Dear Members of the Hilton Head World Affairs Council,
What an exciting and great year it has been! I hope you are as pleased as our Board Directors and Officers are. Hard work and dedicated research by our Program Committee, under Marion Conlin’s dynamic leadership, have paid off. The team work displayed by our working Board of Directors and the warm response from you, our members, are gratifying.
Our last Summer and Fall Forums were big successes, thanks to Director Bill Lloyd. Director Claire Sullivan is expanding our community school outreach program. This year, she and others mentored students from the Bluffton High School Model U.N. Program. More than 80 of you attended the reception at members Elissa and Frank Flaumenhaft’s home on Ribaut Island when Nelson Cunningham spoke about the State Department under the leadership of Secretary John Kerry during the next four years. Your generosity benefited our School Outreach Program.
Many of you joined us when eight teams from the five Beaufort County public high schools competed in our Second Annual Academic World Quest competition in March. Joan Lemoine and I just returned from Washington, DC, where we accompanied the winning Beaufort High School team as they competed with 42 others from across the nation. While they did not place in the top three, we were proud of these wonderful four young men and one woman and their teacher/coach . These young people have great futures ahead of them and we are proud to be a part of educating the next generation of global citizens. Our thanks again to WACHH Vice-President Mike Fritz for his role in leading our AWQ effort.
Now, why should you renew your membership in the World Affairs Council? First and foremost, our speakers for our 2013-2014 program year are great. We will begin with Former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. This 2012 candidate for the GOP presidential nomination will be with us for our first meeting of the new program year on October 4th. We are also working to coordinate a reception for him during his time with us. This reception will benefit our Outreach Programs and we will let you know as soon as we have set a date, time and place. Our website contains detailed information on our other future speakers.
Secondly, our membership rate remains the same, as we are in the second year of our two-year contract with First Presbyterian Church. Speaker travel costs have stabilized somewhat over the past months and remain within our budget.
Third, our Summer Forum promises to be exciting as we move our venue to the three major retirement centers: June 5, Seabrook (French Contemporary Culture), July 11, Cypress (Lessons from Africa), and August 14, Tide Pointe (Mexico: Drug Cartels and the Global Economy). All sessions begin at 10 AM and conclude by 11:30 AM. The Fall Forum is currently under design. We promise other exciting events during the next program year. Please stay tuned.
Our Community Outreach and AWQ programs are funded separately through your contributions, not through our annual membership fees, which support only our Speaker Program. On the membership renewal forms (on-line or print and mail in) you will see a space to contribute above and beyond the annual membership fee to Outreach and AWQ. We recommend that you support these programs as generously as you can, but with a suggested contribution of $15 to each. As a tax exempt organization under the IRS code 501(C)3, our members and friends in the community may help finance the Council’s Outreach and AWQ programs. Thanks for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Blaine Lotz, President
