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In addition to the events recorded in the September calendar, the Hawaii Elks District received the annual visitation of the CHEA President, Brad Smith and his First Lady, Agnes. Among those attending this event at the Honolulu Elks Lodge #616 in Honolulu were representatives from all five Hawaii Elks Lodges including the Kona Elks Lodge. The theme of the meeting echoed this year’s Grand Exalted Ruler’s motto “Promoting Elkdom with enthusiasm”.
Along that same theme, our current membership stands at 407 with five new members to be added in our next administrative meeting on October 13, bringing the membership count to 412 members. This leaves our lodge with 7 months in this Elks year to reach a proposed goal of 500 members. If only one fourth of our members were to bring in one new member each, we could easily reach that goal.
For the month October we have a lot of activity here at the Lodge including dinners, karaoke, pool, poker, ukulele lessons, NFL football and live bands. Attendance at these events has been down this summer but with winter settling in on the mainland and the return of our snowbird members, I am hopeful that all members and their families will partake in these events and support our lodge.
Without members’ active participation in these events the Kona Elks lodge cannot thrive and continue to grow.
As we begin welcoming our out-of-town members back into our lodge, the need for volunteers
is greater than ever before.
Recent reduction in paid employees has added to our reliance on volunteers even more to maintain lodge operations including the kitchen and bar as well as continued remodeling of the building and just as importantly maintaining and growing our services to the local community such as the library program, eat and meet group, hoop shoot, service events for veterans and so on.
Please note that we are not just asking for volunteers but individuals to volunteer as “volunteer leaders” to take charge of various projects or activities in the lodge and recruit volunteers for those activities. If you are interested in taking charge or ownership of an area of volunteer service, please email to secretary@konaelks.org or meet with Randall Gross who has compiled lists of projects and services for which we need organizers i.e. volunteer leaders.
Recent changes in the lodge include closing of the Brew & Bites café in favor of providing this café area to lodge members rather than the general public for other functions such as game events, girl scout meetings, extra seating area for Elks, etc. The back wall of the café area has been removed for greater access to the lounge and allow in more light for a more cheerful atmosphere.
The lodge is currently hosting “Members Matter” meetings every Monday at 6:00pm and we ask members to attend these meetings to brainstorm ideas on how to improve our lodge.
We still have 92 of our 407 members who have not paid their dues, and their names are listed in this newsletter. If you know any of these members please remind them of how important it is to keep their membership up to date.
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