The Vice-President’s Report

The Secretary’s Report
David Chenelle,
Vice President

The General Meeting at Holiday Inn on the Bay was an eventful meeting. Having four Junior Members signing up was remarkable in itself. I was working late but managed to make it in time to give my report and donate some items to the raffle. I heard that Mike made a great meal. I am sorry I had to miss out. As is usual at this time of the year there are many things going on. Many of our members were busy with familial responsibilities that usually center on a member of their family graduating. Historically speaking, when this time occurs it usually means attendance is a little on the low side. Still we had a great raffle with many items to offer.
I am not sure who the Sponsors were for the General Meeting and I do not want to misquote the wrong company, but I do want to give the Purveyors that sponsored the evening a big thank you, without your help this would be much more difficult to pull off.
There were a few new faces around and I am glad to see them. We had four Students from National Culinary School join. I can not express how delighted the Board of Directors was when this occurred. Without our Junior Members our Association will eventually age and slowly start to decrease in size as the years pass. These Culinarians were not total strangers. Three of the four volunteered to help us out at the fundraiser for the Hubbs Research Center. We must have done something right for them to join up with us so quickly. Actually we did a great job. We had several challenges to overcome at first but as the true Professionals we are it didn’t phase us that much and we pumped out the products and everybody left very impressed. Hopefully we can continue this new partnership with the Hubbs Research Center for years to come and be a part of the changing seafood aquaculture industry that will become a full-fledged industry in a few short years.
Pretty soon we will be holding a Seminar on Certification. There are several members that need to be recertified including myself. Robert Reid will be in charge of this and should be submitting an article on the means and ways of completing Certification in 2008. We will have a separate date for all of the interested parties to get together and go over the information on what it takes to get certified or recertified. He is currently working with a couple of Chefs to help us get this off of the ground.
Anyway, I think that this year is going to be a stellar year for our Chapter. I do have a Challenge in finding Hosts for October, November and December. If any of the Chefs would like to step up to the plate, please contact me. My number is in the Stockpot and I would like to finish the whole year out by the end of July.
Please participate in our “A Day in the Park” General Meeting that will be held on SUNDAY, JULY 20TH. The time will be 11 AM to 4 PM. Bocce Ball, Horse Shoes, Bar B Q, and another GREAT RAFFLE are planned and a whole lot more. The price is just $5.00 Buckaroos. Beer and Wine will be provided by the Elks Lodge. Due to liability insurance we will need to pay for the booze. One buck beers and wine, so it is a deal and a half. Please contact Ralph Ford if a Purveyor would like to donate any products.
As always I wish you all good health, participate and be active in the Association,
David L Chenelle

IMPORTANT UPDATE!
As a reminder, we can no longer have Children at a discounted rate for our General Meetings. Every Foodservice Establishment is charging us full price for Children. We can no longer afford to lose money to cover the Children. Our normal General Meetings are Professional Business meetings and as such, we need to respect the very nature of that and we need to start asking full price ($15) for Members in attendance or $20 for nonmembers with the exception of infants. Please respect the Boards decision as it was a Business decision that we needed to finalize. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause you.