CALOOSA WINNIES

January 2014 outing

Caloosa Winnies kicked off the new year with an “International Festival” celebration on January 9 – 12, 2014 at Blueberry Hill RC Resort in Bushnell, FL. Co-hosts Frank & Diane Cipolla, Bud & Sue Swift, Ed & Carolyn Thomas tackled the duties right off the bat with Happy Hour at 4:00pm on Thursday. This was an event celebrating the Olympics with games representing 10 countries, and of course, there was the grand opening ceremonies complete with Olympic theme music! David Nobert and Janice Cummings, Presidents, Jerry & Nancy Miller paraded around the room in toga costumes and at the end of the parade, the official Olympic candle was lighted. This brought lots of surprised looks and smiles on all the attendees faces!

David welcomed some guests, Roger & Roberta Borinni from Virginia, Dale & Barb Johnson from Minnesota. Soon it was time for the pizza party – and of course free adult beverages. The park had a Bingo night and some of our members joined in to play the games!

Friday morning the co-hosts were busy preparing the pancake breakfast which was served quickly and the guys had fun as usual making special pancakes! After cleanup was finished it was time to go to the pavilion to participate in the various games. Everyone had a good time and the weather cooperated to be fairly warm outside.  At 4:00pm it was Happy Hour time once again, and a money raffle was held and there were 3 lucky winners, Frank Cipolla, Dave Wilkie, and Doris Palmer. At 5:00pm we all headed to Sonny’s Barbecue for dinner – great food and service! Back at the park several people played games of Nickels for the rest of the evening.

Saturday morning at 8:30am our Potluck Breakfast was set up with the usual GREAT dishes prepared by the GREAT cooks! At 10:00am David called the business meeting to order. Several topics were discussed including the upcoming Florida State Winnie Gators Rally in March. The Treasurer’s books were audited and found to be in excellent order. After the meeting was free time for everyone to play games, socialize or go shopping!

At 4:00pm Saturday it was back to the rec hall for Happy hour followed by a spectacular dinner of potluck dishes representing many nationalities! Among the dishes were several Italian varieties, Hungarian, Chinese, German, Irish, French, etc. After dinner it ws time for the Olympic Closing Ceremony. David, Janice, Jerry & Nancy once again paraded around to the Olympic music and extinguished the Olympic flame.

Next came the awarding of the medals ceremony. Gold medal winners included Jim Carney, Barb Wilkie, Janice Cummings, Marge Carney and Bud Swift. Silver medal winner was Ed Tyndall, and Bronze medal winners were a tie with Corinne Wightman and Ed Thomas. Great Effort ribbons were presented to JoAnn Maceri, Corinne Wightman, Paula Geng, and Pete Maceri,  for scoring any points in the difficult Bull Toss game!

Sunday morning our breakfast was served at 8:30am, donuts, bagels, fruit, and soon it was time to say our goodbyes.   We invite anyone to join us at a meeting – check our schedule on www.winniegators.org / Caloosa Winnies, or on line at the WIT Club website “Who’s Inviting Travelers”. We always enjoy having visitors. 

Submitted by Nancy Miller