August / September 2022 Issue

A Message from your President - Richard Scinta

Dear Skålleagues,

I trust you are having a lovely summer. Although we are seeing inflation and cutbacks in some consumer spending, something promising is that our travel industry is still doing well! People value travel, and this is evident in our recent tourism numbers throughout the country. What we do in our industry is highly valued, and we are lucky to all make a living from some form of travel and tourism!    

My apologies for the various notices we have sent lately. We want to make sure you are as informed as possible. Per my note last week, our 2nd 2022 National Committee Meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, August 18th, at 2:00 PM EST in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida (near Tampa). The meeting will be held on a live feed for you to attend virtually in real-time. Each Club is encouraged to have a representative present and can vote on important issues online. Please save the date and time on your calendars. We will provide dial-in information for virtual meeting attendance next week. 

Although some members will be there in person, there is limited on-site space. However, if you would like to attend in person, please contact us immediately. Send your club representative's name and email address to Alton Hagen at ahagen@agendausa.com by 5:00 PM EST on August 8th.

For those clubs that attended the May Annual General Meeting in Orlando, you still have until August 19th to apply for the $500 club credit for your attendance. Please don't let this valuable benefit of Skal USA membership go to waste!  

Speaking of benefits, did you know Skål USA has partnered with a leading insurance firm so Skålleagues can take advantage of special pricing for their insurance needs? It's that time of year to renew our Crime Policy, Directors, and Officers Policy, and all clubs are invited to take advantage of the rates we have set up. Please contact Art Allis at arthurallis@me.com for more information if you would like to participate.  

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Skål!

Richard

After a long and arduous process, the new Skål USA website is live and working fabulously.  While we at Skål USA are quite disappointed in the recently released audit of Skål International’s digital transformation and how they got here, the fact remains the website is out and up, and we have already switched over our platform.  We have redirected our http://skalusa.org URL, so you do not need to learn a new one.

Skal International says that each club gets a free site from them, but to be honest, that site will not help anyone the way that it is. You will need to update the site to fit your needs as the free site they offer is basically a clone of the USA site - and they cloned it before the site was finished - so it's an unfinished version at that.

What they do offer that is very cool is that every club now has its own URL which is already interlinked with the national and international websites.  All one has to do is turn off the USA pages and replace them with your club’s information. The official new URL is http://usa.skal.org.  To see yours, just replace the “usa” in the address with your own club location (i.e:  chicago.skal.org or hawaii.skal.org.)

Skål Canada has contracted a lovely woman named Vanessa who will offer all US clubs 9 hours for $400 to change over their website.  She swears she can do what needs to be done in that time frame to keep your costs down.  We know Skål International would like to see every club move over, but its Skål USA's opinion is that it’s up to each club to decide what's best for them. We encourage those of you that are thinking about moving to the new website to reach out to Vanessa to see what is involved and how easy (or difficult) the process will be for your club to see if its works for you.  You may reach out to her directly via email at support@skalcanada.org. 

If you have any other questions, please contact Pam Davis at pam.davis@skalusa.org. 

The Florimond Volckaert Fund (FVF) greatly benefits Skål members and their immediate families. Donations from member clubs allow this fund to help members in need. The two years of the pandemic have resulted in limited donations and accelerated grants.  

As your International Skål Councillor, it is my honor and duty to help administer this fund in the USA. Once again, I ask for your support for this worthy cause. It is important that our clubs make sure their membership is aware of this tremendous benefit that no other organization provides. It is equally vital for clubs to make a yearly contribution to the fund, no matter how small.

During our Annual General meeting in Orlando, I spoke about an upcoming fundraiser I would ask every club to support. It should be easy... put together a travel package to your city that can be auctioned during the World Congress in Croatia. All proceeds will go to the fund.  

Congratulations to our San Jose and Orlando clubs, who have already provided a package.  

Sample Orlando Package:

• 2-night accommodation in two different hotels making a 4-night stay 
• Sightseeing tickets to multiple local attractions
• Meal coupons

Please get creative and involve your members and what they may offer to make the package memorable.  

The packages must have an available date between November 1, 2022, through December 31, 2023. Of course, there can be black-out dates and are subject to availability.

Let us show the Skål World that the USA has heard the call for help and that we will support this special fund.

As always, thank you, Skål USA, for your support.

Holly Powers

The last step in our website transformation was to get our Career Center live on the new site. It is back up and available for our members at no cost at this . Please click on the below videos to see how to find them on our new website.

Just another reminder that we will be holding another National Committee Meeting on Thursday, August 18th, at 2:00 PM EST.  The Executive Committee will be streaming live from Indian Rocks Beach, Florida and we encourage each club to have a representative attend virtually in real-time.  Details on registration will be sent shortly.  Please save this date and time on your calendars. 

Is your Club having an event that you'd like to share?

Took some great pictures you want people to see?

Please do not email them to be posted. Post them to Skål USA's

Facebook page yourself. We will approve them as soon as possible.

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Skål USA Journeys is the bi-monthly official publication of Skål International USA. A special edition will be sent out when there is breaking news to share. We want to share your news with SKÅL members across the country. If you have breaking news or Club news for the newsletter, please send them to info@SkalUSA.org.

Skål USA Journeys & Lightning News Editor | Pam Davis | Vice President PR & Communications | (808) 225-8229