F r i e n d s h i p F o r c e N i a g a r a JUNE 2017 Issue #99 President s Message Karin Lampman June is FF Niagara s month for voting on 2019 journeys. Our 2 nd Vice-President has forwarded a ballot sheet to all members for voting on at our next meeting. As July 1st is Canada s 150 th birthday (sesquicentennial), there are many celebrations underway. Our club is celebrating this occasion with inbound and outbound inter-club friendly visits with Stratford/St. Mary s. I understand the inbound visit was a great success and our outbound visit in July will prove to be very enjoyable as well This is also the 40 th anniversary for FFI and Bill Harkness and I will be attending the International Conference in Manchester, UK in August. With strong positive thoughts, and in consideration of all the world events happening in London and nearby, I am optimistic this will not impact the success of this conference For 2018 we have two inbound journeys plus a global Ontario Outdoors Adventure journey (that makes three journeys) and three outbound journeys. This will be a very busy year. A policy committee chaired by Marilyn Weber met several times to look over and update the club policies and by-laws. There will be further discussions before the changes will be voted on. As you can see your Board/Executive is working on keeping our club vital and up-to-date on all matters. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact any member of our Board at any time. We always appreciate hearing from you. I leave you with a quote from The Friendship Book by Anais Nin : Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. 1
1st Vice President s Bill Harkness FF Niagara s 2017 Journeys: Inbound: Stratford - St. Marys Martha Abra - May 16 to 19 Riga, Latvia - Peggy Champion & Marilyn Weber - Sept. 5 to 12 Nelson, New Zealand - Sophie Chess & Diane Love - Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 Outbound: Turrialba, Costa Rica - Karin Lampman - Mar. 27 to April 3 New Hampshire Seacoast, USA - Sue McEwen - May 31 to June 7 Stratford - St. Marys - Donna Painter - July 25 to 28 Tucson - Southern Arizona, USA - Bill & Mary Armbrust - Oct. 17 to 24 FF Niagara s 2018 Journeys: Opportunities are available for members wishing to lead either an inbound or an outbound in 2018. Please contact Bill. Inbound: Outbound: Oita, Japan - Sandra Yemm - May 23 to 29, 2018 Global - Ontario Outdoors Adventure - September 2018 New Hampshire Seacoast Clarice West-Hobbs - October (NHS will visit both Niagara and Hamilton) Northern Illinois, USA - June 2018 Greater Taipei, Taiwan - Carol Liboiron - Oct. 28 to Nov. 3 Kaohsiung, Taiwan - Carol Liboiron - Nov. 3 to 9, 2018 2
2nd Vice President Mort Sider Travel Committee For 2019 Outbound Journeys WE NEED YOU WE NEED YOUR VOTE Please see E-Mailed ballot, PRINT it and BRING it along to FFN meeting on Tues. June 20th. PAST PRESIDENT Marilyn Weber The updated Policy Manual (minus the Friendship Fund policy) was approved by the Board at the May Board meeting. The Past President is looking for members to sit on a Friendship Fund Review Committee. In the meantime the previous Friendship Fund policy remains in place. The changes to the Club by-laws will be voted on by the membership at the AGM in Nov. The Nominations Committee (Bill Harkness, Judy Yovanovich, and Marilyn Weber) are working on nominations for the following board positions for the 2018 year Second VP, Secretary, and Newsletter. WE NEED YOU TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND BE PART OF THE LEADERSHIP OF FF NIAGARA. Hopefully we will have volunteers (or elections) for these positions by the AGM in November. 3
SOCIAL - Clarice West-Hobbs The Social Committee met on Tuesday June 13. We organized our Summer Picnic for August at Queenston Park Theatre Social is Thursday July 20 called Old Love. Donna Painter needs to know by JUNE 16 if you wish to attend as any tickets left at that time will be returned to PAC. Don't forget we are going to the Mansion House for dinner following the play so it should be fun. Please let the committee know if you plan to join in for dinner. SUNSHINE Grace Bowslaugh In our last Newsletter the passing of Dave Stares was mentioned. At that time I sent a donation to St. Giles Presbyterian Church in memory of Dave on behalf of the Club. Dover, New Hampshire June 2017 4
Outbound Journeys 2017 Outbound Journey to New Hampshire May 31 June7 - Sue McEwen Ambassador-Co-ordinator Journey to New Hampshire Seacoast Our ambassadors have just returned from their journey to the New Hampshire Seacoast. We spent a day in Dover, having a city tour and a most interesting tour of their police station. We were all quite amazed at how forward thinking the city of Dover is, considering its size of 30,000 people. We spent two days in Portsmouth and a full day in Boston, on the " hop on, hop off "bus and a harbour tour. Their club hosted a Welcome Dinner at one of their member s lake house, which included boat trips on their lake. Many of us wished we had brought warmer, rain proof clothes as we had two very wet and cold days touring about. Our Boston day had a record breaking Temperature Coldest day in YEARS Lessons learned!! All in all, it was a very successful Journey! Inbound Journeys 2017 Inbound Journey from Nelson, New Zealand, Sept. 26 Oct. 2 Currently we have only 13 ambassadors confirmed: 5 couples and 3 singles. The Ambassador Co -Ordinator is currently checking with FFI whether it needs to be posted as an undersubscribed journey. (If so, we have recommended that it be posted to Canffex.) In the meantime we are proceeding with the matching to 8 host homes. Anyone wishing to join this group to see Me & My Girl at Shaw's Festival Theatre on Thursday September 28th at 2pm, please add your name(s) to the sign-up sheet with Sophie Chess at the meeting on June 20th. The price is $58. If you wish to attend the backstage tour as well, there's an additional fee of $5.65 per person. We have reserved a block of excellent seats in the first three rows of the centre balcony. (For comparison purposes, ticket prices for these seats on the following day cost $130 plus service charge!) Since final payment to Shaw must be made in early August, Sophie will collect cheques made out to Diane Love and post-dated to August 1st. Alternatively, you can send your payment to Diane via e-transfer by August 1st. 5
Inbound Journeys 2017 con t Riga Latvia September 6-12 Peggy Champion & Marilyn Weber Host Coordinators Our 20 Ambassadors arrive on September 6 and will be hosted by Jim and Judy Westall at their home for a Welcome Dinner on September 7th. Contact Peggy Champion at 905-227-3908 if you can offer your assistance with the setting up. What Happened at the Board Meeting The Board was in discussion with regard to changes in the Policy Manual as presented with job description amendments, including changes to the By-laws and Ambassador Selection and the motion was carried. Also, there was a motion to amend and accept By-law, Article V Section 2, with regard to registration costs and added shared accommodation costs for the President and 1st Vice-President to attend the annual Friendship Force International Conference in Manchester, UK. There are still discussions in progress concerning changes to the Friendship Fund and the Outbound Ambassador Coordinator manual. 6
Changes to the Ambassador Selection Policy to be effective for the 2018 Outbound Journey Requests The Policy Review Committee has met 3 times in the last few months to review the latest version of the FFN Ambassador Selection Policy. Many changes were recommended by the Committee and approved by the Board at the May 16, 2017 meeting. The highlights of the main changes are: As requested last year by members, when assigning Priority Group levels (1-4), Contributions from the last 4 years will be included (it used to be only 2 years). Thus the minimum requirements for each Priority Group have doubled. Instead of making your 1 st, 2 nd, and 3 rd choices for the next year s Outbound Journeys each June, requests will be made separately for each Journey seven months before the Start Date of that Journey. This will reduce the number of people who request a Journey and then have to drop out later because the request had to be made up to 18 months in advance. Each member/unit will be able to choose one of our 2 Outbounds per year as their 1 st choice. Instead of using Calendar Year as the basis, since our contributions are normally completed by October, we will use Nov.1 to Oct. 31 as the year, thus allowing new members to have a Priority Group in the year after they join if they participate right away in hosting or committees. Here are the updated Minimum Requirement charts for assigning Priority Group Levels 1-4 08 if you can offer your assistance with the set-up.individual MEMBER REQUIREMENTS Minimum Number of Contributions over 4 years With requirement for new members in brackets (i.e. under 4 complete years) No. of Leadership No. of Night Host No. of Other Contributions (or equivalent) 2 N/A N/A Priority Group Level 1 1 1 N/A 1 - At least 8 contributions (2 New) - 2 N/A Priority Group Level 2 1 - At least 4 contributions (2 New) - 1 At least 8 contributions (2 New) - - At least 8 contributions (2 New) Priority Group Level 3 1-3 or fewer contributions - 1 7 or fewer contributions - - 7 or fewer contributions Priority Group Level 4 08 if you can offer your assistance with the setting up. 7
Changes to the Ambassador Selection Policy (con t) COUPLE/MEMBERSHIP UNIT REQUIREMENTS Minimum Number of Contributions over 4 years for the two members in a Couple/Membership Unit No. of Leadership No. of Night Host No. of Other Contributions (or equivalent) 4 N/A N/A Both members are Priority Group Level 1 2 2 N/A 2 - At least 16 contributions (4 New) - 4 N/A Both members are Priority Group Level 2 2 - At least 8 contributions (2 New) - 2 At least 16 contributions (4 New) - - At least 16 contributions (4 New) Both members are Priority Group Level 3 2-7 or fewer contributions - 2 7 or fewer contributions - - 15 or fewer contributions Both members are Priority Group Level 4 Here are the details of the changes: Leadership, Night Host, and Other contributions will be included for the last 4 years (in the past only 2 years have counted), with the Contribution Year starting Nov. 1 and going until Oct. 31 (in the past we have used calendar year ). Thus new members who host or join committees in the months right after joining will be able to earn contributions in their first year. The number of Outbound Journeys per year has been changed from 3 to 2. The timing of making requests for Outbound Journeys for the next year has been changed. Instead of choosing 1 st, 2 nd & 3 rd choices for all of the Outbounds in the next year in June, the requests will be made separately for each Outbound 7 months before its Start Date. Each member will be able to Request either the first or the second FFN Outbound Journey for the year. As soon as the It s A Match report is received from FFI in February with our Outbounds for the next year, the Journey Coordinator (1 st VP) will try to fill the Ambassador Coordinator role (AC) for each Journey. The AC who is appointed by the Board will start working immediately on planning the Journey and possibly also add-on Travel options. Eight months before the Start Date, he/she will provide full details about the plans for the Journey (start/ finish dates, number of Ambassadors the Host Club can accept, transportation options & costs, add-on travel possibilities,...) to all FFN members. FFN members will know their Priority Group level based on their contributions for the past 4 contribution years. Seven months before the Start Date of a FFN Outbound Journey, members will request the Journey if they are interested in making that their request for the year. The Ambassador List and Standby List for each Journey will be prepared right away using exactly the same process we ve had for 4 years (random order for each Priority Group), and the AC will form their Outbound Committee from members on the Ambassador List. The Contingency fee and Friendship Fund fee will be collected right away after the list is issued. 8
Changes to the Ambassador Selection Policy (con t) Members (other than an AC and his/her partner) will only be able to request 1 FFN Outbound Journey for each year. This Policy change will: let members use their one Request on a Journey they are likely to be able to go on rather than having to guess what they will want to do 8-18 months in the future. This should eliminate the long Standby Lists we have had for almost all Exchanges in the past but that EDs later found have often ended up disappearing by the time the Journey s Start approaches. If the first FFN Journey in the year is undersubscribed, and an FFN member agrees to fill an open slot, that will not count as a Request. He/she will still be able to save his/her one Request for a Journey that is happening later in the year. As in our current process, after the Ambassador & Standby Lists have been prepared, any FFN member can add his/her name to the bottom of the list in case there are cancellations.. With the change to a 4-year contribution window, for members who have belonged to FFN for longer than 4 years, the minimum contribution levels for each Priority Group have been doubled from what they were for a 2-year window. For new members, the requirements have been reduced to just 2 Other contributions to allow them to qualify for Priority Group 3 more easily As well as these changes, all references to: Exchange have been changed to Journey, Exchange Coordinator (i.e. 1 st VP) to Journey Coordinator, ED to HC or AC for Host Coordinator or Ambassador Coordinator Exchange Director for an Inbound to Host Coordinator, and Exchange Director for an Outbound to Ambassador Coordinator 9
Dates to Remember June 20 July 18 Members Meeting Board meeting July 20 Foster Film Festival Play Old Love $35.00 and supper at the Mansion House July 25-28 August 15 Outbound Friendly journey with Stratford-St. Mary s Picnic Queenston Park, rain or shine Aug. 25-28 Sept. 5-12 International Conference in Manchester, UK Inbound journey with Riga, Latvia Sept. 26-Oct.2 Inbound journey with Nelson, NZ Oct. 4 Canada 150 Country Day Tour - Caledonia November 7 Members meeting ( AGM) Dec. 1st Christmas Party Club Roma 10
Friendship Force of Niagara Executive Committee 2017 President Karin Lampman kllampen28@gmail.com 1st V. President Bill Harkness wdharkness@gmail.com 2nd V. President Mort Sider mortfromport@gmail.com Secretary Pat Billingsley pat.billingsley@gmail.com Treasurer Michael Hedden hedden @mcmaster.ca Past President Marilyn Weber lin167@myfastcom.ca Membership Bill / Mary Armbrust armbrust@vaxxine,com Social & Fund Raising Clarice West-Hobbs clariceros.westhobbs@gmail.com Newsletter: Janet Guembel jaguembel@gmail.com Webmaster Bill Harkness wdharkness@gmail.com Database Coordinator Martha Abra marthaabra@gmail.com Archives Marilyn Weber lin67@myfastcom.ca Sunshine Lady Grace Bowslaugh ghutch@cogeco.ca 11