MAN & N.W. ONT GOOD SAM CLUB BUFFALO CHIPS

Volume 27 Issue 19 April 15, 2016

“Fair Winds” Director - Jim & Pat Scott Wow, it has been almost two years since the Good Sam Club confirmed us as Directors! Pat and I would like to thank you for all the support and kind words over the past two years. We are humbled by your words and have endeavoured to live up to your expectations. The backbone of the Provincial Organization was and is the Provincial Executive and Chapter Presidents. Without your commitments of time and energy, it would be impossible to be your Director. At the moment there are a few open positions on the Provincial Executive and some coming up. Your Chapter Presidents will be briefed at the Spring Meeting of the Presidents and Executive. As no organization runs by itself, I encourage folks to step up and help so we can remain a vibrant entity into the future. This winter Pat and I took part in Regional Meetings with our Northern Plains Regional Director and four other Provincial and State Directors. Once again we were in receipt of valuable information and take back lessons learned by the other organizations. I look forward to passing on some of these insights at our Presidents and Executive Spring Meeting. RV Rally 2016 in Shoal Lake, MB is shaping up nicely and we are looking forward to another great event. Following this year’s rally, we will begin the process of looking for the next location for 2018/2019. We hope to see you all in Shoal Lake and remind you to spread the word to all of your camping friends in and outside of the Good Sam Club. We’d love to meet them. Stay safe out there so we’ll have the pleasure of seeing you soon. Fair Winds to you all.

See you in Shoal Lake,

Man & N.W. Ont. RV Rally

Early Bird – Tuesday, May 31, 2016 RV Rally – June 1st to June 5th 2016 Mail it now and join us in June.

Manitoba Goldeyes Reporter - Loraine Krastel We ended our year with a campout at Beach, watching the blue moon come up. What a beautiful moon it was, and what a great place to watch it. The Christmas party was held at Smitty’s Portage Avenue West, they have a very nice private room. We all had a great time and looking forward to seeing everyone that could attend our breakfast in January. We managed to gather each month at different locations for breakfast to keep in touch. We had some of our members away at different times, but managed to have about 20 out at each outing. We will start out new camp year on the May long weekend in . We are pleased to announce we have three new camper couples to join us this year. We are all looking forward to our new camping year spending time with our Good Sam friends near and far. Wishing you all a good summer; may we be blessed with good weather.

Manitoba Sunny Sams Reporter - Tom Breman The Sunny Sams ended 2015 with a Christmas luncheon held at the South Beach Casino on November 25th. We had a good turnout for event as we scheduled it to be held before our snowbirds headed south for the winter. This was a nice venue offering a non-rushed dining experience with a nice buffet. Unfortunately, we are down two rigs to start this year. This leaves us with 10 rigs in our group. Our club will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer. Planning is underway for an appropriate celebratory function to be held. We will be holding our annual spring meeting and pot luck on April 24th, where we will be finalizing our plans for summer camp outs. Our wagon master Roland Weiler, is busy finalizing summer camping plans for up to 8 camping dates including locations at Stonewall, Shoal Lake, Beausejour, , Teulon, Richer, , and finally . Prairie Crocus Sams Reporter - Art Arbour The Chapter has not been active during our mild winter, due to lack of numbers but are happy to report that we did not lose members and everyone is doing well. We are looking forward to our Snowbirds returning and another camping season. The Chapter is holding our first meeting on April 10th to discuss our plans for the Rally at Shoal Lake and the coming year. I would like to acknowledge Keith and Norma Scott's daughter, Allison for the work she put in on coming up with a new style of ticket for the Rally silent auction. It is working very well with no problems. We are looking forward to our camping season, starting with our joint campout at Cardale with Wheat City Sams.

Darvill Derby

Rumors again! A young filly from Thunder Bay Sleeping Giants stole the show and the race last year in Carman. It has been said that the competition will be tougher this year. Word has it that a number of surprises are in store for this year’s race. Be sure to join us in Shoal Lake so you will be there to witness this great event.

Darvill Derby on Saturday – must mean a Fancy Hat Parade on Saturday!

Join the fun and create your own Fancy Hat! Redboines Sams Reporter - Ann Ingalls Our winter was fairly quiet. We had our Annual meeting at Canad Inn Polo Park on November 6th, 2015 where we had a seafood buffet. At the meeting we elected our new executive: Past President: Barb Bell (Ralph) President: Ann Ingalls (Ray) Vice president: Donna Wiebe (Milt) Secretary: Jacquie Rohn Treasurer: Richard Rohn Wagonmaster: Jake Friesen (Bertha) We also finalized plans for our 2016 camping season. As a result of three very successful Silent Auctions during the year and some additional donations from members, we were thrilled to be able to donate $2,300.00 to our chosen charity, The Dream Factory. Since 2011, when we initiated our support of The Dream Factory, we have donated $8,400.00 to that worthy organization. The Dream Factory is a Manitoba organization, started by the Lion’s Club, which grants wishes to Manitoba children with life threatening diseases. At the August campout in Beausejour, a neighborhood lady gave us a beautiful Ashley Drake collector doll when she learned about our support of The Dream Factory. We decided not to include this valuable gift in our Silent Auction, but rather, to sell it separately. We did just that. It took several months, but we were fortunate to find an appropriate buyer. This beautiful infant doll is now with her “Mom”, a young Saskatchewan girl who herself is challenged. Caring for baby Delilah has given Shanisse a sense of responsibility and a reason to get up in the morning. We were thrilled with the outcome to this story. Friday, December 6th, 2015 was our Christmas party held at Ray and Ann Ingalls’ condo in the common party room. All enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner, followed by games. In October and during the winter months we enjoyed monthly breakfasts to keep up with everyone: January 7th at the Pancake House on Pembina Hwy; February 11th at Smitty’s on St. James St; March 10th at Perkins on Fermor; April 14th at Canad Inn Polo Park. The turnouts were surprisingly great due to some snowbirds not going away this winter. Our camping season officially begins on May 12th in Lac du Bonnet. Looking forward to a great season and hoping the weather co-operates.

Sleeping Giants Sams Reporter - Chris Maurik

Well, a long winter is slowly coming to an end. Our winter activities were limited as a number of our members travelled south this year. We did get together every Monday morning for coffee at Mario’s Bowl. Dec. 2nd, 2015 we had our Christmas Supper and Annual meeting at the Oliver Road Community Centre. A turkey dinner was catered by the ladies of the Centre complimented by hot apple cider made by Barb Thomson. It was delicious as usual. John Thomson won our yearlong Cribbage tournament and was awarded the Don McKay Memorial Trophy. Door prizes were drawn and a few rousing games of Bingo were played. Thirty-six members attended. Jan. 27, 2016 we had a representative (Diana Betzel) from the Alzheimer Society give a presentation on understanding dementia, at the 55 plus centre. 16 members attended. It was very informative, a great session with lots of questions asked and answered. Feb 11, 2016 we met a Mario’s Bowl at 11:30 for lunch. 14 members attended and everyone enjoyed the food and the social gathering. We are now preparing for the camping season. Our first campout will be May 13-16 at KOA and will include our semi-annual meeting. We are definitely looking forward to a great summer and lots of great camping. Our 2016 schedule has been sent to all members. Our president and husband are presently enjoying a WARM vacation in BC.

YellowQuill Sams Reporter - Tom Muir

I hope everyone had a good winter and is ready to start a new season. Our annual Christmas Party was held on November 27th with 41 Sams attending. In addition to the usual excellent Christmas dinner and fun games, our group also donated $300.00 to Sunset Palliative Care and our usual toys and food hamper to the Salvation Army. On February 16th, 28 winter weary Yellowquill Sams travelled to a St. Claude restaurant for a delicious Chinese Dinner. We are looking forward to our Spring meeting and supper on April 29th at the Fair Board Office. At that time our summer camping schedule will be developed. In anticipation of the good camping ahead of us, two group sites have already been reserved at Spruce Woods Park for a week in August.

Wheat City Sams Reporter - Howard Norek Wheat City Sams held its Annual General Meeting on 18 October 2016. Officers remain for another year: President – Howard Norek; Vice President (new for 1 year) - Laura Hyrich; Secretary – Shirley Wyborn and Treasurer – Ralph Heard. After a lot of work by 3 of our women members, we now have a 3 panel brochure/pamphlet to distribute throughout the RV industry. The color brochure is an introduction for newcomers to understand the Good Sam Club from the International and Provincial Organisations to the Chapter level. The Website is listed as an information source. We look forward to this brochure being a productive tool for recruiting new members into the Good Sam Club. Our Chapter took a very soft approach to the idea of a Regional Rally. Our short 5 month camping season is quite full for most of our members aside from the Provincial Rally that we attend quite strongly. Many of our Chapter attend the neighbouring Provincial rallies, which leaves little room for another big Rally. We have had monthly meetings and games days through the winter and all were very well attended, including our December Christmas Social. May is our first scheduled camp-out followed by a list of monthly camping events. We look forward to the June Rally as a “big event” for us in the Westman area. Wheat City suggests that the Scotts make application for Refugee Status for Lena. They may be surprised at the benefits that may follow!

Camping Season is almost here!

Chapter Presidents 2016

Manitoba Goldeyes Loraine Krastel (Craig) (Winnipeg and area) 204-832-4566 [email protected]

Manitoba Sunny Sams Tom Breman (Wendy Large) (Winnipeg and area) 204-669-0275 [email protected]

Prairie Crocus Sams Art Arbour (Arlene) (Brandon and area) 204-725-4890 [email protected]

Redboine Sams Ann Ingalls (Ray) (Winnipeg and area) 204-254-4121 [email protected]

Sleeping Giants Sams John Thomson (Barbara) (Thunder Bay and area) 807-345-7877 [email protected]

Wheat City Sams Howard Norek (Lesley) (Brandon and area) 204-838-2225 [email protected]

YellowQuill Sams Tom Muir (Mary) (Portage la Prairie and area) 204-857-6952 204-856-3624 (cell) [email protected]

Provincial Executive 2016

Provincial Director Jim Scott (Pat) 204-745-2626 [email protected]

Past Provincial Director Jim Whyte (Lorna) 204-289-2626 [email protected]

Treasurer Albert Wyborn (Shirley) 204-727-1598 [email protected]

Secretary Barb Bell (Ralph) 204-453-2770 [email protected]

Wagon Master Jake Friesen (Bertha) 204-377-4034 [email protected]

Assistant Director Richard Wilkes (Mavis) 807-345-5929 [email protected]

Assistant Director Linda Baker (Ivan) 204-728-0235 [email protected]

Assistant Director Joe Kikukawa (Beth) 204-736-3745 [email protected]

Merchandiser Margo Weiler (Roland) 204-254-5464 [email protected]

Web Master Kathrine Keselowsky 204-775-6101 [email protected]

Historian OPEN

Submissions for Fall Buffalo Chips

Due October 1, 2016