American
Women's Club of Luxembourg
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Melanie Salava
The
Paradox of Perfection
Aristotle
understood that "perfect" meant "complete" – with nothing to add or
subtract. The ancient philosopher
Empedocles believed that imperfection was "perfect." If the world were perfect, there would be no
need for improvement or "true perfection" which relies on progress.
I'm struggling to write my final President's page. I want it to be "perfect" - I have so many people to thank, events to highlight and hopes for the AWCL's future. However, I’m comforted to know that even great minds - like the noted intellectuals above - cannot agree on the concept of perfection. I concur with Aristotle that I feel "complete" with my treasured President's term. It is time for me to hand over the baton to someone else, though it has been a true joy and deep honor for me to serve this membership. Likewise, I agree with Empedocles that there were many imperfections in my term's year and the membership should consider ways for progress and improvement.
At the start of my Presidency we lacked a Grapevine team and the membership felt unhappy about the abrupt membership fee increase. Whenever a vacuum occurs it is human nature for people to fill that space with rumors and dire predictions. This, in turn, creates low morale and havoc for our club. It stood as a low point for the AWCL. Ideally, we all should want the club to run smoothly, even if we don't always agree with how things are done. Right now, we do not know the name of the next AWCL President. I intend to support that person and the future Board. Please do likewise. Let’s make this year’s transition a proud moment! (By the way - there's still time for someone to accept the wonderful challenge of being our President. Just inform our dedicated secretary and nominations chair Camille Paul before the May meeting!)
Despite this grim beginning, things
definitely improved, thanks to some dedicated people! (Whew!) We decreased the membership dues to
its original figure, with many generously donating their original increase to
the Femmes Developpment Charity to
help women and children in Rwanda. We
garnered a new Grapevine layout and
editor, Wendy Winn and Luc Rollmann, who
jazzed up our monthly magazine look. (Kudos to Karen Mason, Michelle Perini and Becky Krauter in the interim!) We appointed webmasters Connie Starkovs and Susan Handa who created a snazzy
user-friendly website. Lisa Williams and
the fearless clubhouse crew redesigned our place so it is less office-like
and more "homey". (Thanks, Lian Oey,
for making sure our DVD stock keeps current and interesting!) Our newly installed windows made our
clubhouse more energy efficient, while the computer
renovations executed by Bernard of
JBIT eased the arduous task of completing the directory for Susanne Hakansson and all our future Membership
chairs, such as Melanie Gustanski. Andree Kubilus consistently excelled as
the Grapevine Business Manager,
bringing in many new advertisers at a profit for our club. Our amazing ever-ready Living in Luxembourg distributor Charlene Fideler sold our popular book at an amazing rate: at this writing, more than 15,000 Euros in
sales! Our experienced Advisory Board
composed of Cathy Colvin Coehlo, Celeste Steies Lopiccolo, Valerie
Bombardella, Christel Gerrard, and
Celeste Schuh Koehler clearly defined the role of the Advisory Board - something needed, while
offering wisdom to the Executive Board.
Indefatigable Dawn Urbon,
with partners Annie Fry and Lorie Diletti warmly welcomed our
newcomers - sometimes with gatherings twice a month! Meanwhile,
our quietly performing and consistently reliable activity chairs remained our "bedrock" - offering a tantalizing
array of choices for membership participation.
Some new groups popped up, such as Scrabble,
Gardening Girls, Golden Girls, and Walking Shelter Dogs. 3rd
VP Courtney Ranson without fail supported and assisted anyone running a
group.
Meanwhile, our monthly meeting events sparkled, thanks, in part, to our organized 2nd VP's Jacqueline Peterson and Petra Reimann. Judith Thomas, our talented historian and photographer, captured the record breaking turnout of 120 members during our September meeting energetically entertained by the Pirate Productions! (I personally will not forget Tigger!) Things revved up in October with the hugely successful Halloween Trick or Treat headed by Amy des Robert and the record breaking, serendipitous Silent Auction deftly handled by Catarina Fernandes, our Community Services Chair. (Unfortunately, this was Amy's last year, as her family is moving to Brussels. We will miss you Amy and wish you Godspeed!) We thank the Honorable Ambassador Ann Wagner for the use of her lovely home, the Embassy, for the Silent Auction. Our Honorary President, Stefanie Shaheen, Patricia Reckel, and the other Embassy Staff have consistently been our greatest supporters and we are grateful. Speaking of thanks, November brought out 75 people to the Ville d'Este to honor our founder Mary Elvinger with a scholarship in her name, while enjoying a scrumptous traditional Thanksgiving feast. We continued our gratitude by sponsoring a successful, community minded "Merci Letzebuerg" Photo Contest. With our beautiful and intelligent Parliamentarian Stefania Sakiotis heading this with her team - we're not surprised that people have asked for a repeat. (Any offers to be part of a team?) The AWCL donated a brand new printer to the ISL Tanzania school project. Who can forget our record-breaking American Stand run by Karen Mason and Barbara Becker? For the 2nd year in the row, the American Stand has topped the stands in the amount of profit raised for the International Stand. Our club should feel proud of chipping in together to make this work so well!
December brought Santa
(Richard Williams) to our clubhouse for photos, artistically shot by photographer Michele Jamrozik, who also
was a Photo Contest judge. Cynthia Albrecht kindly hosted her home
to for a World Vision Soup Luncheon,
continuing in the tradition of former member, Eileen Wiley. We kept our treasurer
Sandra Williams busy while recording our donations to benefit World Vision, Unicef and Noah's Arche from
Burundi. Some may recall that Land's End generously donated clothing
for various charities, if we could provide the contacts and postage. FAWCO
Representative Karen Kelley and NAMSA
Rep Gary Salava worked hard to find places in Afghanistan, Iraq, India,
Morocco and Thailand. We thank Mascoe
Europe for sponsoring some of these shipments. Eden Shoes partnered with us to provide gently used shoes to the
Iraqis. It wouldn’t be Christmas without
the gallant efforts of Lisa Markoff,
chair of the Toys for Tots program.
The additional help by AMCHAM,
the Marines, business sponsors, moving companies such as Streff and Allied made
this a true community outreach to the Luxembourg foyers and to those
with autism. January brought out around
90 people to our monthly meeting to discover health, wellness and fitness.
We didn’t just sit - experts inspired us to get actively involved
with Pilates, dance therapy, yoga
and more!
During February, despite requests
from our members for evening events for couples, we cancelled our
Masquerade Ball headed by Lisa Markoff. It raised the possible
notion that sometimes we may think we want things, but the actual effort to
participate in a night event may be too much trouble. Many in the community and within our
membership attended the "Women in
Leadership Panel Discussion" moderated by 352 Editor Duncan Roberts. The
panelists included American Ambassador
Ann Wagner, award-winning Chef Lea Linster, the Network President Lisa McClean
and Admiral Linda Bird. Inspired by
how women can support each other – the BLC
Chairwoman Rose Schol and myself met to discuss potential ways that the
AWCL and BLC can collaborate in
future projects. Already, we have a
reciprocal agreement to advertise gratis between clubs. Becky Krauter knows females banding together can help a lot: that is why we are collecting items for Stemm vun der Stroos, a local homeless
shelter.
Though these events have not
occurred yet: I know they will be
well-attended and interesting, likewise:
Image Consultation by Wendy Casey;
the Pancake Breakfast fundraiser at
the Miami University of Luxembourg
chateau (Thanks Annie Fry!) to help those children with special needs and
their education; the status of FAWCO
by Celeste Brown, FAWCO President,
as well as our May Thank You luncheon at
Ville d'Este. Of course, we cannot
forget all the efforts Sarah Steies
and Kveta Ceska are taking to make
the May 31st Moselle Boat
Cruise an exceptional evening.
Please sign up for enjoyable time! We have so much to look forward to!
Please come - your attendance makes it special!
Wow! It was quite a year, right? I urge us not to stop there. You are invited to attend our May meeting while we conduct our elections to voice your opinions, concerns, advice, and questions for our future. It will be like a community town meeting. Should we continue on the course of this year? Should we add more things? Should we simplify and not do so many events, since we have many priorities outside the AWCL? Should we raise or keep our membership dues the same – based on our expectations? Help us to discover what is "perfect" for our AWCL. You decide. I can only guide you to that choice and I thank you for letting me be your leader in the past year. It was "good enough" - according to the philosophical me - which is just perfect!
Melanie Salava
President 2007-2008