July 2012 Commandant's Message

Well, summer is here in St. George, and we are already into July.  Please remember “no general meeting in July.”  If you come by mistake, look to see if you see D’Arcy and, if so, take him to breakfast.  We are back to regular general meetings in August.  We have a speaker who will speak on sleeping - to help you sleep through the meeting.  He has been advised a few members don’t need much help.

We had a very busy June as we did our first grave-side funeral.  We had eleven members do the service.  Les Covey brought out the rifles and volunteered to clean them after the funeral.  One rifle did not fire properly so Les will have it repaired.  Larry Mineer had the color guard out twice on June 22.  Gary Boothroyd was able to make it which was the first time the event did not conflict with his work.

The Detachment will be involved in St. George, Hurricane and SunRiver on July 4th and at Tuacahn on July 7th.  In order to keep up with this demand, we need a few more members to be part of the Color Guard.  Please contact Larry Mineer to order the uniform for the Color Guard.

Dennis Cory had surgery and it went well.  He should be home very soon.

We had our Detachment golf tournament on June 23 at SunRiver.  Gene Gregory, Jim Haney, Tom Cover, Mike Ernsten, Clyde Johnston, Ric Backman and I played.  Clyde Johnston spent many hours getting sponsors and doing art work to make our sale of tee signs very successful.  He even came out early and put out all the signs before the tournament and than picked them all up.  We were able to sell more than twenty signs.  We had the cost of buying the signs this year but they can be used for many more years.

I would list all members like Clyde, Larry and Jim who went out and signed up golfers and members like Steve I., Steve H., Jim and Ken who sold tee signs and got gifts for the raffle and auction, but we all know who they are.  They continue to step up and get the jobs done.  A few members came out and worked on making the tournament a success.  Steve Handy, Ken Olsen and D’Arcy worked most of the day.  Roger Clawson, Les Covey, Steve Ikuta, Pat Lisi and Bill Toole helped in the morning.  I have seen the raw figures on how the tournament went and it was very successful.  A report will be made by our paymaster.

I do also want to thank again Bill Henessey, a retired Navy chief who supports our detachment when ever he is asked.  He and his wife played golf and spent more than $600.00 to make our auction a success.

So enjoy the summer, and I hope to see all of you at the August Detachment meeting on August 11.

Commandant Kulyk

Commandant's June Message

Well we have completed the 2011 year.  Our new officers have been installed at the June meeting.  We have a few old officers and a few new ones taking new jobs. I do appreciate everyone who served this year. I feel that we will continue to grow.

A number of members marched in the Washington City Cotton Parade in May. At least ten members participated with the American Legion Post at SunRiver in honoring all veterans at the Veterans Park at Sunriver at 0900 hrs on May 28.  We provided six riflemen, a bugler, a drummer and other members who assisted in lowering the flags to half-mast.  Our member Tom Cover was the M.C.

Larry Mineer is working to get a detail together to march in the July 4th Day parade in St. George.  We have ten M-1's so we need ten riflemen and two more to carry the colors.  To complete the detail we need two members to carry our banner and our great drummer, Doc Terry Hansen.

But with all the above, we are in the middle of our major fund raiser, the golf tournament.  This year we are attempting to sell Tee signs to make more income.  There was an expense this year in buying the signs which we will be able to reuse for a few more years.  At this time, we have more than ten sold, but we need to sell eighteen.  We hoped to have some decent raffle gifts this year but only a few members are stepping up to help.  I realize a number of members use the excuse they don’t golf so they can’t ask people to play in the tournament.  But what excuse do you have when you don’t ask people to buy a tee sign or to donate a gift ?  Be thankful that there are a few, proud Marines who we can count on to do everything to make our events a success.  We all want to vote to give funds to groups that we support but some of us have to start to realize where the funds come from.  It was less than two years ago when we were unable to file for our charitable tax status as we didn’t have funds to pay the required filing fee. We now have some money in the bank, our charitable tax status, ten M-1 rifles and we were able to upgrade a room at the new veterans retirement home in Ivins.  Just think where we would be if everyone stood up and did their part as we all were trained to do!  Hope to see you all at the meeting on June 9.

5th Annual Golf Benefit Tournament

The fundraiser golf tournament for this year will be held on June 23rd at Sun River Golf Club. All members have received by e-mail blast the Tee Sponsorship Order Form which shows a picture of the tee sponsor sign with art work inserted for one of the first sponsors sold, Salon Khroma. Please just read the form and hand it to your prospective sponsor as you are asking for their commitment to purchase a tee sponsorship — the form already includes an explanation of community programs the Detachment supports, as well as the details of what the sponsor will get.

In addition to customized art work on a tee sign, sponsors will also have their art work attached to a “Thank You Sponsors” banner to be displayed centrally at the event. Just use the words on the order form, along with one of our tri-fold brochures, to ask for the order. Although the form instructs sponsors to send electronic format art work to Brio Design, we’ll make it even easier for you and your prospect by having the art work in whatever form sent to clydejhnstn@gmail.com and I’ll do the legwork for you with Brio. Progress reports from Carl Kulyk, Larry Mineer, Jim Haney, Steve Handy, D’Arcy Grisier, and Clyde Johnston indicate likely closings of at least ten tee sponsorships. If we can get commitments from eight other members to sell just one tee sponsorship each we can make this program a huge financial success.