[Flagdu] thanks to all who participated/FLAGDU roundup

[Sherrill O'Brien]

Hello to all FLAGDU members,

I know we're all glad to be home after a convention in which so many people
worked very hard to make it successful. I wish to thank all of you for what
you did to help make our FLAGDU meeting and hospitality suite go smoothly.
There are folks who jumped in to help who aren't on this list yet, as they
have just joined our division, so I'll make sure to thank them in a personal
email, and invite them to become members of this list. I thank all who
renewed their membership, and who came to our hospitality suite for
delicious food, prepared by my dear friend and our Vice President Merry
Schoch. Merry always puts her heart and soul into whatever she does, but
this time even I was amazed at her commitment and effort. Thanks also to
those who jumped into help with the food serving without even being asked!
Tom Belone and Stephen Stokes were especially helpful, and thanks to those
whose names I don't know. I so appreciated Kathy Davis's offer to help me
with the collection of dues as people came to our suite to eat lunch on
Saturday.

  I heard very few complaints about the relief area, thanks in great part to
the vigilance and clean-up efforts of Michael Bearden and Stephen Stokes.
The one wrinkle of course was the big party which was suddenly dropped into
our tranquil relief area, with it's velvet ropes, red carpet, valet parking
and extremely loud music! I will let those in charge of our convention know
that it would have been prudent to at least tell me about this in advance,
so I could have given you a warning at the FLAGDU meeting.

At our FLAGDU meeting, I was so pleased to have reports from Peter Duffy of
Guiding Eyes, and Chuck and Debby Hietala, representing Guide Dog
Foundation. It was great that we could hear from our national Association of
Guide Dog Users president Marion Gwizdala via cell phone. And I know we all
enjoyed and learned alot from our TSA speaker Richard Pryor.

We welcome two new members to our board, secretary Jody Milisivic and board
member Tracie Inman, as well as  David Bearden, elected for another term  I
would like to thank outgoing secretary Laurel Brown and board member Sherri
Brun for their hard work and commitment.

Please share any comments regarding the convention with the list.

Warm regards
Sherrill