The Annual General Meeting was conducted on Friday, March 28, 2025 with approximately 65 in attendance; about 10 people sauntered in later for the wine n' cheese social.   The financials were passed by the membership following Treasurer, Ken Campbell's presentation.   Past President, Laurie Fischer presided over the elections where the Executive Committee member were acclaimed.   President - Connie Stanley, Vice President - Harold Côté, Secretary - Karen French, Treasurer - Ken Campbell, Registrar - Susan Cober, Ticket Sales Coordinator - Lydia Côté; and Past President - Harry Morrison will rejoin the board.  During the meeting, Dorothy Hughes voluteered to assist the Registrar and following the adjournment, Peter Spanos volunteered to assist Karen French in her absence.   

The Spring Fling was held on March 19^th with the theme: “Let’s Play Ball” with 111 attendees!  Harold Côté, Vice President coordinated this with a great planning committee and Gil Small hosted as emcee!  Another wonderful buffet from Banquet Masters was enjoyed and again, we danced the night away in our favourite sports team’s attire!  We had everything that night from baseball, football, soccer, basketball and one fella even wore a Tampa Lightning hockey sweater!  So, as they say, anything and everything goes with us!!  Again, we had several door prizes, and nine X $50. Share the Wealth prizes were drawn!  The Club only retained $5!

The New York New Jersey Club, OTOW Veterans Club, Good Neighbors, the Snowbirds Club, Canadian Club and SCA all joined forces to bring our community a “Salute to OTOW Veterans” on Sunday, March 9th.  This special day featured an opening ceremony, lunch and desserts and then dancing.  Emcee Les N More did a spectacular job throughout the day.  We were pleased to have more than two hundred residents in attendance. We were even more pleased that over eighty of those residents were veterans and that we raised approximately Fifteen Hundred Dollars for Veterans causes!  There are too many people that contributed to this event for us to thank everyone individually in this column.  Simply put, it takes a village. So thank you to the village and your club will partner again!

A great group of singers and dancers joined in for the Happy Hour Sock Hop again, on Friday, March 7th in the Belleair Room, WAC!   We enjoyed tons of great snacks at the buffet and DJ Scott McParland and MC, Gil Small rocked the room all night!   And 12 prizes of $30 were drawn in the Share the Wealth activity!  Whoo hoo!!  

We hosted our Annual Picnic on Tuesday, March 4 at the Pavilion with another great lunch from Sprouts - we seem to be following the deli manager, Mary Jo Baker, around!   Joanne Fenn, Coordinator, hosted a great picnic where we had a wonderful turnout of 81 participants!  DJ Scott McParland turned on the music vibes with Laurie Fischer as emcee for one of his last events here at OTOW.   An exciting afternoon was enjoyed by all!!   Thanks again Joanne, Scott and Laurie and to all the volunteer servers: Sandy Sanda, Lydia Côté, Theresa Gates, Ken Campbell and Connie Stanley.

March started off with…..well, a march.  Eight members of the Canadian Club were out in red and white with a sprig of green and marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday, March 1^st and what an amazing day it was with all the parade goers and entries across OTOW!   We handed out Canadian flags and flyers promoting our Spring Fling with Canadian lapel pins!  Our Canadian flag paraphernalia was so very popular ~ everyone young and elderly, wanted some!   We’ll all be restocking again from our Members of Parliament over the summer!  

Sixty-two golfers came out to the Fun Day on a beautiful sunny Sunday morn!   We could not have asked for a better weather day!  When it was all said and done, Bill Gambacurta and Paul Farrell had to putt off to break the tie!   Paul's Canadian Callaway did it for the Farrell family team; Pam Cornelius, Paul's sister and his brother-in-law, Bob pulled through!   We enjoyed a fabulous chicken lunch from Sprouts, Palm Harbor and a few beverages with lunch then prizes and several $40 Share the Wealth prizes were drawn as well.  And one lucky individual a round of play at the Innisbrook Golf Club course!   And, as if the chicken luncheon wasn't enough for the day, it was also a milestone birthday for Captain Mary Jo Baker from Sprouts so albeit we didn't have 60 candles, we enjoyed her birthday cake too!   Thanks so much to all our sponsors and volunteers: Harold and Lydia Côté, Barb Morrison, Phyllis Farrell, Ken Campbell, Harry Morrison, Joann Fenn and Connie Stanley!

Well, wasn’t that a party?!  The 50^th Anniversary was a wonderful celebration, and I personally want to thank 153 members and 14 guests who came out to enjoy the night!  Our dear friend and JD, Les Weiss had the dance floor hopping all night long!!  I can’t say enough thank-you’s to the many volunteers who helped in so many capacities from making corsages, boutonnieres, centerpieces to ironing tablecloths and to the bag-pipers, and to the set up and tear down crew!  We even had a volunteer from California!  It sure was the gala event I think the Planning Committee were seeking and thank-you all again!  There were many door prizes and many Share the Wealth cash prizes drawn! 

The Club hosted its second Happy Hour - Karaoke on Friday, February 7 at the WAC, Belleair Room!  73 very excited folks came out to party!  Our DJ Scott McParland and emcee Laurie Fischer managed the singing and entertainment!  25 people braved the stage area to sing and the line dancers sure enjoyed 6 dedicated dance songs and entertainment!   Attendees brought wonderful snacks to share at the buffet table and our Treasurer drew 4 X $30 Share the Wealth prizes.   A great evening was had by all!   Everyone is welcome, member or not!  Next one is a 50's Scok Hop - 7 March featuring Scott McParland,DJ and Gil Small, emcee!  

On Saturday, January 25, twenty members enjoyed a delicious luncheon buffet at Ed Fletcher’s Early Bird Dinner Theatre and were entertained by the “Love …..or Best Offer” performance on stage.  The production was written by Phil Olsen and runs: January 10th – February 23rd, 2025.   Cheryl is a widow of two years, Stan is a recently divorcee.  After failed blind dates, their best friends, Lori and Dave, convince them to try online dating with the new dating website, “Friends, Love or Whatever.” With the worst dating advice in the world from their friends, Cheryl and Stan set out to find happiness and true love—online. All the trials and tribulations of online dating come to the forefront, including overcoming heartbreak and rejection, all to find love…or best offer.  The show was comedic and very humourous!

Friday, January 17^th saw our first Happy Hour – Karaoke of the season in the West Activity Centre, Belleair Room featuring DJ “Scott McParland” from 4:30 – 7 pm.  We had a great turn-out of 79 with emcee, Laurie Fischer guiding us through the evening!  A bountiful buffet of snacks was enjoyed by all, and several “Share the Wealth” cash prizes were drawn as well!  There were a lot of volunteer singers, line dancing and camaraderie enjoyed by everyone!  It was such a great evening, and we’ll do it all again on Friday, February 7!   Everyone at OTOW is always welcome, regardless whether you’re a member or not!

141 attendees joined us at the December 9^th Christmas Dinner – Dance themed “Santa’s Workshop”!  We celebrated the opportunity to support our community and the Reserve “Toys for Tots” the Pinellas County Marine Corps campaign, and in so doing, received an overwhelming contribution of toys both from attendees at the dinner-dance, monetary donations and from several neighbours in the Polynesian Building!  Thank-you OTOW!!  On behalf of the Pinellas County Marine Corps Reservists, Ed Zaleski, Coordinator, Toys for Tots and Mike Palermo joined us.  Rowland Hetrick took wonderful photos and created the lovely image above using one of our cake toppers, a take-away lantern centerpiece and some of our pinecones!

We contracted Banquet Masters for an amazing traditional Christmas dinner.  Everyone enjoyed a great evening of dancing to DJ Les Weiss from Les N’ More!  Les gave us exceptional choices on the dance floor, accepted many requests and the line dancers were amazing!  Eight door prizes collected, and six $50. cash prizes drawn through our Share the Wealth program.  New member, Karen Kaplan who won a Share the Wealth prize on Registration Night, won one of the many door prizes and TWO Share the Wealth cash prizes!!   Lucky Karen!!  We hope everyone had fun!  And a huge thanks to everyyone from OTOW who contributed to the Toys for Tots which helped over 8000 Pinellas children enjoy Christmas! 

On November 14^th Registration Night, we had 172 members register!  Registrar Susan Cober reported that 48 of those are new members, and 124 returning.   Congratulations to all and welcome aboard for what we anticipate will be an enjoyable experience!

We introduced something new for Registration Night by including Share the Wealth ticket sales and had 4 winners of $30 each, cash draw prizes.