THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of April 16, 2010
President George Perkins opened the meeting with 116 members present of a membership of 492
(1 addition). Roger Langevin read the minutes of the April 9 meeting. Bob Moylan reported Art Nichols at Waveny, Bill Pierson at Norwalk Hospital and Jake Powell at Yale/New Haven.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Joe Kelly advised members who signed up for next week's Share a Story Days at South School to contact Marilyn Arvoy if there were any problems. Members were also invited to sign up for April 20 town's Clean Your Mile program. Next, Jack Messert announced the Nominations Committee's (Harry Hazlehurst, Dave Hunt, Paul Strassman, and Nick Zaccagnino) recommendations for next year's officers, as follows: Directors, Dick DePatie, E.J. Morgan, and Ladd Seton; for Vice Presidents, Bob Goldblatt and John McKay; and for President, Nick Zaccagnino. Reminder: Annual Meeting luncheon 5/7, $45pp ($50 at door).
ACTIVITIES: 4F's luncheon 4/23 at 123 (on route 123 just north of New Canaan). Amateur Chefs in May (TBA at next meeting). Photo session for Lee Garden cancelled. Bridge, Paddle , and Racquetball scheduled as usual. Bicycle outing 9:00AM 5/21 at Lapham. Golf 9:30 4/26 at Ridgefield and 9:45 5/10 at Smith/Richardson. Tennis soon when nets go up ($50 for senior pass). Trailblazers 5/5 for Central Park walk, departing on 8:45AM train.
COUTH: 4/21 8:30AM departure for Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty trip ($50 pp, lunch on own).
Next trip 10:00AM 5/20 to New York Botanical Garden ($80 pp including catered lunch).
HUMORIST: Mike Law told of an elderly man who bragged at his annual physical that life was great, that he had a 20 year old bride who was pregnant. The docter told about elderly gent who going hunting but forgetting his gun decided to point his cane at a beaver and yell "bang, bang!". The beaver died. Might someone else have pumped a few rounds into the beaver. Point made!
SPEAKER: Vice President Brian Holstein introduced Jeff Blumenfeld, editor of "Expedition News", a 16-year-old monthly newsletter on the adventure marketing world. His presentation was based on his book "You Want to Go Where?", which describes his involvement in some of the world's most historic excursions, his usual role being to bring together the proposers and the sponsors. The key to lining up sponsors is to have a compelling answer to the "so what" question. For example, in order for Norman Vaughan to obtain funding (from Fed Ex and others) to climb a mountain in Antarctica, he had to note that he wanted to climb a mountain named for him. Other events cited by Jeff included: dogsledding across the Bering Straits, taking a Viking ship from Iceland to the U.S., crossing the Atlantic in a pedal boat, spending 1000 days at sea (initially the explorer including his girl friend, who left not with sea sickness but morning sickness and delivered a son later while the explorer was still at sea), traveling across Antarctica the long way, and (for you golf addicts) hitting a golfball across Mongolia, 3000 miles. The winning concept appears to be to come up with something bigger than you are.
Next, Jeff addressed the question, "What's left to explore?", such as the recovery of Amelia Earhart's plane. Jeff closed by describing his own trip to Antarctica as a chaperone for a student group. As he showed pictures of icebergs and penguins, he commented on the effects of global warming and physical characteristics and life styles of penguins. The Q/A covered sponsors
(e.g. Timberland, Coleman, etc.), highest peaks in each state (e.g. 345 feet in Florida!), and the exploration story in "Three Cups of Tea". For more on Jeff refer to expenditionnews.com
Don Hudson, Assistant Secretary