Massena American Legion

From the Commander: Colder weather is starting to set in and I am sure that some of you are beginning to prepare to leave us for the warmer climates of the south. Before you go please make sure and drop off your forwarding address so that your newsletter can follow you. Bulk mail such as this will not be forwarded from the Post Office.

November 16th is the Early Bird dinner at the Post. The dinner will be served from 5pm until 7pm. There will be a sign-up sheet at the bar for this event. The meal will be roast pork with all the trimmings. There will be NO TAKE-OUTS at this meal and as always since this is a Post function there will be no smoking in the dinning hall.

December 14th will be the Children’s Christmas Party here at the Post. There will be a sign-up sheet posted at the Auxiliary bulletin board right after the Halloween Party for everyone to sign-up. Please fill it out completely with the ages and sex of your child or grandchild so that the Auxiliary will have an easier job in purchasing gifts. There is a cut-off date of November 30th posted on the sign-up sheet. No late additions will be allowed.

The September 11th ceremony went very well. The only thing we needed to improve on was the weather. The one day we needed warm weather we did not get it. I was half frozen so I can imagine how the girls from "Tap to Toe" Dance Studio in their shin tight uniforms felt. Thanks to everyone that helped out and participated in the first annual Remembrance Day.

The Lancers are trying to build a list of legion members that would like to become members of the marching unit. If you are interested you can either contact Fred Cockayne, Clarence Marlow Jr. or leave your name at the bar.

Veterans Day - the 11th day of the 11th month on the 11th hour. The parade will leave our post at around 10 - 10:30am. There will be coffee and donuts here before we depart. Ceremonies will take place in Veterans Memorial Park on Andrews Street. D.A.V. Commander Merrill Bell is in charge of this annual event. If you would like to march over to the park you can join us here at the post before 10am. If you cannot march, please join us at the park for the 11am ceremonies.

Membership: We are roughly 250 members short of our goal of 660 renewed members. The renewals have been coming in at a fast rate. We may be able to reach the cut-off early this year and get "Honor" Post if we can get 250 more renewals before Christmas. So if you haven’t renewed yet or if you know of someone who is eligible to join, send them in or get them in, as quickly as possible.

Members of the Legion, Auxiliary and Sons participated in the "Keep the Wheels Rolling" radio-thon that took place on October 10th. We also made a $1,000 donation to Meals on Wheels at that time. Thank you to everyone that helped out and manned the phones, decorated, made pledges or acted as runners.

The Salvation Army is looking for "Bell Ringers" during the periods of November 14th through December 24th. They need people for the St. Lawrence Centre Mall, P&C and Wal-mart. If you have done this is the past or would like to volunteer some time this year to do it, you can call 769-5154 during the day or 769-5549 evenings.

The Post will be closed on November 28th for Thanksgiving and December 25th for Christmas.

Congratulations are in order for Gary Charland on his retirement from Active Duty from the Air Force. Settle down and enjoy retirement Gary.

Auxiliary: Welcome to new members Rita Wright, Ellyn Hall, Sharleen Wilson and Claire Kozsan. Our membership goal for 2003 is 236. Some of last year’s members paid after February 2002 and they won’t get a dues notice. You can pay your dues anytime, the 2003 cards are in.

The unit’s 2002 Girl Stater Ashlee Furnace went to the September County meeting to make her report of her week at Girls State.

Auxiliary County meeting is in Lisbon on October 17th. Luncheon begins at 12:30pm and meeting follows.

The 2003 dues cards are in and you pay your dues to Marilyn Snyder or you can pay your dues at the bar. They also have a sign-up sheet for the Early Bird Dinner which is November 16th.

Our Girl State representative Ashlee Furnace went to our County meeting last month and gave a speech on what she had done and learned.

I want to thank Tina MaComber, Sue Vatter and Sandy Cockayne for decorating the hall for Meals on Wheels lock-up. I also want to thank Virginia Charland for helping out too.

Auxiliary President
Joanne MaComber

Sons of The American Legion: No new information.

Post #79 was recently the recipient of two national awards. The first was the Americanism Award for outstanding service to our community. The second was the Children & Youth for outstanding achievement in the programs of children & youth. I hope some day we have enough wall space to put up all the awards we have been receiving. Every member of the post should be very proud of the recognition we have received. This shows that hard work and dedication to our community pay off in many ways.

November 5^th is Election Day. There are two ways to look at this. Either it is the end of the constant political ads on TV, radio and newspapers or it’s a chance to use your hard fought for right to vote. I hope that everyone exercises their right to vote in a free election. After all wasn’t that one of the rights we all fought for?

We have ordered post 2003 calendars that will be on sale at the bar soon. They are patriotic, colorful and informative. As soon as they come in we will get them out at the bar. I have only ordered 100 of them so you may want to check them out as soon as possible after the 1st of the month.

Since the Sons of The Legion did not forward any newsletter material I will leave you with this thought.

Veterans Day to some people is just another day. To a veteran it is the only day when they are shown thanks.

Yours for The Legion;
Mark S. Phillips
Commander