or volunteer side by side with the Learning Source staff, board of directors, volunteers, teachers and students as they raise funds and awareness of our mission: that education is essential to people’s freedom, their confidence, and their ability to perform in the family, community and workplace. Participate as a runner, volunteer or simply as a member of The Learning Source community as we put one foot forward toward assisting those on the road to a better future. Sign up as a runner or volunteer by contacting josh@coloradoliteracy.com. The dates of the events are: February 23, March 9, March 23, April 6 and 20, May 4. Mary Moser will be talking more aout this at our February meeting.

Florence Crittenton Graduate is doing well at Community College of Denver

Our scholarship winner from spring of 2012, Evangeline Martinez, is a freshman at The Community of College of Aurora. She completed the fall semester with 15 credit hours and a 4.0 GPA. She’s enrolled in the spring semester with 15 hours and is doing fine! Here’s her letter to us:

Dear Zonta Foundation,
The first semester of college was tough, but thanks to so much support I was able to get through it. What I learned last semester was you can’t procrastinate, because it is extremely hard to do everything at once. Also, I learned the importance of good study skills. Studying is one of the key elements to my success in college, and that is something I have improved on. What I disliked about my first semester of college was I didn’t know anyone, and I felt alone. Though I know I had lots of love and support I still felt very alone. As the semester went on I made a few friends, and everything didn’t seem so bad. Though I do miss Florence Crittenton very much college is where I need to be. I appreciate the scholarship you have given me more than you could ever know. If you need me to go to a meeting with you or if anyone would like to talk to a scholarship recipient like myself I would love to help. Thank you again for everything, and I plan on continuing to make all of you proud.

Sincerely,
Evangaline A. Martinez

Columbine Community Center

Kim and Lois have decided to take a break from going to Columbine each month. Many of the ladies we built relationships with have moved to be with their families or have moved to other facilities and the new ones have not come out to participate. We will miss seeing the ladies each month. Planning interesting events has certainly stretched out imaginations! One of our goals was to help the ladies connect with each other and to use the community room that our club redecorated in 2010. That has been realized—they are now using the community center to host holiday dinners together—so we’re happy about that. We will plan to help them plant flowers in May and will probably host a holiday event in December.

Mariposa

On January 24, Deb and Lois played Bingo with the ladies at Mariposa. Thank you to Suzanne, Carol J, Jan, Deb and Lois for supplying the prizes. We enjoyed donuts from Lamar’s and apple cider. We’re getting more acquainted with the ladies and everybody is loosening up. Of the 12 current residents, 8 played! (The numbers change from month to month.) We visit Mariposa the third Thursday of every month. If you would like to participate, we would love to have you join us!

Bingo Prizes

Bingo is a popular activity with our ladies and girls at Mariposa, Columbine and Excelsior. So save your trinkets, cosmetics, lotions, candy, etc. for prizes. You can bring them to any Zonta II function and Suzanne, Barb, Deb, Kim or Lois will pick them up.

Finance

Golf Tournament

The 13th annual Candy Meininger Memorial Golf Tournament is slated for June 14 at Buffalo Run Golf Course. Mark your calendar and begin talking to your friends about putting together a team. The Finance Committee will have save-the-date cards soon to distribute.

A New Money Maker

By a happy accident we’ve found another way to make money for the club. In December, Karen Rosen from Excelsior Youth Center asked us to apply for a raffle license from the Secretary of State and hold a raffle at Excelsior’s gala on February 22. We went through the process, Lois attended a workshop to become the certified games manager, we were approved and now we’ll sell tickets at the gala. (It all didn’t happen that easily, but you get the idea.) All proceeds from this first one will go back to Excelsior. However, now that we have the license, we can hold our own raffles. We certainly will do one at the golf tournament, but we can be thinking of others to do in the future. It’s an opportunity that we might not have done without the push from Excelsior.

Area Events

Amelia Earhart Luncheon Report
From Lois Britton –

I was a first timer at the Amelia Earhart luncheon on January 27 and I’m glad I went. We did not recognize any local recipients of the scholarship program this year, but according to Jan Stokes, Zonta International awards fellowships of $10,000 each year to 35 women who are pursuing PhD/doctoral degrees in aerospace-related sciences and engineering programs.

The highlight for me was hearing from our speaker, Stephanie Wells, a young retired Air Force pilot who got her start as the women’s movement was bringing about huge changes across the country. In the early 70’s she was one of the first women to join ROTC at school, learned to fly, joined the Air Force at a not-too-friendly time, and grew in the ranks to become a test pilot and to work at NASA as a trainer for astronauts. She lives in Arvada now and flies commercially part time. There was a whole lot more to her story, but maybe we’ll meet her again and hear the rest of it! I only regretted that her speech was so short because of all the other business of the day.

I did enjoy sitting at a table with Zontians from other clubs—Denver and Fort Collins—and with one woman from Fort Collins who is one of the organizers for the new Greely club. I hope they are able to make their charter.

We toured the Fornby Museum of Transportation, a place I’ll be taking out-of-town visitors the next time they come. If you have any memories of GTO’s—ah, yes, I remember Tom and his new GTO in 1972—then you’ll appreciate Mr. Fornby’s collection. He must have had a dozen of them. Trains, trolley cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and even a camper are part of the collection.

Zonta Foothills Club Concert

On March 3, enjoy an afternoon of a capella music, trivia, door prizes and a silent auction in Boulder. The Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County is holding its third annual Zing for Zonta A Capella concert. The proceeds go to the club’s new EducateZ projects, which support the education and empowerment of at risk women and girls, and to Zonta International service projects. For more information, check out their website at www.zontafoothills.org.