New Members and brown bag auction fun at the holiday party

The brownbag auction is a fun way to raise a few funds for our club expenses!Lots of laughs!

We initiated 3 new members at our holiday party and all have enthusiastically jumped into volunteering efforts. We welcome Anne Marie, Tina and Jess. Excited to have you join us.

Ann Marie with sponsor Pat.


 

Tina with sponsor Cathy

Jess with sponsor Cathy

Holiday volunteering

New members with Pat enjoying the party

Face painting is always popular

 It's December and everywhere you look there are festivities galore!. Two of our Altrusa favorites are hosting the annual party for our Carroll County foster families and our cookie walk a bout where we deliver platters of sweet treats to local police, nursing homes, health professionals to say thanks for your dedicated service to our community.  Check out some of our favorites highlight

Santa and both his helpers

Some of the set up crew

It's always fun to gather cookies to deliver.

The "Gibson Girls" and jumping into fall events!

 The summer flew by and now October is nearly over! Whew! Even though time is quickly flying by, our Altrusa  club has been busy. Check out the "Gibson Girls" a rotating shift of members who serve lunch at our local Gibson Senior Center. It is a great time and so many smiles and interactions with folks.

Fall events have included many hands peeling and coring apples for a local church's apple crisp booth held at the Fryeburg Fair. It was a LOT of apples and our annual volunteer booth to assist the Laura Foundation at their Halloweentown. Despite the torrential downpours a good time was had by kids and adults alike.

Halloweentown is a fun event held for the local families. Kids of all ages visit the decorated cabins participate in games and of course "trick or"treat". This is one of 2 major fundraisers for  The Laura Foundation and they rely on goodwill donations as well as a host of volunteers to assist.

So many apples !!!!!!! The Congregational Church in North Conway, fondly known as "The Brown Church" sells pans and pans of apple crisp at the fair each year. We happily gather with their congregants to peel, core and slice apples for this delicious homemade dessert.

Saying thanks and welcoming new board members

 June brings our annual meeting when we gather to celebrate the past year's accomplishments, install new board members and recognize members. This year we welcomed Theresa and Sue to the board of directors and honored Janelle with her 5 year pin. In May we said goodbye to Cathy who has moved to Maine. She had been a very active member taking on multiple roles over the years most recently  as newsletter editor and secretary. Our newest member Gena will be initiated in the fall and we will install Cindy as our secretary. Many thanks to Jan and Cindy who were our departing board members. Now we look to some fun activities for the summer and a bit of rest before our fall projects start.

Theresa and Sue our new board members

Thanks Cathy ! We will miss you

Congrats to Janelle on 5 years!

Serving our community!

 This Spring we had many opportunities to make a difference in our communities. Thanks to Ken Swett's carpentry skills we were able to provide Starting Point with brand new bookcases which we filled with their wish list of books. These books will be available for guests as well as group discussion.

Ken and his book case

We also provide comfort bags to Starting Point for the guests. Filled with personal care items and a note of encouragement these bags help ease the transition for someone exiting a dangerous domestic situation. 

 

Make Way for Readers: Our literacy committee gathered to create packets for local preschoolers to encourage reading and to promote the 1000 books before Kindergarten program that many of our local libraries sponsor. Packets included a cute magnet/bookmark and information for parents about the importance of reading.

Dr Seuss and Making Way for Readers

Serving food is always a pleasure. We packed bags for end 68 hours of hunger, served breakfast and lunch at the May Habitat for Humanity's women's build and donned our aprons to serve lunch to the many volunteers who assist at the Gibson Senior Center.

Serving the Volunteers at Gibson Lunch

Providing fuel for the Women's Build

Bags packed for End 68 Hours of Hunger

Altrusa gathers in Maine for Conference

 Our annual District One Conference was held in Maine. Altrusans from all over New England and Quebec gathered to exchange ideas celebrate outgoing governor Pam LeMieux and install new governor Rita Cote.

Getting Crafty

Our District One Altrusa Clubs will gather in Maine from April 21-23. Our District includes clubs from Maine, NH, Ma, Connecticut, Bermuda and Quebec. Every year we gather to hear the business of the district, see new and old friends and share ideas for projects. One fun  event is the fundraising fair where each club has a a table offering a variety of items for sale. Proceeds go the individual club. Club members gathered to complete etched glassware and a variety of decorative plant pots. Even those of us who are crafty challenged  (author included) had a a terrific time.  Thanks to Barb and Nancy for leading us in all things crafty!!!

 

Service to others

Our group is always looking ways to help and serve others. Our newest volunteer opportunity is as lunch servers for our local Gibson Senior Center. Every month a group of us arrive to set up and serve one of the delicious lunches that is served. April was our first month and the guests loved seeing the smiling faces and blue Altrusa aprons. They really appreciated that we wore our Altrusa name tags !

 Got Sneakers is a way to recycle sneakers and make some money. Our recycling helped  Ginger, a local pup who had some serious health issues and needs. What a great way to recycle and help a local cause.

check out our ad

 Our membership committee has been hard at work creating a plan to educate people about Altrusa. At the April Conference we will be receiving  our "Ask me about Altrusa!" buttons to wear when we attend events such as our upcoming Habitat for Humanity Women's Build day in May. They have also reviewed our brochure adding  our new QR code. Finally check out the ad below which appeared in the Conway Daily Sun. Scanning the QR code will lead you right here to our blog where you can read about our latest projects. Thanks Membership committee for all your hard work!

March arrived like a lion will it go out like a lamb? Looking to Spring events

 

Ahhh Spring at last. The sun is out, the snow is melting pretty quicklyand it is time for us to come out from under the covers, away from ZOOM meetings and get out and about again. While I love winter I don't like driving in the bad weather so I was grateful we could still meet virtually. ( Thank you COVID???) Still it is great to be gathering to work on projects like the one pictured; our Bookbags for Babies. This day we met to cut fabric which will be sewn into bookbags by some of our members. The completed bags will be distributed to the Tamworth library and now the Freedom library too. They will fill and give these bags to families with newborns. All to encourage reading right from the very start.  

 

Time to Start thinking Plants

Our big fundraiser is quickly coming up in June. We partner with the friends of Cook Memorial Library in Tamworth to hold a plant sale and calendar raffle. If you need plants? Come shop us on Saturday, June 3 at the library in Tamworth center. Got plants? Soon it will be time to get your hands dirty, dig, separate and set aside some of your favorites you'd like to share with us to sell. 

Plants not your thing? Consider participating in the calendar raffle. Get your item to Cathy Baybutt to donate, sell some tickets or but some tickets. You have 30 chances to win!!!! Daily prizes will but there will be Gift Certificates, locally made items and more.

It's a New Year- Here's to a fantastic 2022 and looking forward to 2023

 What a year our club had in 2022. We were busy, busy, busy! A few highlights for review:

January brought Pond Hockey excitement but not the kind we like- a small fire in one of the tents at the pond meant that the Laura Foundation had to pivot quickly to  change the food tent location  and boy was it COLD!!!!!

April we co hosted the District One Conference working with the Laconia and Meredith clubs.

 

June-August

Lots of work and planning went into selling hand crafted items and homemade jams and salsas at the Farmer's Market in Tamworth and getting ready to host our DCYF summerfest party at Tin Mountain. Games were gathered, crafts were supplied, faces were painted and of course lots of food for our guests.

 

 

 

September to December-  Stocking for 68 Hours of hunger, gathering items for the comfort bags for Starting Point, welcoming new members, a Tri Club birthday party hosted by our club, and the DCYF and club Christmas parties kept us busy right through the end of the year. What a terrific group of women leaders.

What will 2023 bring???? New books and bookcases for Starting Point, Files of Life and lots more laughter and fun as we work to make our communities better for all.