4 JUNE MEETING REPORT by Bud Vye, Retired CFM A nice weather day and a nice turnout of 65, including several spouses and children plus some members we hadn't seen for a while, showed up at the Diamond's ORC Birthday Zone (this year's name for the picnic area out in the far right field corner of the ball park) on the 13th. The food seemed to me to be significantly improved both in variety and qual-ity over that offered the last several years. Two beverage tickets for all. Serve yourself for the soft drinks, with the beer being served down at the far end. Everything was in place for some good networking. No appearance by Parney, the Squirrel's manager or any players this year, but we did have Nutzy and Nutasha come through for some photo ops so the time was quickly upon us for President Kathy Taylor to get our attention and get her successor, Jeff Se-chrest, and his V.P. , Adam Larsen, sworn in so she could turn over the gavel and become our Past President. Before doing that, she recognized and thanked all of the Board members who had supported her through her term and was presented a card by outgoing past President Harvey Jones, signed by many of us, expressing our appreciation for her service. As it was getting to be time to get our President out there to throw out the first ball, I was urged to get him sworn in, which I promptly did along with only our Vice President, as both Secretary Steve Pancham & Treasurer Justin White were missing in action and will be sworn in the first time they are available. Since music was com-ing loudly out of a speaker right over our heads, I was glad that I had brought scripts containing their oath of office with me and we were able to get the ceremony concluded promptly and send Jeff on his way to the pitcher's mound where he did a nice job of getting his pitch to the catcher. As the rest of us began to move toward our seats, which this year were just to the third base side of home plate, in front of the ServPro box which President Kathy had graciously made available, it quickly became apparent to those of us who had done this previously that a major improvement had been made. Since the Squirrels have installed a bar and viewing area on a platform over the open space between the pavilion where we had our function and the first section of seats out the right field line, we were able to go directly up the steps to this platform, across it, and continue through the concourse to our section, without having to go outside and then come back into the Stadium as previous. A REALLY BIG, and much appreciated improvement! Part of this project was also the moving of the Squirrels bullpen behind the right field fence where they are facing in toward homeplate through a plexiglass panel in the wall. I would think the pitchers appreciate their in-creased visibility of the game, while the fans all around the stadium now have a better view of what's going on out there in the bullpen. As the first ones to get down there promptly packed the air conditioned ServPro box and the seats right in front of it, we slower movers trickled into our seats in Section 113, where we had a close up view through the screen as the Fisher Cats promptly jumped out to a 5-0 lead, while their pitcher was mowing down the Squirrels batters. The home team, who has not had a good season so far, and has been particularly lacking of offensive production, continued that trend throughout our even-ing, getting only three singles and being shut out for the ninth time, as the score stayed at 5-0. (Continued on page 5)
IFMA_July_17_Newsletter 2017
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