Jungle Jargon

A Monthly Broadcast to

THE LIONS CLUB OF CRANBURY, NEW JERSEY

Contact us at: http://cranburylions.org

“A Country Club Trying to Serve Its Country”

Ideals in Government		Mutual Helpfulness
Social Progress	Understanding	Civic Betterment	Fellowship

President	Alex Johnson	Directors – 1 year	Don Herr
1^st Vice President	Mike Kaiser		Doug Pearce
2^nd Vice President	David Cook		Jon Goldstein
3^rd Vice President	Andre Mento		Bob Virgadamo
Secretary	George Smith
Treasurer – Operating/Projects	Glenn Johnson	Directors – 2 Years	Frank Brennan, Jr.
Assistant Treasurer - Projects	Glenn Johnson		Jeff Grundy
			Paul Hayden
Immediate Past President	Walt Caldwell		John Kobland
Information Technology Chairman	Dave Shaffer	Publicity Chairman	Rick Cusworth
Lion Tamer	Rick Burke	Jargon Editor	Bob Virgadamo
Tail Twister	Peter Turner
Membership Chairman	Mike Kaiser

June, 2006

June 6 – Board of Directors Meeting – 7:30PM, Tom Gambino Library Room

June 7 – Student Affairs Meeting – 7PM, Cranbury Station, Dinner: Chicken & Broccoli

Speaker: Mike Casper of the Drug Enforcement Agency will talk about polygraph testing and give a demonstration with a real polygraph.

Student Awards will be presented.

June 16 – Installation of Officers Meeting and Dinner Dance – the Bog Restaurant, Dinner: Choice – Cash Bar

at 7PM, Dinner and Dancing from 8 – 11PM. Please join us in celebration and to congratulate the new Board of Directors.

July, 2006

July 18 – Board of Directors Meeting – 7:00PM, President Rick Burke’s house

July 19 – Regular Meeting – 7PM, Cranbury Station, Dinner:

Speaker:

August, 2000

August 1– Board of Directors Meeting – 7:30PM, Tom Gambino Library Room

August 2– Regular Meeting – This is the third “Wine Meeting” – this meeting will be held at the Grape Escape

on Stults Rd, Dayton – We will be “racking” our wine – Dinner will be catered by Cranbury Station – Spouses are welcome.

Congratulations!

Good Luck and Best Wishes to President Rick Burke and the new Cranbury Lions Board of Directors for Lion Year 2006-2007. Please plan on attending the Installation of Officers Meeting and Dinner Dance at the Bog Restaurant to show your support for next year’s Board. A sign up sheet is being passed at the meetings, or contact Lion Bob V for reservations.

Congratulations also go to Lion Bob Virgadamo on his election to Vice District Governor for the Lion Year 2006-07.

Member Ill

Lion Scott Applegate is recently returned from a stay at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. He is gravely ill and would appreciate hearing from his fellow Lions. You may send your wishes to him at home at

32 Washington Drive, Cranbury, NJ 08512

Things To Know

Even though we have begun sending a new “Calendar of Events” with the dues mailings, we’d like to remind all members to please, share the Jargon with your Spouse, so that our events may be better scheduled on your personal, or family, calendars for better attendance. Please Note that Spouses are invited to attend the “off-premises” meeting at the Grape Escape, to assist in the Club Project of making wine; the meeting date is tentative; see below.

Tail Twister’s Corner – Our Tail Twister advises that all members are to wear their name tags to all meetings and Lion functions; members without a name tag will be fined. Lion Peter asks that all members complete a “Member Bio”, and return it to him; these Bios will be used in a “Name That Member” segment at each meeting, so that all members can get to know about each other.

The Slate for the Board of Directors for 2006-2007 was read at both the May Meetings, and voted upon by the Membership on May 17. Next Year’s Board of Directors is as follows: Rick Burke – President, Mike Kaiser – 1VP, Andre Mento – 2VP, John Kobland – 3VP, Secretary – George Smith, Treasurer-Operations – Glenn Johnson, Treasurer-Projects – Elaine Homoky, Alex Johnson – Immediate Past President; One Year Directors – Frank Brennan, Jr, Dave Cook, Ray Dickey, Jeff Grundy; 2-Year Directors – Walton Caldwell, Jon Goldstein, Tom Reilly, Peter Turner; Paul Hayden – Lion Tamer, Dave Shaffer – Information and Technology Chair, Mike Kaiser – Membership Chair, and Bob Virgadamo – Jargon Editor. Once again, congratulations to our New Board of Directors.

The recipients of the Student Affairs Awards will be presented their awards at the June 7 meeting. This year’s winners are: Vrajesh Modi for the Stan Thomas Award, Mario Fiorentini for the Doc Tudor Scholarship, Nicole Yesalavage for the Todd Beamer Scholarship, and Patrick Finn will be going to the World Affairs Seminar. Congratulations to all these young adults. In addition, a check for $1000 will be presented to Lion Carol Malouf, Chief School Administrator, for the Quest Program.

Everyone who came to the Club Project Meeting on May 3 at the Grape Escape had a great time, especially being able to taste the actual grapes before they were crushed. The 75^th Anniversary Committee would like to thank everyone who was able to come out for the wine pressing on May 12. Normally, our August meeting is the third Wednesday: for this year only, we will meet on the first Wednesday – August 2 – and, we will meet at the Grape Escape for the third meeting in our wine making project. In this part of the process we will “Rack” our wine which entails emptying and cleaning our barrel, then put the wine back in the barrel for aging. But the ‘exciting’ part is that we have an opportunity to taste the wine at that point! For your calendar: the last “wine meeting” will be February 2, 2007; this is when we will actually bottle our wine, and label the bottles. There will be a sign-up sheet at the July meeting, or call Lions Andre Mento or BobV.

The 8^th Annual Golf Outing was held at the Peddie Golf Course on Monday, May 15, 2006.Thanks to efforts of Lion Doug Pearce and his committee (including the lovely Jody), this year’s outing raised over $6400 from golfers, holes sponsors, donations from the auctions, the beverage cart, 50/50. Special thanks to 1st Constitution Bank for their donation of the Golf Balls, Minuteman Press for the Ad Book, and to our generous Auction Sponsors: Continental Airlines, Silver Decoy Winery, the Portrait Studio, Cranbury Station Restaurant, Charmed by Claire, Crate & Barrel, and Peddie Golf Course. Well done, Lion Doug, and thanks!

You may have all noticed that your 4^th Quarter Dues invoice had a new look! You also may recall that last year the Board of Directors and the Membership, approved the acquisition and use of QuickBooks as a tool to keep track of both the Projects Budget and the Administrative Budget, including dues. Treasurer Glenn has uploaded all the information and is working out any bugs in the system, and with luck, the first electronic transmission of dues invoicing will occur with the First Quarter Dues for the Lion Year 2006-07 (July). The annual savings to our Administrative Budget on postage, based on current membership, will be over $84. Currently we still have19 members who have no e-mail capability; they will continue to receive their dues in the mail (as with “The Jargon”).

As usual, the Memorial Day Parade was a rousing success, thanks to the efforts of Lion Bob Wood and his Parade Committee. Thanks also go to Float Chair, Lion Doug Pearce and his family for their work on the float, with a special thanks to Lion Jon Goldstein for single-handedly painting the float this year. This year’s Decorated Bike winners were noteworthy in that we had two sets of twins win! 1st Prize went to Shannon Romaine; 2^nd Prize went to twins Morgan & Meghan Mavoides; and, 3^rd Prize was awarded to twins Jack & Drew Staples. The Historical Society won First Prize in the Float Contest.

The Super 50/50 Spring Raffle went off on schedule after the Memorial Day Parade and the winners were: First Prize went to Barbara Hughes of Cranbury, Second Prize went to Frank Brown of East Windsor, and Third Prize went to Art Hasselbach of Cranbury. A laurel and Hardy handshake to Lions Henry Behnke and George Smith for their efforts in coordinating this fundraiser, with special thanks to Lions Mahlon Thompson and Don Herr for the number of tickets they sold! Unfortunately, we didn’t do as well this year as in previous years, netting just under $3000. But there is always next year!

A Special Request from Lion Bob V: As Club Historian, it is incumbent upon me to have a clear and concise history of our Club. I am having a problem with the date the Club started doing-producing-sponsoring the Memorial Day Parade. I know we started our Post-Parade Ceremony in 1933, and that our first Spring Raffle was on Memorial Day 1950 (a tractor and a TV, if anyone’s interested), but I have found three conflicting dates for when we began sponsoring the actual Parade: 1933, 1937, and 1958.Can any of our long-term members give me some insight into which (if any) of these dates may be correct?

The State Convention was held May 18 – 20, 2006, at the Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center on Davidson Avenue in Somerset. Lion Bob V. wishes to thank Lion Walt Caldwell and President Alex for his nomination and second, respectively, as Vice District Governor.

The Cranbury Drug Free Fair was also on May 20, and the Club would like to thank Lion Jeff Grundy who has stepped up as Chairperson for this event. Further thanks to Lion Richard Stannard, who has chaired the event for the last few years.

Lion Joe Carroll, the Chairman of the Cranbury Lions Club Annual Family Picnic has advised that, like last year, he and Suzanne will hold the picnic at their home. Anyone who attended last year knows what a great time we had at the Carroll’s home, so bring the family – and a potential Lion or two – to One McKnight Court at 6PM on Saturday, July 15!

Reminder…Hold the date for the Cranbury Lions 75^th Anniversary Celebration – Saturday, June 23, 2007. Committees are being formed for this historic event; Co-Chairs Andre Mento and Bob Virgadamo are seeking Chairs for the sub-committees that will be necessary to make this project a success, including advertising, promotions, marketing, donations, printing, ticket sales, entertainment, program, etc. All Past Presidents are encouraged to act as a Sub-Committee Chair; but ALL interested Lions should contact either Lion Andre or Lion Bob. Open discussions about the Anniversary Celebration are encouraged at ALL meetings.

The 2006 USA-Canada Leadership Forum will be in Columbus, OH, September 14 –16, 2006. The Forum is an excellent learning tool, and can have enormous benefit to the Club if a number of Members attended. As 2006 District Chairman for the Forum, Lion Bob V. will place Forum information in the Jargon over the next few months. All Club members, especially Board members, should consider attending this highly effective learning seminar. June 30 is the deadline for “early bird” pricing.

Membership – Membership – Membership

As always we are looking for new members. With so many new homes in Cranbury, there are many opportunities for new members. We ask all Cranbury Lions to try to bring in New Members. Membership applications can be obtained from Secretary George Smith or from membership Chairman Mike Kaiser. Let’s try to keep our Lions Club from being Cranbury’s “best kept secret”.

…And Attendance…

On the flip side of the membership coin, we also seem to be having a problem with attendance. Over the last couple of years meeting attendance has diminished from an average of 45+ members per meeting to an average of plus or minus 25 members, per meeting. Our core volunteers have always come from sign-ups at the meetings, and with meeting attendance down, so are the number of volunteers. While we would love to see “a packed house” at every meeting, it is understandable that many of our Members can’t make every meeting due to the demands and obligations to their jobs and families, however, the Board of Directors is asking every member to try to attend at least one meeting per month.

What’s Happening In Other Clubs

The South Brunswick Lions Club will hold their Annual Cole Beatty Circus Fundraiser on Labor Day Weekend. More information on this event will be forthcoming.

Reminders

Frank Marlowe has been our Program Chair for a few years now, and has done quite an excellent job lining up speakers for our meetings each month. You can all imagine how difficult it can be, finding 20 speakers per year that will be of relative interest to all our Members! We all come in contact with someone interesting on a regular basis. When you do, or if you have any suggestions for speakers, please give Frank a call.

Even though we have a few new fundraisers, the Cranbury Lions Club is always in search of additional new fund raisers – different, entertaining, and most importantly, fun. Any member who has a fundraising idea should share the idea with President Alex, or bring it up at one of the meetings. The list of potential fundraisers, and the input from interested Lions, will be discussed at a Board of Directors meeting, and presented to the general membership at a regular meeting.

While it is important that we increase our fundraising capability, it is equally important that we do it without continually requesting donations from our small community on a too frequent basis. With over 300 commercial locations in our immediate area, the website is one of the easiest and best fundraisers we have. We ask every member to please try to bring in at least one new advertiser per year. Refer all advertising leads to Lions John Kobland, Ray Dickey, or Dave Shaffer.

Any member who learns of the sickness or death of another member, or in a member’s family, or any other similar incident or emergency, should contact Lion Frank Marlowe (Chair, H&W) and/or Lion Dave Cook to activate the “phone tree”, so that all members may be notified.

Member Pick-Up

Ed Lawson (5 S. Main)

Lion George Smith will be the “permanent” pick up driver for Lion Ed. Lion Frank Marlowe has volunteered to be the “permanent” back-up driver. Drivers: if you cannot make your pick-up, or need to switch, please notify Rick Cusworth as soon as possible. Riders: please notify the assigned driver if you’re not going to make a meeting.