Message From the State President

“INSIEME”

Happy 2024 everyone. Hope the first month has been good and exciting for you. It is a new year. Let’s call someone we have not spoken to in a long time and wish them Happy New Year.

I spent two wonderful days at our office and it is looking great. We have desks, book cases and filing cabinets. Everything looks terrific. We still have boxes to unload and boxes to transfer from our storage area, but it all takes time. I cannot wait for everyone to see our new building when we convene for Grand Council in March.

Thank you Lynn Lawrence-Murphy for coming up to help unload boxes and special thanks to Lori Rossi who is there every week. I cannot thank Lori enough for all the work she has done.

I would also like to thank Debbie Ure for all the years that she worked on our Il Leone with and without Andy Pampuro. They created a wonderful paper. Debbie has decided to retire and in the interim, Anna Galbo-Graeber and Luigi DiGrande will be publishing the paper. Please note the new deadline is now the 15th of the month. Also make note of illeone.ca@gmail.com is the only email address to send your articles.

I plan to travel to the office about every two weeks and spend a few days. It is 122 miles on way from my house to the office.

I attended the meeting of the Sacramento Lodge and enjoyed a delicious lasagna dinner and a great meeting run very efficiently by President Dan Marinelli. Bingo was played after the meeting. I even met a cousin of a member of my Columbia Lodge there. Thank you for the wonderful SF 49er puzzle Sacramento Lodge.

Happy Belated “special” birthday to Past State President Maria Pignati. Ugo had a lovely luncheon for her at the Peninsula Italian American Social Club.

I attended the meeting of the Cornelia Vita Nuova Lodge and enjoyed seeing their new President, Jennifer Chandler, and officers in action. They have another event coming up and am sure they will let you all know about it.

Please remember to invite me and your State Officers to your meetings and events. We want to attend if our schedule allows.

There are quite a few lodges celebrating their 100th anniversaries this year. Let’s all try to attend and support them if we can. These are very special lodges that have fought hard to stay in existence for that long. If they can do it, we all can!

Happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s go SF Niners! Bring in that one new member!

Ciao