Shannon Davies speaker at Optimist meeting

Speaker for Optimist meeting on 3-29-08.


Shannon Davies, Director of Parks and Recreation for Grain Valley was the guest speaker for our meeting. Shannon spoke on the Trails Master Plan Vision, a Diverse Network of Trails that connect Downtown, Schools, Neighborhood, Parks and surrounding areas. Grain Valley City Council will be asking the voters of our community to consider a sale tax increase to fund certain community projects. You can call Shannon Davies at 816-847-6231 to learn more of this issue. Voting is April 8th.

Optimist Lt. Govenor Cindy Morehead was in attendance for the meeting.

Easter Egg Hunt delayed but still good.....

With Easter a month ahead this year, we were really wondering about the weather. Again, like in December, we were challenged with inclement weather and the hunt was delayed until Sunday. This is a first for me since I have been here these past 8 years. Even though we did not get the volume of kids we normally do, those who did come were treated with over 10,000 eggs and about 90 prize eggs. This made the odds greater fot the kids.
The baskets for the Gold and Silver eggs had gifts from Lunar Bowl, Dollar General, Kathy Doty's great gifts, Sonic treat coupons and for two of our big winners the Community Center gave us family passes with a value of $100.00. Thank you all for your contributions. Thank you Rusty for your donation of the new signs. They were great and than you Carl for making the stands so they could be seen above the crown. You did a fantastic job.
The Gold and Silver winners are as the following:
Group A 0-4 yrs
Gold: Nicarra Koncilia age 2-1/2 from Grain Valley
Silver: Connor & Collin Smith, twin boys who shared the egg, 4 yrs from Grain Valley
Group B 5 to 7 yrs
Gold: Evan Caley age 7 from Grain Valley
Silver: Nathan Morris age 5 from Grain Valley
Group C 8 to 10 yrs
Gold: Alexis Valverde age 8 from Grain Valley ( 5th year she has attended)
Silver: Regan Pierson age 8 from Grain Valley/Blue Springs
Congratulations winners.

Also the Examiner had an article on the on-line blog and here is the link. Just one little error on the Gold and Silver baskets. It should of been that the prize eggs were something new for this year.
www.examiner.net/news/

Enjoy the pictures.

Eggs.. Eggs.. Eggs... How many did we do?????

How many eggs did we stuff????

Yesterday a group of 30 people gathered together at the Administrative School building to stuff eggs for the upcoming Easter Egg Hunt. The group stuffed 10,200+ eggs and we finally put a stop and gathered the remainder of the eggs and stored them for next year. We had approximately close to 2,000 that we not stuffed. This year we did get around 3,300 eggs that were donated by the Police Department, John Davidson, thanks for thinking about us. We also had eggs donated by one of the local stores last year, close to 400 of them. With the recycling and all the new eggs, we had more than what we needed.

Reminder: Members will be meeting at 8:00 am March 15th, for a quick morning meeting and then we will start to set up the area immediately after. Please come out and help as we can always use as many people as we can get. Thanks to all those who worked and helped with the egg stuffing.
I have included some pictures taken on the Egg Stuffing day. We had 9 volunteers this year, Danni Arnold, Josh Powell, Nick Jackson, Nick Flynn, Ryan Roach, Arron Bryant and Bryan McDonald's two daughters and his wife. Thank you for coming out to help us.

Event chairman, Chris Davis

President Dale

Our first group of workers who jumped in as soon as they arrived.

Sheila and Danni working as a team.

Jeanette

workers

Chris was signing paperwork for those who came in for hours of service.

We are starting to see more and more of this dynamic duo. Nick and Nick helped out with the Santa house on one of our cold days and today they came and joined forces again to help with our egg stuffing.

These two sat quietly and helped stuff the eggs. We appreciate that Ryan brought a friend. From left to right: Arron Bryant and Ryan Roach ( son of Stephanie who works at the Post office and is Ryan's second year helping)

The two ladies who came with Dad Bryon McDonald. I didn't get their names but was glad to have them join us as Bryon did bring the whole family as his wife joined us too.

Chris Davis took time to take a picture with two of our younger volunteers, Left to right are Nick Flynn and Nick Jackson (Kathy Doty's son)

Egg stuffing March 8th, School Admin building...

This is a reminder that on March 8th, we will be stuffing eggs for the following weeks Easter Egg Hunt. The time is 8:00 at the School Administrative office and Dr. Small says you can enter from the East side of the building. We plan on doing at least close to 9,000 eggs so bring a friend to help out. There will be donuts and coffee and candy, tape and eggs will be provided. If you have any plastic grocery bags, bring some with you as we normally put them in bags of a 100 to help count. If you have any questions, please get with Chris or John Davis.

EASTER EGG HUNT INFORMATION......

EASTER EGG HUNT, March 15th

This years Easter Egg Hunt will be on March 15th at 10:00 am in Armstrong Park. It will start at 10:00 am sharp.

Optimist members are to come out at 8:00 am for a short meeting and then we will start to put up our signs and distribute the eggs. The three groups are : group A for 4 yr and under, group B 5 to 7 yrs, group C for 8 to 10 yrs. We will have the gold and silver egg winners in all three groups but this year we have additional items too. Last year Dollar General donated a lot of items for us to use towards our event. There will be special eggs with "your a prize winner" in them. The will allow the winner to chose an item from the prize table.

Sheila Arnold will be taking care of the money at the gazebo for pictures and we could use a picture taker in the event that Danni cannot help out this year.

We need a few people to man the tables that will have the prize winners and another that will have the Gold and Silver Egg winners. Please help us out again this year as we can use all members possible to help out in all areas. If you need more information, please call me.

Thanks

Christy

Substance Abuse Poster voting.....

At March 1st meeting Carol Barnes gave an update on the Substance Abuse posters. Because of the time she will gather them up and the fact that we do not have a meeting on the Easter weekend, Carol will be at the Historical Society at 5:00 pm on March 20th (Thursday) for those who want to vote on the posters. Please if you can schedule it into your calendar, stop by at 5:00 pm to help judge the posters for her. She does need to have at least 3 to 5 people, more if you can make it. It will be a short gathering meeting and Carol would appreciate anyone who can come out and help.

Club update from March 1st.

CLUB TO DONATE FUNDS TOWARDS STONY POINT LIBRARY FOR BOOKS......
Hello, today at the meeting it was brought up and voted that the club would donate money to Stony Point School Library for additional books. This is a great way of helping the new school with any new additional funds needed for books, etc. Dr Chris Small mentioned that even though there may be a budget, the schools can always use whatever they can get as additional funds. Another great idea, thanks Carol Barnes for the suggestion and thanks to all the members who gave their support on this idea.

Programs for January and February.....

Cheryl Klotz is not only the chairman of the Programs but was the Program for the month of January.


Cheryl gave a program on a subject dear to her heart and you could tell by listening to her program and looking at the overhead slides she had for the group. Her topic was "Operation Christmas Child" the Shoebox gifts for kids. Cheryl and others went to help out before the holiday and brought back pictures to share with us of the operation in Denver. The goal was to have 600,000 boxes ready to be distributed. This was a very interesting project and Cheryl thanks for sharing it with us.

Randy Draper was our speaker for the month of February. Randy came and spoke about the schools Tennis teams. As usual, Randy is very proud of his teams regardless of which sports it is. We are always pleased to have him come in and speak to us. Thank You Randy for your updates on the sports and hope you come again, we always enjoy your visit.