I just received some sad news, Sylvia Thorarinson passed away last evening of a heart attack. For those of you who do not know Sylvia, she was the wife of Gene Thorarinson a founding member and past president of our Sherwood Park Gyro Club. Our deepest sympathies go out to Gene and his family.
Sylvia’s funeral will be held at 2:00 P.M. Tuesday November 25th, 2014 at Bethel Lutheran Church, 298 Bethel Drive, Sherwood Park, telephone 780-417-7775.
District VIII Curlarama 2014 Report
The District VIII annual curling bonspiel was once again a huge success. Two teams from Sherwood Park were among the seventeen teams competing in Banff on Nov 7th-9th for curling supremacy. Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Nelson, Cranbrook, Castlegar, Port Albernie and Wallace were among other clubs represented at the event.
Sherwood Park #1 team was skipped by Bill Austin with 3rd Dick Caddey, 2nd Dorne Hunt and lead Art Merrick. Their skills and talent were clearly on display as they won their first 2 games rather handily. A few bad breaks (and growing aches) contributed to their loss in the 3rd game dropping them into the “C” event and requiring them to play a 4th game that day. A couple of ceasars later they were victorious resulting in a Sunday morning final against a team from Nelson. Unfortunately they lost the final game.
Sherwood Park #2 was skipped by Herb Zmurchuk, 3rd (legend) Lloyd Wilson, 2nd Jim Malott and lead Lawrence Zalasky. SP #2 were not quite as lucky as SP #1 and played against a couple of “ringer” teams who overcame skill with luck. After losing 4-3 and 7-2 SP #2 were forced to come up with a big win late Saturday to advance into the “D” event final Sunday morning. The score in the final game was 5-2 in our favor. Lloyd Wilson accepted the “D” event trophy and willingly took it home where it is on display for anyone who wants to drop by to see it.
Saturday night included the usual banquet followed by a Texas Hold’em tournament. Of the 8 “A” side finalists 4 were from Sherwood Park and on the “B” side 3 of the 8 finalists were Sherwood Park Gyro members. Dick Caddey won the “B” event pocketing $100. On the “A” side Herb Zmurchuk was 2nd making $150 while the winner and perennial finalist was none other than our PP Lawrence Zalasky who walked away with $250.
Jim Malott was heard bemoaning his bad luck when he lost out on a $100 by 3 chips. As Kenny Rogers so aptly said, “you’ve got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em, know when to walk away, know when to run”. We think Jim missed one of those steps.
The legend Lloyd Wilson, once again took it on the “chin” with his streak of bad luck (or poor play) in crib continuing in Banff. Lloyd lost most of his singles and almost all of his doubles matches. Lloyd made friends and was on a first name basis with all the hotel reception staff who brought in extra rolls of loonies just for him.
The roads home were very similar to last year, snowy and icy from Banff to Red Deer. However, driving for the conditions resulted in all arriving home safe and ready to head back next year.
Curlarama is always a lot of fun. Meeting with familiar faces and new participating Gyros is what curlarama is all about. Plan to join us and be a part of this next year.
For information on dates and Curlarama 2015 please contact registrar Lloyd Wilson.
The Edmonton Gyro Club hosted this years Founder’s Night, in recognition of the 3 founders of Gyro (Paul Schwan,Gus Handerson, & Ed Kagy), at the Santa Maria Goretti Centre. Ten members and 3 wives from the Sherwood Park Club attended the meeting. The Edmonton Club invited the Italian Appennini Dancers to provide some after dinner entertainment, followed by a presentation from Nick “Danger” Lees and Cec Butt on their 1760 km Haida Gwaii Totem Bike Tour in support of the Stollery Children’s Hospital. The evening concluded with Barry Walker speaking on what Gyro has meant to him & his wife Vivian.
A note to those in attendance; the plan to post videos of both presentations here has been scuttled by the size of the files generated and the 50MB limitation on media files imposed on our website. If you wish to obtain a DVD of the presentations please contact Jim Copeland
The Edmonton Club invited the Sherwood Park Club to join them for their Christmas Dinner event on Dec 5, 2014 at the Edmonton Convention Centre. Please contact Sam Gruden, President at if you are interested in attending.
October 15, 32 members of the Club gathered at the Italian Canadian Seniors Centre for an evening of fine Italian food hosted by Augie Annicchiarico and some spirited Bocce competition.
Sheriff Dootjes was busy assessing fines to members in support of the Christmas Bureau. The team of Ray Davis, Lloyd Wilson, George Screpnek, and Gary Kleebaum took home the coveted W.H. Wilson Trophy, exemplary of Bocce superiority.
Club thanks to Augie for the fine wine he so graciously sponsored.
Another great evening at the German Canadian Club, 46 people attended 24 Gyro’s one perspective Gyro, spouses and widows. After a great meal Scott received his award from District for most “Entertaining Bulletin” for last year. As we all look so forward to his bulletin we can all concur in it’s entertainment value. Congratulations Scott. 
Following that we broke into tables of four and entered into an exiting round of travelling whist coordinated very well by Earl Korber and Greg Clarke. The evening wound up with presentations of “bubbly” to the two winners. Brenda Kropp won the women’s side and Jim Copeland managed to out score everyone by a considerable score to take home the wine to Eleanor who was unable to attend. One other note of thanks to Jim Copeland and Art Merrick for setting up the web site on an overhead and helping out with the learning curve of all the computer challenged Gyro’s. Thanks Guys!
Sid did a great job of hosting the Past Presidents bar-b-que and there was little abuse of the rookie gopher (President Ray) but there may have been more abuse heaped on past president Rikki not that it wasn’t called for! Great evening lots of discussion on what’s good for Sherwood Park Gyro and a little on the political scene in Alberta. Thanks Sid.
Rikki took the picture and his arms were not long enough to make this a selfie.
Our first meeting of the year, the AGM, was held at the German Canadian Cultural Centre on Wednesday with 34 Sherwood Park Gyro’s in attendance. President Ray Davis called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM and welcomed all to the new year. His welcome included a thanks to the new executive for time spent developing the new program schedule. His leadoff joke stopped the waitress in her tracks and brought a tremendous laugh from those attending. Grace, toast to the Queen and a less then rousing rendition of Cheerio without our lead singer (Rikki was late) was followed by a great meal. The business meeting started with the 50/50 draw, $80 won by Peter Sachatsky and graciously shared with the sharks at his table.
Don Greig, the new Health & Welfare guru gave a quick report and indicated that anyone knowing of a Gyro’s health concern should contact him. Past President Lawrence Zalasky thanked his past executive for all the good work over the previous year and made a presentation to Bill Carter and Don Greig with a certificate recognizing their contributions to Gyro over the past couple of years as Director and Past President respectfully. Neither of them had been available to attend the awards banquet held previously.
Peter Sachatsky and Rick Craddock presented the proposed event schedule for the coming year including the 20 designated meeting events of the year. The schedule was unanimously approved. A discussion followed on a motion by Gordon Stewart to place more events in the summer months to accommodate more of the “snowbirds”. It was decided to monitor over the year and hear from everyone on their thoughts on that proposal. Gordon gave a report on the mystery golf tour and the success of that event held recently. He then made a motion to include that event in the new year as a non-identified event. The motion was seconded and a majority voted in favour of the event. There were five dissenting votes recorded.
Eric Braun provided a financial report that indicated expenditures met budget. Congratulations to Lawrence and his team for a well run year. The financial report was moved, seconded and approved. Eric followed up with the proposed budget for the new year. Based on a revenue of dues at $300 per member, an auction and fund raising of $9,200 for a revenue stream of $24,078 and an expected expenditure of $27,224 there will be an excess of disbursements over receipts of $3,146. The budget was moved, seconded, and approved by a majority vote.
New business discussed was the use of and continuation of the web site. The President asked for a decision on whether we should retain the web site, and that the decision should be based on if we each will use the site not on the notion that a lot of volunteer time has been put into the site to get it running. It was identified that there is a cost of approximately $150 per year to keep it up and running. There is also a need for a web master. Discussion involved how easy it is to get to the site once you have logged in for the first time. Indications that the bulletin was the most accessed document and that if it was only accessible from the web site it would encourage web site use. It was indicated that if the Bulletin editor sent out an e-mail with a link to the web site when the bulletin was available that it would be an ideal way to increase usage. Lots of positive comments including Keith Bradley indicating he visited the site that day and was quite impressed with what he saw. Members were happy to hear that the membership list was on the site and that there was also a picture of a lot of the Gyros (project in progress to get all members on site) included. A motion to retain the web site and an indication from voters that they would use the site was put forward, seconded, and unanimously approved.
Eric Braun will be looking for dues of $300 from all members and will be sending a notice out to all very soon.
Ray was looking for someone to take on the Sergeant at arms position and Rikki Doojes agreed to undertake it. Thanks Rikki. Guys watch your loonies and toonies Rikki is coming to get them.
Next meetings: Whist night Sept 24, mixed night, let Earl Korber or Greg Clarke know that you plan to attend. October 15 is Bocce night, let Augie Annicchiarico or Bernie Kropp know. Meeting adjourned.
Ray Davis
President
Just wanted to update you on our Mystery Golf Tour. We ended up with 20 players, most of which were Gyros with a couple of guests invited. We played the Barrhead Golf Club. We had fantastic weather and played a very beautiful course. The green fees were absolutely incredible and also included a steak sandwich after the round. The total cost was $56.00. Gord Stewart negotiated a super deal. Thanks go out to Gord and Rusty for doing their part in making this day possible.
I arranged some games that we could play up there to make it more interesting than just playing golf. The winners of the team games were:
The overall winners were Gord Stewart, Sid Slade, Roger Delveaux and Bob Matheson.
The accuracy shots or Kps on par 3s were shared by Peter Sachatsky , Bernie Woodkey, Sid Slade and our president Ray Davis. Way to go guys.
The guys can’t wait till next year as fun was had by all.
Jack Beattie
This gallery contains 7 photos.
A big thank you to Bernie & Brenda Kropp for extending such great Gyro hospitality by hosting this summer’s Club picnic. A beautiful Central Alberta afternoon – 25 degrees & 70% humidity with no mosquitos. Talk of what everyone has … Continue reading
What a great day we had at Kropps, the weather was fantastic, the food even better, and the socialization tops. Thanks to Brenda and Bernie for opening up their home/yard to all of us (twenty-four couples). Thanks also to Rick Craddock and Art Merrick for helping with the organization of the event. Sid and Keith did a great job on the Bar-b-que once Bernie got it going. I think everyone had a great day
