Dear GDUI Members and Friends, Lately, our calendars are filling up with all kinds of opportunities and plans, fund-raisers and holiday shopping events. We want to remind you of a few dates worth keeping in mind. In just three months, it will be time for Top Dog, that fabulous convention that combines southern hospitality with all that we love about our astonishing dogs! If youre thinking of attending, you can give Audrey Gunter a call, and she will help you register. Dixie Land Guide Dog Users, Georgia Guide Dog Users and Guide Dog Users of Florida will sponsor Top Dog Charleston-2015 at the Comfort Inn & Suites (Savannah Highway), West Ashley, Charleston, SC, beginning Friday, January 30 through Sunday, February 1. registration costs only $55 per person and includes a professional photo of you and your guide; all the delicious meals for Friday evening through Sunday morning and a variety of presentations and entertainments, an exhibits hall with all kinds of gadgets, toys, and glittery ornamentation to amuse both you and your dog; updates from six guide dog training programs; a lovely bright blue tee-shirt boasting a guide dog in harness and a matching bandana for your guide; and more! Each suite at the hotel can accommodate up to six people, and the nightly suite rate is only $89.99. (And, if youre thinking of spending some extra time in Charleston, the hotel offers that nightly rate for the whole week! To make hotel reservations, call the hotel at 843.769.9850 no later than December 15, and tell them you will be attending the Top Dog conference. And, to register for Top Dog, contact Audrey Gunter at 843.571.0737, or e-mail her at: mailto:retired51837@msn. To get the conference rate of just $55 per person, register by December 31. Even if you cant attend, remember to purchase your raffle tickets for that beautiful life-size yellow labbie plush dog, complete with hand-made harness. Tickets are only $5.00 for each set of three, and all of the proceeds from the raffle will benefit gdui! To purchase your tickets, contact Audrey at the phone number above. Remember, the online Silpada jewelry party fund raiser for GDUI continues through December 1. Vickie Curley tells us that several members have already just about wrapped up their holiday shopping purchasing beautiful silver jewelry or gift certificates for the same, from the online catalog or by calling sales representative Dianna Carr at 908.399.7342. Heres an easy link to the online catalog: tinyurl/kojhxkm. Bob Acostas fund-raising committee will be holding another meeting on November 4. Were sure details concerning the December 2015 GDUI Caribbean Cruise will be on the discussion agenda, as well as a drawing for cash prizes that will commence in December, the prizes for which will be distributed at next summers GDUI convention in Dallas, TX. We will be sharing all the specifics about the GDUI national convention during coming months, but just in case you want to mark the dates on your calendar or start shopping for the best air fares, here are a few details: Our convention coincides with that of our parent organization, ACB,. The 54th annual ACB convention will be held at the Sheraton Dallas, located at 400 N. Olive St. in downtown Dallas. Pre-registration pickup will be on Thursday evening, July 2nd, you can expect Jane and the Louisville Ladies to open the GDUI Suite late on Saturday, July 4, our planned meetings will begin on Monday afternoon, July 6, and the GDUI convention will wrap up on the evening of Wednesday, July 8. ACBs convention will continue through the annual convention banquet, scheduled for Friday July 10. If you have ideas or suggestions or questions about our annual national convention, contact Lillian Scaife, who is our 2015 GDUI Convention Coordinator. Lillian asked me to tell you that we are in search of a convention theme, so if you have some creative ideas , please share them with Lillian atmailto: [email protected]. Please remember the Guide Dogs of the Desert campaign to scare up funds for puppy crates, ongoing through Halloween, at wedid.it/campaigns/1682-scaring-up-crate-donations. Lots of guide dog schools have also begun their annual sales of holiday cards and calendars, so think of these opportunities to support the programs that allow you to travel so independently each day and purchase items that you and your family members and friends will enjoy as well. Lest you think the only thing GDUI is about lately is raising money, let us remind you that your donations go to support PawTracks, the toll-free information line, the empathizers program, the annual GDUI convention, advocacy , information distribution to members of the general public, the GDUI web site, universally accessible elections, and so much more. Its almost time for membership renewals, you can expect to see renewal notices and applications in your e-mail and postal mail boxes soon, as well as in the Winter issue of PawTracks, and we hope you will renew your memberships for 2015, and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so as well. I want to wish Vickie Curleys Seeing Eye Dog, Valor, the best possible outcome from his surgery to remove a nasty cancerous lump that materialized seemingly overnight. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, and, Vickie, all of us will be on pins and needles along with you until this is over and the results are back. And, I want to say good bye to Zora, Melanie Brunsons sweet little GDB guide dog, who passed away last week. I knew Zora when I worked with Melanie at ACB, and I know how much her absence will be felt by Melanie and her husband. These are the hard parts of loving our guides. Vickie asked me to share one more item with you concerning the GDUI Empathizers. One day, Vickie was thinking gratefully about all of the people who have volunteered to serve as GDUI empathizers and it occurred to her that at that moment in time, everyone of them was a woman. That led her to the speculation that a man who owns or loses or is worried about his guide might in fact, prefer to speak to another man. So, she called Ken Metz, who immediately volunteered to join the team of GDUI Empathizers. Ken can be reached at 818.882.3610; his cell number is 323.793.1805, and he is in the Pacific time zone. Vickie says, We are still looking for a few good men, so, if you are a man who would like to join the group of GDUI members who volunteer to make yourselves available via phone to offer support, advice, and/or just a listening ear to other guide dog users like yourselves, please contact Vickie atmailto:njtribefan@yahoo. Finally, we want to let you know that GDUIs Constitution and Bylaws Committee met again last week. Soon, you can expect to find an announcement on this list, the chat list, and the GDUI web site, that will let you know how to become involved in the process of proposing amended bylaws for GDUI. We expect the bylaws to be presented in time for the May election. The committee plans to make each proposed bylaw eligible for an up or down vote individually, and, of course, we expect that any newly proposed bylaws will conform with the not-for-profit Code which was revised in 2012. Willow and I arrived home from our book club meeting earlier this evening to a power failure and the scent of bees wax candles wafting through the house. Willow ate her Fish n Chips kibble in the ambience of candle light, and she seemed to think it was pretty much okay! I, on the other hand, hope this is not a portent of winter power outages to come. Meanwhile, were wishing you a Halloween filled with treats and a very enjoyable extra hour of sleep this coming Sunday morning! Sincerely, Penny Reeder, President Guide Dog Users, Inc. [email protected] Will Burley, 1st Vice President Guide Dog Users, Inc mailto:[email protected] To subscribe to GDUI-Announce, visit this link: acb.org/mailman/listinfo/gdui-announce. You will receive an automatically-generated e-mail message which will include instructions for confirming your subscription. For our members and friends who do not have access to e-mail (or prefer to listen to the pleasant sound of a human voice reading aloud), we also offer telephonic announcements every week. If you are aware of guide dog users who do not have computer access, please share this telephone number with them: 646-653-1900. Recorded announcements available at this number are updated each Tuesday. We look forward to sharing announcements concerning our organization with all who are interested in GDUI.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 04:40:30 +0000
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