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Donzella’s Digest
 June 2008
Northwest Motor Home Area Association
Donzella Leahy, Area President and National Area Vice President

TO:  Chapter Presidents, National Directors, Alternate National Directors, and Executive Board Members

A special thank you to the delegates that were able to attend the annual business and planning meeting held Sunday June 8, on the last day of the Northwest Area Rally.  We have newly elected officers on the Northwest Area Executive Board and I know you make them feel welcome. 

Chuck Souter, Vice President  re-elected for a 2-year term)
Frank Ward, Vice President (2-year term)
Kathie  Balogh, Secretary (1-year term remaining for the position)
Gwen Wright, Treasurer (re-elected for a 2-year term)

Elected for 1-year terms for the Nominating Committee:

Les Ferguson, Oregon River Ramblers
Beth Harrington, Win It NW
Bill Leahy, Northwestern

Present officers, Arvin Spofford, Sr. Vice President and Bud Fouts, Vice President, have completed the first year of their 2-year terms.  Kathie Balogh, who replaced Judy Keppler, will complete the present term of office.   These positions will be on the ballot for June 2009.

A big thank you to Bob Beers for serving on the board this past year; we are so lucky to have so many qualified candidates.

Judy Keppler won the election to be the FMCA National Vice President for the Northwest Area.  Judy’s installation will be on July 17 at the International Convention.  We extend our congratulations to her.

Information for Delegates to the Governing Board meetings:

Arrive on Friday, July 11, 2008.

I strongly urge ALL National Directors, Alternate N.D and Temporary Delegates to attend these sessions/meetings:

Sunday, July 13: 
1.       National Director Training from 10-11 AM (Lee & Rose Warner Coliseum,) Seminar 1.
2.       Basic Parliamentary Procedure Workshop 11:15-12:15 Same place
3.       Meeting for the Northwest area Delegates 1-2 PM Crossroads Bldg. Seminar 6.

Monday, July 14:
            Governing Board meeting check-in starts at 7:00 AM (Lee & Rose Coliseum,) Seminar 1.
            Meeting starts at 9:00 AM 

We have 33 NWA chapters who will be represented at the GB meeting on July 1. Eight National Directors, eight Alternate National Directors, seventeen Temporary delegates and one vote from me for a grand total of 34.  This is an absolutely wonderful representation from our area.

 “Christmas in June” was a fun theme for this year’s rally.  I did not have in mind that we would have such “wintry” weather…it really did feel like Christmas in June.  Dean Moretti, Rally Master, and Judy Keppler, as his assistant, did a great job.  Thank you to all our chapters for the work you did to make sure this was a very memorable rally.  Every place I went people were smiling and having a grand time.  Volunteering has many benefits and I feel the making of new friends and working with old friends are the best.

We tried some new things this year.  Guaranty was our main commercial coach dealer, inviting two others to join them.  They opened early and stayed late.  Paul Williams, General Manager, Lance Kroft,  of Guaranty’s show team, and the whole crew worked hard and we felt that this was a great partnership.  Our vendors opened a full day earlier than usual.  Our Friday and Saturday night entertainment was sponsored by Guaranty and Country Coach.  The vendor dinner was served by the NWA Executive Board.  We then served the volunteers with the help of the attending National officers and all our spouses.   After the volunteer dinner, Jack and Doreen Ingle provided a fun evening of Square and Line dancing, sponsored By Aon Insurance.

Aon gave three rally registration refunds to three of our registered members.  It was so much fun to work with Aon and to have a successful program to supply chapter memberships to those who requested a quote for insurance.

We had some surprises too.  Guaranty RV will forever be known as the "dealership with a heart".  A thank you letter was sent to Guaranty for providing assistance with the 2006 coach for rally members who had to abandon their coach due to a refrigerator fire.  The Albany Fire Department also came to the rescue and gave our rally members $100.00 toward a room in the hotel for the night.  During the evening announcements, Rally Master Dean Moretti related this story and we passed the hat for donations.  We presented $1,273.00 to Fire Department personnel.  They said they have never received this much money before and were very humble.

The donation of school supplies was a huge success.  There were 2 huge boxes that were filled by rally attendees’ generosity.  The principal of Waverly Elementary School was overcome with the generosity of our FMCA families.

How do you top a rally such as this?  FMCA families left the fairgrounds, but their generosity and caring will be forever known in the community.  This will be a rally to be remembered.  I know the rally went smoothly largely because of the Rally Master, captains and volunteers.   Well done, volunteers!!

NWA 2009 Rally

We have a 2-year agreement with Linn County Fair & Expo Center.  The rally will be June 4-5-6, 2009 in Albany, Oregon.   The next business and planning meeting will be held September 3-4, with departure on September 5, at the fairgrounds in Moses Lake, Washington.  Be sure and mark your calendars.

I want to thank each and every one of you that volunteered for the Northwest Area Rally. I congratulate all the committee captains for getting their volunteers recruited and their names sent in on time. I appreciate you so much and value all of our Northwest Area chapter members.

This is the last time I will have a chance to communicate with you while I am the National Vice President of the NWA.  I thank you for the privilege to serve you this past three years.  Bill and I have visited  26 chapters.  This was done mainly at chapter rallies, but we did get together with members of the Alberta, Canada chapters’ members who were at Quartzite or Yuma, AZ. each of the winters we were in office. We truly regret that we did not have the funds to travel to their individual rallies.  We have limited our travels to rallies this year, so that Judy Keppler will have funds for travel.(this was cut back  in the 2008 budget.) 

Safe travels,

Donzella Leahy
National Vice President – NW Area
509-539-4910 dbleahy@hughes.net