September Meeting Notes

We started the September meeting with Tolling the Boats lost in August and September, followed by birthday wishes for our members, introductions, and officer reports.

Old and New Business:
Museum of Flight - We had a good time and turnout for the August 3- 4 event. The museum had a large number of visitors during the weekend giving us lots of exposure to people that didn't know about USSVI. Base member and Museum of Flight docent Don Ulmer gave presentations on the rescue of the aircrew of a B-29 by USS Springer, with film from the actual rescue, throughout the weekend. Thanks to Dick Gonzales for organizing the event. We also received 10 passes for the Museum of Flight and will be auctioning them off to benefit the Base. We will have more information on the raffle soon.

Don Ulmer and Dick Gonzales at the Museum of Flight

Cabela's Weekend #2 - We had a great time at our second weekend at the Cabela's Tulalip store. It was another good chance to meet a lot of people and talk with them about USSVI. We also received $506 in donations during the weekend.

Seattle Base float at Cabela's entrance

We are going to work with South Sound Base to see about a joint event at the Cabela's store in Lacey.

Black Diamond Parade - The Seattle Base float and member participated in the Black Diamond Labor Day Parade and came away with the trophy for Best Overall entry in the parade.

Dutch shows off the trophy from Black Diamond

Veterans Day 2013 - There are a lot of events happening around Veterans Day this year. The Auburn Veterans Day Parade will be on Saturday, November 9. Seattle Base and other submarine veteran groups will be at the parade. We are planning to meet around 10:00 - 10:30 at the intersection of Main and L Streets, and the parade starts at 11:00. There will be other events around Auburn that weekend, including the Vietnam Veterans Traveling Wall, and you can find out more at the city's website. There will be a memorial service at the Tahoma National Cemetery on Monday, November 11. Also, Seattle Base is looking at participating in the Veterans Appreciation Day at the University of Washington's Bothell campus on Wednesday, November 13.

Holiday Luncheon - The Seattle Base USSVI and Lockwood Chapter, Submarine Veterans of WWII Joint Holiday Luncheon is set for Saturday, December 14 at Anthony's Homeport Kirkland restaurant. We will have registration forms at the next meeting.

Good of the Order:
John Mansfield presented Ervin Schmidt with a pen made from the teak deck of USS Torsk, Ervin's last boat during WWII.

John presents Ervin with the pen

John Mansfield and Ervin Schmidt

John then, with some help from Pat Householder, presented Bob Opple with the Robert Link Award for his work with USSVI and the Silent Service Motorcycle Club (SSMC). Additionally Bob was given the Golden Anchor Award for the work the SSMC did in recruiting and retaining members.

Bob Opple (center) accepts the Robert Link Award and Golden Anchor Award from Pat Householder (left) and John Mansfield (right)

September Program:
Pat Householder gave us a report about the most recent USSVI National Convention. He had lots of photos and recorded messages from some attendees. We also got some other first-hand reports from John Mansfield, Sam Ronnie, and Lois Mezek. Overall, the feeling was that while it was a smaller convention, it was still a lot of fun and the city treated USSVI very well.

Due to the late hour, Don Ulmer postponed his presentation and rescheduled it for the November meeting. Here is a short description of Don's program. Don will spin a true bittersweet saga of World War I told him by his best friend at age 11. It is the story of his friend's Aunt Marge Van Sciver and 1st Lt Malcom Gunn, of the embryo US Army Flying Corps, who married on the eve of his deployment to France over objections of both families. Film clips excerpted from a musical play based on this tale produced by the Seattle Museum of Flight spice Don's PowerPoint presentation. This is a good program for wives and significant others, so bring them along. This story will really tug at the heartstrings.