By Pete Krawitz
What a great way to end the summer. We pulled off a very successful spaghetti dinner and raffle event, raising over $4K for our various programs. A huge thank you to all who made this event a success. A special thank you to Comrade Russ Seelig, his wife, Kay, and their friends and family who volunteered a significant amount of time coordinating the event.
I’d also like to acknowledge the great work our color guard is doing. Many of you had a chance to witness the color guard in action during the Spaghetti Dinner. The team looked sharp! As of late, we’ve been receiving many requests for our color guard to conduct ceremonies at various events in the region. We are not only honoring our veterans, flag, and country during these events but are also increasing Post 3063’s visibility in the community. I’d like to thank all of the members of the color guard for their hard work and dedication. I’d also like to thank Comrades Bill Hoeller and Joe Fitzgerald for their hard work in planning, equipping, and leading the color guard. For those who might be interested in joining, please reach out to Comrade Joe Fitzgerald ([email protected]).
We’ve also been pretty fortunate to attract quite a few new members over the past few months. Many of these new members have dove right in and have been assisting with some of the activities around the post. To some of the newer members, we still have a few committees that I’d like to see brought online. The Community Activities and Scholarship committees in particular. If you are interested in leading either of these committees, please let me know.
Changing gears ever so slightly, I’d like to discuss one project that we will be working on over the next few months. As many of you know, we’ve been discussing the idea of refurbishing the post for a few years now. The purpose of a refurbishment would be to make the facility more attractive, comfortable, and accessible for our members and also increase the hall’s rental desirability and value. Before we can make any proposals on the refurbishment front, we’ve determined that we need a better understanding of our current situation. Over the next few months, I’ll be working hand-in-hand with the house committee and quartermaster to analyze our facility’s operation and maintenance situation. While the post’s finances are relatively stable, we want to ensure that we are planning accordingly and maintain this stability for many years to come. To keep our finances healthy, especially in this rapidly changing and expensive city, we need to make sure that we can adapt to the changing needs and preferences of our communities, both the veteran community and the Ballard / Seattle community. We will be sharing regular updates as we make progress with our analysis.
I look forward to seeing you at our next business meeting.