Meetings

May

Date: May 20th (3rd Sunday because of Mother’s Day) – 5 PM 
What: Pot Luck Picnic
Where: Home of Kathy Morris, 13425 Mill Grove, Dallas
Bring: A dish that will serve 8 & a $5 donation to cover drinks 
Also: Chairs and a table if you have one
Program: Demonstration of Columbian Dancing & Social Time
Reserve: Please call Paula Rose: paularose2000@hotmail.com

June

Date: June 10th, 2007 - 5pm
What: Small Group Dinners in Members' Homes
Where: Various Members' Homes
Bring: The host will coordinate
Reserve: If you would like to host or attend a dinner, contact Henny 
Houston: hennyJack@earthlink.net or Ruth Barrow rbarrow@wt.net to let them know you're interested.

Prez perez Postcards

With the flowers and trees in full bloom/growth and the incredible thunderstorms crossing our part of the world, there's no doubt that spring has arrived. And, with two inbounds in the record books, there's no doubt that more friendships have been formed, ideas exchanged, and goodwill spread from the Dallas area to southeastern Alberta, Canada and to central Romania.

A BIG THANKS to Gary Paramore and to Ed Egren for coordinating and leading the Medicine Hat and the Sibiu & Brasov, Romania inbounds, respectively. I heard from many of the Canadian and Romanian ambassadors that the home hosts and day hosts were incredibly matched, the events interesting and fun, and the friendships fulfulling. That's a big part of our mission - to promote international friendship and understanding across barriers. At both farewell parties, Ed and Gary thanked their committee chairs and members for their efforts and time. On behalf of the FFD Board, to those of you where were involved in either or both exchanges - thanks, gracias, danke schoen, obrigado!! As we can always involve more of our members, let's keep this spirit alive and ready for our next group of ambassadors from Lima and Tarapoto, Peru (in mid-September).

With those inbounds completed, let's spend some time extending friendship and understanding within our club. Paula Rose, our program chair, has scheduled some great events for the next few months where we can learn more about each other. This month, we'll have a picnic at Kathy Morris' home (see Events page). In June, we'll meet in members' homes for small group dinners. And in July, we'll meet in local restaurants for small group dinners (a new venue but the same friendship). Be sure to respond to the announcements and come attend. Meet veteran members, meet new members, and meet our guests (invite your friends).

Also, at the May meeting, we will hold a short business meeting to catch up on the progress and status of our club and get an update on the outbound to Columbia (if you're still interested, contact Ray Enstam for info or see our Columbia exchange information page. Wendy Whaley is planning some entertainment to get us in the mood as we send our ambassadors to Bogota.

edward perez
FFD President

Inbound from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Dear Ed: The Romanian Group from Friendship Force International has alreadymade it back to Romania. Everyone is very happy about the trip to the U.S. Now we all know what it means to be a member of this organization. I thank you for your confidence in me.

I thank you for the computers that have already been delivered to the “Blind Children’s Center.” Without you I could never have done it. For your’s and your wife’s efforts I thank you again. I hope to see you again next year with the people from Dallas.

Sincerely yours, Azota Popescu. 

See a few photos from the exchange by clicking Photos.

Inbound Upcoming

Inbound from Lima & Taropoto, Peru, September 15-22, 2007. After a week in Dallas, they will spend a week in houston. The exchange director is Pam Varney-Terrell. If you can serve as a home host or in any other capacity, please contact her at  pamvarney2001@hotmail.com.

Outbound 2007

Our only outbound this year is to Bogota, Columbia, June 4 through 11, 2007. Ray Enstam is the ED, so if you are interested in going please contact him at enstam@sbcglobal.net. The Bogota exchange director, Cuqui Ardila, thinks they can host up to 30 ambassadors between the two clubs, Dallas and Houston.  Cuqui also suggests an optional trip for 2 nights to Cartagena.

Bogota is a well-preserved old city that dates from 1536, and it has 42 museums to illustrate its history. It is located at 8500 feet above sea level on the Andes Mountains, and the capital has a population of about 8,000,000. The weather is wonderful, like spring all year around. The members of the club are relatively young and many still work. Some own their own businesses. Click on Columbia to read more about it.

Corrections: 

1. The exchange to Bogota is offering a two day extension to Cartagena, not the coffee country or the Amazon. 

2. The inbound from Lima and Tarapoto is shared with Houston club. The
   previously planned stop in Mexico was cancelled.

Dallas’ Inbound & Outbound Exchanges for 2008

Both exchanges for 2008 have now been confirmed. We will welcome Bundaberg,
Australia in May 2008, and the Dallas and Austin clubs will travel together to Tarrialba, Costa Rica in November 2008.

Club News

FFI Board News

Here are a few recent motions/actions from your board:

FFD Ways and Means

Chairperson Mary Suther would like to thank everyone who participated in the Macy’s project. Wendy Whaley reports that we made $380, an unbelievable achievement.  Thanks to Wendy Whaley for coordinating and staffing the FFD table on March 17th along with Myrna Ridings, Henny Houston, Jim Bourn, and Diana Bosworth. Thanks also to all FFD who purchased or sold coupons.

Remember, if you need a ride to/from DFW or Love Field airport, contact edward perez at: erpbase-ffd@yahoo.com to schedule a FFD Airport shuttle [$30 one way, $40 if you live in Plano or north of Plano]. The following members have volunteered to be your shuttle driver: Paula Rose, Lillian Fipps, Wendy Whaley, Mary Williams,The Ridings, Ray Enstam, Ana Marie Lee, Ed Edgren, M. C. Meador, Gary Paramore and Mary Suther. Contact edward if you would like to volunteer, too.

Membership

If you have recently joined but forgot to order a name badge or need a replacement, please send your name and $5.00 to Brud Kisner, our membership co-chair at  bkisner@sbcglobal.net.

If you need a yearbook or want the recent updates, please contact Teresa
Wilkin at teresawilkin@yahoo.com.

Website

Are you regularly looking at the Dallas website? It's at www.friendshipforcedallas.org. 

While you're on the website you'll find meeting information, current and past newsletters, photos, and a wealth of other articles and links to other interesting places.

New Members

In order for members of Friendship Force of Dallas to get to know each other better, we will start a new feature telling about new, or fairly new, members. 

Let’s start with Frits and Patricia Andeweg. Frits was born in Indonesia and was a prisoner of the Japanese during WW II. After his release, he went to Holland and later to the US. He is an engineer, and worked for TI. He told them to go into light emitting diodes (LEDs), and when they didn’t think that was a great idea, he said, “OK, I’ll start my own company”. He did, and showed TI how they blew it. His company made many things with LEDs, including T shirts, but probably the most fun thing they did was a magnificent cloak for Liberace covered with hundreds of LEDs.

Pat was born in Hampshire, UK, and trained as a nurse at Cambridge. She worked
as a nurse in many different countries, including Malaysia and Iran. She was on her way to Australia to visit her family, but met Frits in San Francisco, and “That was it”.

They have been active in our club, including a dinner at their home when the Romanians were here this April. 

Wedding

A big Congratulations to LaNell and Jim Naughton on their marriage on April 2!!! They had to skeedaddle from the Romania event in downtown Dallas that day to get to their wedding ceremony.

Article from Erich

Our former member Yvonne Klusman's husband Erich Geissler wrote about their meeting through Friendship Force in an article in Friendship magazine. Read it on our Articles page.

2007 International Conference - 30th Anniversary Celebration 

by edward perez

In late February, Edward Perez, Paula Rose, Ray Enstam, Mary Williams, Mary
Suther, and Jim Bourn traveled to Atlanta, GA as FFD's official delegates to the FFI Conference and to celebrate FFI's 30th Aniversary. 

I attended a Leadership workshop where FFI introduced the new outbound Exchange Director training material. We will incorporate this material into our existing material for EDs. I also attended workshops on international exchanges and festivals (these

are increasing in number), exchanges that make a difference - service programs to Tanzania and the mission exchange to Cuba were presented; I showed my photos from that exchange (see poster above from Cuba), and publicizing Friendship Force. 

Others attended workshops on filling exchanges, music - an international language, travel & travel insurance, Q&A with George Brown (President, FFI - left), computer skills, and expansion into Asia. All of us attended the Gala Dinner and Program at the Atlanta Aquarium (very cool!!). 

Best of all, for me, was meeting FF members from all corners of our globe - Tanzania, US, Japan, Ghana, Colombia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, Germany, Canada - some veterans members (20 years+) and some brand new members (Yvonne from FF Ghana had just joined in January!).  

And after talking with them, even for a brief time, realizing that we are all one big family, all working to improve relations between peoples around the world, one person, one exchange at a time.

If you have never been to a regional or an international conference (the next ones will be in Baton Rogue, LA and Gold Coast, Australia, respectively), I promise you will be enlightened and inspired. Note - Dallas hosted the international conference with Ft. Worth in Nov 2002 and will host the SW Regional Conference in 2009!!

New FFI Board members, with our own Mary Suther on the left. Dallas/Florida member Mac Mckenzie is Board President.

Several items today for your info.

A Big CONGRATULATIONS to Jeff Cornell on completing all course work to receive a Bachelors of Science in Finance from University of Texas at Dallas. He recently started work at Baker and McKenzie [the world's largest law firm; more than 80% of its lawyers practice outside the US, come from 60 countries, and speak more than 75 languages] and will be heading to SMU law school in the fall.