1999 Florida Shrine Assoc. Convention eNewsletter, Issue #5

This is the July 1, 1999 -- 1999 Florida Shrine Assoc. Convention Webletter, Issue #5 that was sent to all who registered with our Website.

Subject: 1999 Florida Shrine Assoc. Final Convention Webletter, Issue #5
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 13:51:46 -0400
From: Gary Schweinshaupt <garysch@trowel.com>
Organization: Sahib Shrine Temple

Hello Friends, Brothers and Countrymen,

The 1999 Florida Shrine Convention is becoming a
distant memory. As will the FSA99 Website that has been
bringing you the FSA99 Webletters. Not to fear though,
the NEW Florida Shrine Association Website is now up
and running at http://fla-shrine.org This new Website
is possible courtesy of Sunshine Online Services
http://sunshine.com in Miami. Owner Louis Oaken
mailto:louis@macPublic.com was very generous to host
our site for free. The domain name comes from Miami
Potentate Richard Lynn (who is also the current FSA 1st
VP). Thank you both.

The FSA99 Website is soon to be defunct, I thank you
all for your support of this ground-breaking
communications tool that we hope will provide the
framework for future communications between Florida
Shrine Assoc. organizations. Please ignore the Website
address I referred you to in the last Webletter;
however, if anyone does go to it, it will send you to
the new site.

Thanks in part to your efforts of notifying Florida
brothers about this list, the FSA99 site has had over
2,800 visitors since we opened it in May 1998. We wound
up with 189 people registered in the email list and 90+
messages in our Guestbook. My hope is that this form of
communications will only expand and get better. I
received frequent approvals from nobles all over the
state, that they appreciated the information that was
available on FSA99.

Before posting news of the post 1999 Convention, I
first need to encourage you and plead with you to help
me divest myself of a very time-consuming part of
maintaining the Florida Shrine Association email list.
During the last year I have pretty much manually
compiled and updated the FSA99 email list from a
variety of resources (the Guestbook, personal email
directly to me and any other way I could capture the
email addresses of Florida nobles) so we could notify
you of what is new on the Website and from the
convention committees.

Please, I need you all now to 'Subscribe' to the
Florida Shrine Association email list. You do this by
going to the bottom of the new home page and entering
your email address in the ListBot form. You have to
complete a sign up form, but it doesn't take long. One
tricky part I need you to remember is, the demographics
questions you fill out has one blank "Company" that I
need you to enter the name of your Shrine Temple (I can
not customize the question to ask for Shrine Temple).
You will receive a couple of email messages that are
part of the verification process, then you know you
have been successfully added to the list.

If you have only a Juno email account and can't get on
the Internet or a browser that can't handle forms, send
me a message mailto:garysch@trowel.com with the
following information, and I will manage these
manually:

Email address:
First Name:
Last Name:
City:
State or Province:
ZIP or Postal Code:
Temple Name:

There is a way to subscribe to ListBot via email, but
it only captures the email address, and I don't want to
have addresses without names and temples (I will not
accept them).

What do we get from this? ListBot is a Free Web-based
e-mail list management service that will allow you to
subscribe (or unsubscribe) from the FSA mailing list
and update your email address (or any other
demographics) if it changes. You are assured of being
listed on the mailing list accurately. Your privacy is
protected, as you will receive a password that allows
you to revise your entry in the list anytime you want.
Your Webmaster is also protected, as all entries are
verified as correct with return email messages to the
subscriber. It also automatically removes undeliverable
addresses for those members that change their addresses
and don't notify the list (a real pain for the
Webmaster). There are several other benefits and
services that I may cover in a later Webletter.

Unfortunately, at this time, I have no information from
the 1999 Director General or the officers of FSA99. I
don't have a clue how many nobles and ladies attended
or what important issues were decided at the annual
meeting (if you weren't there, you're probably out of
luck!) I'm sure they will supply post convention
information to your temples in another format. Since
some of the unit competition was managed by my Sahib
brothers, there is some news on that front - I thank
these Sahib reporters for their input. I also thank Roy
Akins from Bahia Temple for his contribution on the
Motor Corps. We must hope in the future that
convention/unit association leaders will be more open
to this form of communication. I'm convinced the
average temple member wants to know more about what is
happening with their state organization. If you agree,
when the opportunity presents itself, please let our
leaders know how 'you' feel!

Best regards,

Gary Schweinshaupt, Webmaster
Florida Shrine Association
http://fla-shrine.org
Sahib Shrine Temple
http://trowel.com/sahib

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NEWS
1999 Florida Shrine Association Convention
May 5 - 8, 1999
Sarasota, Florida

FSA Unit Association Leaders

There is a page available for each unit association on
the new FSA Website. I would very much like to make it
a place where you can communicate with your members. So
far we only have pages for the Clowns and the Motor
Corps.

Some of the items that could be there are:

+ Names (and temple), office held and email addresses
of officers. You could even have a page with photos of
current officers like the one with the FSA officers on
it (if you supply the photos of course!) This should be
the bare minimum that should be available on your page,
please send me this information and I will post it
ASAP.

(If most of your members have email addresses you could
conduct mini-meetings right on the Internet, in the
future I might even set up a live chat system on the
site.) If some of your members have computers, but
aren't on the Internet yet, get them a copy of Juno
email (it's free), if you can't do that, let me know
and I'll arrange to get them a copy of Juno.

+ A calendar of coming meetings and events

+ What's New with your association

+ An email directory of your association members from
across the state
(You or I could set up a ListBot just for your
association, if you want!)

+ Minutes of your last association meeting

+ List of winners of your last convention competition

+ Post periodic newsletters on your page (with photos,
if you want)

+ You could even take reservations for your next
meeting and list directions and display a map on how to
get there. If a hotel is involved, we can put their Web
address on the page.

+ List links to other Shrine Websites in America that
have the same associations (for example there are
dozens of Shrine Clown Websites, the Legions of Honor
also have Websites, I'm sure there are others.)

+ Association by-laws and rules of competition.

+ What would 'you' like to see there?

All of this is to try to help you improve communcations
with your members, statewide! Don't forget, it doesn't
cost anything to mail everyone on the Internet - no
printing costs, no postage costs and communications are
instant! But, hey... I can't do this ALL by myself, I
need YOUR help!

Another idea... say your association is dormant, or you
would like to communicate with like members of other
temples and they don't have an association (and may
like to start one), we can still give you page on the
Website.

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1999 Florida Shrine Convention

It's way too soon, I guess, for any kind of final
report from the convention leaders, but there are a
few things that I was able to beg out of some of the
leaders and unit associations (my Sahib buddies came
through :-)

Clown Association

Sahib Clown Secretary Fred Phillips
mailto:FPhill7501@aol.com provided this report on
Florida Shrine Clown Association's activities:

Seven of the ten Florida Shrine Temples with clown
units were represented.

About thirty clowns registered for the convention;
however, only twenty participated in the competition.
Three outstanding clowns were judges: Fred "C-Sharp"
Menke, Susan "Shammie" Kowalski, and Jackie "Jackie"
LeClair (all are active professional clowns and Jackie
is a member of the Clown Hall of Fame).

Twenty-four Sahib clowns also paid registration fees
but, as host unit, were ineligible to compete according
to existing FSCA By-Laws. There was a lively business
session held on Thursday afternoon that was followed by
a make-up seminar conducted by Tony "Junior" Jones.
Junior also had a clown mini-mart with "Costumes by
Betty" as well as make-up, wigs, and other clown
supplies.

At the business meeting, Roy E. Turner (Hadji)
mailto:dclown1@juno.com , Mel Saunders (Morocco)
mailto:rasjax@rasjax.com and Richard Sheets (Amara)
mailto:rsnoles1@webtv.net were advanced one station to
positions of President, 1st VP, and 2nd VP
respectively. Bob Munch (Azan) was elected to 3rd Vice
President.

After some discussion, a recommendation was made to
change the By-Laws to allow host units to take part in
competition if they so desire.

Araba Temple representatives presented a well prepared
memo in which they outlined numerous observations,
questions, and suggestions regarding the Florida Shrine
Clown Association's purpose and obligations to the
individual units. A lively discussion followed.
Secretary/Treasurer Al Lints asked that he be provided
a copy of the memo so that the officers of FSCA could
review the contents and respond to it.

The Awards Banquet was held at the Country Club of
Sarasota on Saturday night, 8 May 1999. There were 128
clowns, ladies and divan members present. A clown quilt
was raffled off and $500 in proceeds was presented to
ISCA Sneaker Fund Chairman Dale "Bago" Bieber (Egypt)
along with $171 gleaned from a collection that night.
Bago also was presented $2,000 from Sahib Temple
Clowns, which was received in memory of Mike "Tin Can"
Joity, immediate past president of Sahib Clowns, who
died unexpectedly earlier this year. The family of
Mike's lady, Lydia, also contributed $1,000 in memory
of Mike.

Three door prizes consisting of items contributed by
Jim "YoYo" Yeo and beautifully packaged by Joe "Boogie"
Humphreys' Lady Judy were taken home by three lucky
people. Also presented as a door prize was a clown
painting contributed by outgoing FSCA President Joe
"Joey" Wolfer and Lady Jean.

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Legions of Honor

Sahib LOH President Ralph Kuhman mailto:rkcom32@aol.com
provided this report:

The Sahib Legion of Honor hosted all Legions of Honor
to a great Ice-Breaker on May 6. All nobles and their
ladies were very impressed with the party made possible
by the LOH Legionettes and the hard work of all the
nobility.

The LOH also stood for the In-Line Inspection. Sahib's
LOH placed 2nd and missed 1st place by a single point.
The LOH also entered the competition for parading, but
failed to place in this category.

We (The LOH) have the highest Praise for the 1999
FSA-LOH Commander (p/c B. John Ross and his officers.
They put on a program that had ALL the visitors from
ALL the temples stating that, "This Is By Far The Best
FSA Convention We Have Ever Attended."

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Motor Corps Association

Roy Akins (Bahia) mailto:Rakins2014@aol.com , current
2nd VP of FASMC, provided this report of the
competitions for the Motor Corps:

2 Wheel O'Course 0-90 CC, 15" or Less -
1st Place:	Sahib Desert Patrol	time 85.08
0-200 CC
1st Place:	Roarin 20	time 89.30
1200 CC & over Full Dress:
1st Place:	Bahia Motorcycle	time 79.52
2nd Place:	Egypt Mtr Corps	time 85.93
3rd Place:	Morocco M/C Esc	time 86.69
4 Wheel O'Course Tin Lizzie/T-model Cars
1st Place:	Amara Tin Lizzie	time 69.10
2nd place:	Egypt Tin Lizzie	time 69.75
0-500# (lightweight)
1st Place:	Bahia Roadrunners	time 59.23
501-1500# (middleweight)
1st Place:	Bahia Racing Saints	time 63.57
2 Wheel Competitive Drill 0-90 CC 15" or Less
1st Place:	Sahib Desert Patrol	score 99.70
1200 cc & Over Full Dress
1st Place:	Egypt Pharaohs	score 99.68
2nd Place:	Egypt Motor Corps	score 99.62
4 Wheel Competitive Drill Tin Lizzie/T-model Cars
1st Place:	Egypt Tin Lizzie	score 99.49
0-500# (lightweight)
1st Place:	Egypt Midget Mtrs	score 99.59
501-1500# (middleweight)
1st Place:	Bahia Racing Saints	score 99.13
Traveling Trophy - Best Overall Score
	Sahib Desert Patrol	score 99.70

If other Unit Associations would like to transmit news
and results of their competition from the 1999
Convention, please send it to me and I'll send out a
special Webletter or include it in one of the
Webletters from the new FSA Website.

Thanks all, see you at http://fla-shrine.org

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