esa newsletter september 2016 issue page 2€¦ · web viewjust like that, it is over! what started...

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IC NEWSLETTER – JULY 2019 ISSUE

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2018-19 IC PRESIDENT KIM’S“SHARE YOUR GIFTS!”

MESSAGE

Just like that, it is over! What started in Phoenix, Arizona in July 2018 at my installation as the ESA IC President came to a close in Memphis, Tennessee last week with the presentation of St. Jude

dollars. The Arkansas membership planned a fantastic week of Merriment and Memories. There were so many exciting moments, despite the rain early in the week and warm temperatures at the end of the week.

The campus of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was a buzz Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with multiple tours. The gift shop may never be the same! The ESA Foundation announced at their Life Active Breakfast a $50,000 grant to the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Friday evening, ESA members were “Walkin’ in Memphis” as part of the IC Challenge. The event kicked off at the Domino’s Event Center where members learned the “No More Chemo” song. Participants walked down memory lane to the Pavilion to recreate the iconic photo taken many years before – in 2000.

What a wonderful time celebrating ESA’s 90th Birthday on Wednesday evening at the Welcome Party! It was so much fun to know that all of the entertainment had some connection with ESA. Some of the Dixie Darlin’s are ESA members. Those ladies sure had the moves! Terri Olson encouraged the candidates to share in 90 seconds what made their costume All Heart. The things we do for ESA! We are so thankful to the ESA Momma, whose son is a member of The Lazy Desperados. Ardyce, an Oregon member who

ESA IC NEWSLETTER JULY 2019 ISSUE

IN THIS ISSUE

IC President ………………1-2

2nd Vice President & Off-Therapy song………….3

IC Award Winners……..……….…….4-6

Assoc. of the Arts Winners…………………..…..7

IC Roll Call Sheet…….…….8

IC Convention Survey Results – 1st VP………..9-10

State Council News: Missouri………………..10-11

Kim’s Closing Remarks..11

Photo of 2019-20 Exec. Board & Editor’s Notes ……………………..…………..12

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has attended more than 65 IC conventions, puts all members to shame since she danced all evening and stayed until the band finished.

Our “senses” were put to the test during the “Taste of Memphis” series workshops beginning with Chef Chris on Wednesday preparing a meal. The aromatic smell lingered down the hallway, but only a handful were able to taste the delectable treats while the rest had a bird’s eye view. Willy Bearden shared many photos and stories about Memphis people and history Thursday morning, while Tim Sampson shared music with us in the afternoon.

Deana Walters had plenty of Easterseals information to pass along to the membership, while Gail Marchant had members making sleeping mats for the homeless from plastic bags during the Hope for Heroes workshop.

Gifts of the Heart workshop series on Saturday provided many take home ideas: gift wrapping, bow making, prayer boxes, simple hygiene kits and embellished crocheted hats for children facing chemo.

There were many great moments of the week:

*Awards luncheon – so much to cheer

* 2 Elan youth shared in our meetings

*5 collegiate members from Ball State came for the weekend

*84 First Timers in attendance

*Receiving a guitar pic for pledging a new member, which allowed front of the line cuts at the bathroom. Yes, it was used!

*53 members recognized for years of service

*Jewel Pin ceremony for one pledge

*Recognizing Nancy Cameron, CO and Bobbie Long, UT for 60 years of service

*Recognizing Gloria Davis, KY for 70 years of service

*$22,806,798 St. Jude dollars donated in 2018/2019

*$290,443,946 life time donation to St. Jude

I am sure I left out a few things, which means everyone needs to come to Grapevine, Texas in July of 2020.

So many gifts shared this year in ESA--whether in membership, philanthropic work, or friendship. Continue to go out and share the gift of ESA with others.

xoxo – Kim Kummer [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

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LeAnn Wray – 2018-19 IC Second Vice President

2019-2020 IC First Vice President

I was asked to write a “brief” article, recapping our ESA IC Convention in Memphis. I am not sure where to start. So, I will start with the State of Arkansas! This convention would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication, love for ESA that the Arkansas members showed us during the entire week. I have so many names to list, but that would make this short article…VERY long! Thank you, Arkansas.

The Keynote Speaker Elise, was awesome; the workshops were awesome; the food was awesome; the gift bags donated from ALSAC were awesome; as were all the goodies inside the bag; the ESAF grant of $50,000 to the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was awesome; the tours were awesome; seeing old friends and making new friends…awesome! What else can I say? However, the one part that touched my heart…Saturday night at the banquet and our Lifetime total of $290,443,946 and our total for 2018-2019 of $22,806,798 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital - now that was AWESOME!

Oh, yes, one other thing…YOU ALL ROCK! Thank you all so much!

Hugs, LeAnn

This song is sung to the tune of THE OSCAR MAYER WEINER SONG!


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A beautiful sunset in Memphis, TN.


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Terri Olson – 2018-19 IC First Vice President

2019-2020 IC PresidentIt is hard to believe that the 2019 Convention is already in the rearview mirror and we are now left with a lot of wonderful memories and photographs. This year was the first year of changes that your International Council Board has been working on for several years. The

changes were implemented with a lot of careful planning and analysis of convention general assembly schedules and feedback that all of you had provided through your IC Reps visits to your state conventions starting in 2013. A few of the major changes that you experienced this year were the reduction in general assemblies from three to two. All business activities started on Friday, with multiple workshops and other events that you were able to participate in starting on Wednesday. There were, also, many tours of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the ALSAC Business Office, along with multiple tours of the Memphis area. We truly hope this was a wonderful experience for all of you.

At the close of convention, we did hand out a survey to everyone attending the 2nd General Assembly. We are very excited to provide some of the results of that survey for you. First, that we had a fantastic return of feedback and recommendations from 300 people. That is outstanding from an analytic survey statistic.

Of those participating in the survey, we had the following years of attendance captured:

Years of attendance

1 2-5 6-10 11 or more

No Years Reported

45 81 53 118 3

There were three questions that were scored on a scale of 1 through 5, with 1 being disappointing and 5 being exceptional. The results are very encouraging regarding the changes that were made.

Question 1 asked you to rate the revised scheduled. The average score was 4.

Question 2 asked you to rate your experience with the increased number of workshops offered this year. The average score was 3.92

Question 5 asked you to rate your overall convention experience this year. The average score was 4.19

The International Council will be using all of the information provided in the surveys to help in planning next year’s events in Grapevine, Texas and future conventions. There were many


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comments provided regarding the hotel that were both positive and negative. Those have also been captured and will be communicated to the planning committee, next years’ convention team and the contracts committee so problems may possibly be avoided in the future.

A few great comments that we received to share were as follows:

“Great St. Jude events. History info on Memphis all three excellent, speaker excellent, St. Jude sections excellent.”

“Entire convention was fun. Changes to this year’s agenda from previous years seemed to work well.”

“Loved!! The membership workshop, hospitality room awesome, St. Jude Tour”

“Need coffee in meeting rooms since only coffee is either at hotel room or expensive in the restaurant”

“Posting the Regional Flags at the ends of the display of small state flags, would really frame them well.”

“IC Challenge MUCH better than past. The bags were generously filled with useful items. Liked meeting & greeting old and new friends.”

Thank you everyone that provided feedback on the survey and directly to anyone on the IC Board. This is very important to know how you feel about your experiences at convention and how we can continue to make it even better! See you all in 2020 in Grapevine, Texas.

Julie Whitaker - 2018-19 Missouri State PresidentWhat a wonderful year to be one of Kim’s Gift Givers. I was blessed to have been the President for the Great State of Missouri. My theme was “Using All Our Talents for ESA.” Our members definitely showed their talent. It amazed me how many talents our group had! Some of them were just acts of kindness. Do you really know how much a card means when you send it? Maybe not, but you sure do when you receive one. Our ladies sent out cards to our members. They also collected soap, socks, shampoo, conditioner, coupons & cartoons for our veterans. We held drives at our

state meetings for Welcome Home, Easterseals and a local food bank. We had dream homes, golf tournaments, luncheons, banquets, craft shows, teas (both real and virtual) and worked food booths. In place of the dessert portion of our Friday night meal, we had our first ever bake-off contest. We laughed and cried a lot - sometimes at the same time. There was the discovery of new talents, such as how to take a better photo and make it more interesting. We had a watercolor workshop from an internationally renowned artist. We did Tai Chi, honored


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outstanding members of the community, had a talent show, did paper crafts and played Name that Tune! We brought back some old traditions and added some new. We had wonderful participation this year in our Association of the Arts. To sum it all up, Missouri was busy. So, Kim, thank you, again, for letting me serve with you. I would not, could not have asked for a better state to represent. I will always cherish my time as the Missouri State President and if you want to see what we are doing, just check out our website at www.missouriesa.com. Let us show you why we are called the Show Me State.

Respectfully submitted

Julie A WhitakerESA Missouri State President 2018-2019

2018-19 IC President Kim Kummer’s Closing RemarksI have been honored to serve ESA as the IC President this year. I thank each of you for your love and support. I have enjoyed every single moment. When you begin a journey like this you can’t begin to imagine the people that will cross your path, the moments you will experience or the lessons you will learn about yourself and others. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve traveled with complete strangers in a rental car (and I don’t mean ESA people). I’ve made wrong turns. I’ve made new friends. I’ve made lasting memories - like cheering Charlotte and her dad, Phil, near the finishing line this past December. I’ve witnessed the gift of ESA shared this year within our membership, and the organizations we love.

It is incredible that Easterseals celebrates 100 years, as we celebrate 90 years. Also, that we celebrate our 90 years in Memphis, home of our beloved, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Whatever the year, ESA is a culmination of all the past IC president’s themes. Life is a song...Come sing with me, so we can embrace the power – free our spirit, to believe in one dream one vision, because ESA is magic, with endless possibilities, and we are each unique, having hope to dream big, inspiring a legacy of friendship to share ESA – A Gift.

xoxo - Kim

The best gifts in the world are not in the material gifts that one can buy from the store, but in the memories we make with the people we love.


http://www.missouriesa.com/

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ESA IC Newsletter, July 2019

Editor- this issue:Maureen Wells3009 Tumbleweed TerraceManhattan, KS 66502-8968785-537-4461 (home)[email protected]

Thank you!

ESA International Council Executive Board for 2019-2020

(L to R) Lynda Edwards (AL) Workshop Coordinator, Denise Holdaway (AR) Treasurer, Brenda Meyers (OH) Recording Secretary, LeAnn

Wray (MI) First Vice President/President-Elect, Terri Olson (MN) IC President, Robin Bussey (SC) Second Vice President, Julene Donnay (MN) Corresponding Secretary,

Malinda Remington (FL) Parliamentarian and Kim Kummer (KS) Jr. Past IC President/Disaster Fund Chair.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.

Jim Valvano

mailto:[email protected]

esa newsletter september 2016 issue page 2€¦ · web viewjust like that, it is over! what started...

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