Director's Message - July 20204

Hope you are having a great summer with family and friends!

Thank you to our members who attended the annual meeting and election on June 19. We were able to establish a quorum with members present and absentee ballots submitted and now have a new board in place. Kathy Bruno was elected Second Vice Chair and Erin Cass was elected Director A. In addition, Marco Martinez and Chad McBride were appointed as Members at Large during our monthly board meeting that followed the annual meeting. Please see Page 7 for the complete list of board members. We thank Margie Vincent for her dedicated service to our organization, as a board member, for over 8 years. You can find her here most days volunteering in a variety of ways along with leading the knitting group and participating in the SAIL (Stay Active and Independent for Life) exercise program.

I will be retiring on Wednesday, July 31 and turning the reigns over to Lisa Blair, our current program director. We will have a reception that day at 1 p.m. in the Social Hall to celebrate my retirement and welcome Lisa as our new executive director. Louanne and I will continue to make Wenatchee our home and we’ll frequent the senior center, helping out where needed as volunteers. We will join the flock going south for the winter, “snowbirding” in Arizona  during the winter months.

There will be some significant changes coming soon and I want our membership to understand that Lisa and I will be working on those changes together. Most of the changes are being dictated by our ever-increasing costs of operation. I will provide more details in my final August Livewire column.

Congratulations to our Second Chance Thrift Shop staff and volunteers for winning the World’s Best competition again this year. And a big thank you to everyone who cast their vote for us — it was much appreciated! Winning the World’s Best is a big deal because it helps us promote our Thrift Shop throughout the area. We have all come to realize the importance of the Thrift Shop to the overall financial health of our organization.
Thank you to all the volunteers who helped with our annual crab feed. The June 15 event was sold out with 200 people attending. The crab was outstanding — there was plenty of it — and everyone was pleased and asking when we would have another one. Now that we have found an excellent source for high-quality crab (Gemini Seafood in Cle Elum), expect more crab feeds in the future. During the event, Wayne Massing from the Sunrise Rotary Club presented us a check for $4,000 from the club for partnering with them to sell tickets for their Road Apple Roulette Raffle during the Apple Blossom Festival Grand Parade. Our headline sponsor for the event, Jim Heinlein (picture on front page), owner of Springwater Insurance Group, was not to be outdone. He and Dave Solomon, owner of Dave Solomon Financial Group, each donated $2,500 and we thank them so much for their support.

We recently learned of the sudden passing of Jean Aldridge. Jean was a fixture at the senior center, looking after the craft room where we process and prepare items for sale in our Thrift Store. She was a special person, one who I will never forget. The senior center was her second home and seldom did she miss a day. Jean and Bob were some of the first people I met after arriving as executive director in July of 2013. They were our reigning King and Queen and were a big help in acclimating me to the organization. Recognizing the wonderful job they were doing as our royalty,
they reigned again the following year. Jean will be missed but long remembered. There will be a service for her at 10 a.m. on Aug. 13 at First Assembly of God Church in Wenatchee.

We also recently lost Barbara Tilly, a world-class volunteer and community leader. At our June Western Day lunch, Barbara’s husband Earl presented a check for $25,000 in her memory for our building fund (picture on Page 3). As most of you know, I like to tell stories from my past so here I go with another one! While growing up in Cashmere, I frequented a barber by the name of Waldo Bartroff, who was Barbara’s father. Waldo knew how to keep kids under control while in the barber chair. If a youngster started misbehaving, he would pick up his razor while pulling on the child’s ear lobe and say, “How about some ear soup?” It happened to me at least once and it was done in such a way that we all kept coming back and were better behaved. Waldo was the go-to barber for the men in Cashmere — young and old!

Mark your calendars for a series of seminars focused on the use of MyChart using your smartphones and computers. MyChart, offered through Confluence Health, has become a very important tool for accessing your personal healthcare information, communicating with your care team, scheduling medical appointments, requesting medication refills and more. MyChart is a free service for all patients. The sessions will be conducted July 18, and Aug. 8 and 22 from 1-2 p.m. in the Social Hall. We will have additional information posted on our website and Facebook page.

Stay cool during these warmer days!

~ Dave