Wow, was it really hot these last few weeks or what? Hopefully by the time you receive this article, it will have rained a lot and cooled off. 

It has been a busy few months at our Lodge. I attended the National Convention in St Louis in July and had an amazing time. The meetings were very inspirational and for the first time in 39 years, the Elks in general had a gain in membership! How exciting to see this amazing organization growing! 

We had our Paralyzed Veteran’s welcome back luncheon in honor of their amazing accomplishments at the National Wheelchair games in Louisville. What an inspirational group of people that do amazing things in life that most of us only dream of. We always look forward to their great stories about crazy adventures and heartwarming moments they experienced. 

Our ritual team had the honor of doing something that none of us had done before. We were invited to San Manuel Lodge #2007 on August 4th to initiate seven new members into their Lodge. The hospitality that their Lodge showed us all was incredible and we are so grateful for the experience. There is definitely some great energy at that Lodge and I know they will do amazing things. Thank you so much to all of our Officers and their significant others that made the trip so great. 

We had the Arizona Past State Presidents meeting held at our Lodge on August 10th as well. It was so wonderful to meet them and their wives. Jack and Gail Baillargeon did an amazing job with the food and our volunteers did a great job making our Lodge shine. I was approached by quite a few of them praising the work that our Lodge does year round. 

The Queen of Hearts will be gone one way or another by September so congratulations to the winner and thank you all so much for supporting it all year! The funds it produces do a lot of good things in our community and for the Lodge. 

Just a reminder that we will have our Vice President’s visit September 21st which will include a wonderful Lasagna dinner (made by our Elk of the Month) after our poker run. Members in cars, trucks and motorcycles are strongly encouraged to join us for this fun new kind of event. There is a flier covering the event in this Bugle and you can sign up in the Lounge or call in. You can do the poker run and then join us for an Italian dinner that evening or just do one of the events. Let’s show Vice President Dennis Appel and his lovely wife Deb our Lodge pride by supporting these events. We will also have the Razr here for you to look at during that time and purchase raffle tickets for which in turn supports Arizona Elks Major Projects. 

Please sign up for the Lobsterfest coming up September 28th. It is put on by the Past Exalted Rulers Association and it will help get our scholarship funding off to a great start. Have a wonderful September and enjoy the cooling down period that we so love in Arizona.  

Hope you enjoyed summer time.

ELKS CARE, ELKS SHARE  

We are Elks, this is what we do. 

Thanks to our members our Queen of Hearts funds grow each week through your continued participation. The funds the PERs collect is available for charitable purposes, lodge maintenance and/or improvements. The latest numbers of our Queen of Hearts game 7 has allowed for a total of $17,165 paid out to our lucky winners and approx. $12,000 generated for charity and lodge priorities. 

I’m happy to introduce to our lodge a new PER that has joined our group. Glen Robinson with his wife JoAnn, of 56 years, has joined our association. Glen spent most of his Elk life in Lodge 1900 in Lodi, California. Glen served as Leading Knight, Exalted Ruler and Director for the Lodi lodge. He has also been an associate member in Stockton, CA before becoming an associate with our lodge. Glen and JoAnn have 3 children, a boy and twin daughters. There are 8 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. Like many of our other lodge members Glen and JoAnn are RV’ers and travel to many lodges with RV parks around the US. 

Just a reminder, the PERA Lobster fest is scheduled for Friday, September 28th. Tickets are $30 each with for a 1.25 pound Atlantic lobster with all the fixings.  

I saw this in another Lodge’s newsletter, and I felt it is noteworthy to pass it along to our membership. 

What I Get for My Dues 

• I get the Opportunity to belong to the finest Fraternal Order in the world 
• I get the opportunity to be associated with fine American men and women. 
• I get the opportunity to enjoy the comforts of my Lodge and Club, both socially and fraternally. 
• I get the opportunity of taking part in all the Charitable work my Lodge preforms. 
• I get the opportunity to participate actively in all the programs sponsored by my Lodge.
• I get an opportunity of electing, by democratic process the officers, who run my Lodge. 
• I get the opportunity of visiting other Lodges and enjoy their hospitality. 
• I get the opportunity of wearing my Elk insignia and showing everyone that I am proud to be an Elk. 

Committee Chairpersons: Could you all please get event reports to me as soon as possible after your event. I need these reports to be able to keep our Charity Book, up to date. Thanks in advance. Also, if you are one of these many Chairman we have for our Committees, I also could use some reports at Lodge Meetings, so they reflect on the minutes. If you cannot attend a meeting maybe you could give some one else a short report for that meeting. 

Lodge Stats 

Membership 537 

Initiated 16 

Affiliated 4 

Reinstatements 3 

Transfers out 2 

Deaths 1 

Delinquent’s 46 

Average age 70.64