December 2021 Newsletter

Merry Christmas Everyone.

This is the last Newsletter for the year, and I am wondering where the rest of the year has gone!

I want to talk about our wonderful Craft Fair and all the people who helped to make it a great success. We earned $1,614.00 and this total puts us much closer to getting a new kitchen and living area floor, maybe in the New Year.

We owe many members who helped make this total possible. First the Book Sale, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who donated the books, books, and books!!! Our book organizers, and sales people, Kate Walter, Board Member, Secretary, and book organizer and her fabulous assistant Bernice Fraser, volunteer (boy! She didn’t know what she signed up for). I watched Bernice put away things after the Fair was over, she was moving furniture after the books were stored, what a woman!!!! Thank you Bernice for all your hard work. Thank you also goes out to our New Librarian, Joan Morgan, who organized our library, getting rid of the old books and putting the new in place, and making it easy to find just what you’re looking for, take a “boo” and you’ll see what I mean.

Also, we need to thank you, thank you, thank you, to all our volunteer bakers!!! The baking kept coming and coming, WOW! What a selection we had and all very yummy!! Our team of workers Barb Connoly, Leader, Lisa Moulatsiotis, Board Member, Danielle Swann, Anne Marie Rogers, and Jerye Renios, volunteers, did a magnificent job of selling, helping, and keeping the lines of people moving along the counter, and they didn’t let up until the last cookie was sold. Again, thank you!

To make this list a little longer, many thank yous go out to Andy Walter and Ernie Filzwieser, for manning the doors, asking for ID’s with smiles on their faces, as they stayed in the cold for four hours!! They then came into the Centre and began taking tables down and disinfecting all surfaces that had been touched. (I’m sure Ernie went home with sore hands; he sure knew how to wipe down!) If I have missed your name, I’m sorry, as there were many volunteers who participated, and you are the unsung hero’s and we at the Centre feel very grateful. We will be doing a Craft Fair again as we had so much fun, just wait till next year, we will be even better!!!!

To end our year, we at the Centre would like to invite you to a Christmas Pajama party on December 24th from 10:00 till 12:00. There will be coffee, tea, and goodies, as well as a door prize to give away so please come and join us for some fun. The Centre will not be opened again until January 4th, 2022.

For those of us who need a little help to figure out how to download ebooks or audiobooks to our mobile devices, on Wednesday, January 12th we will have a guest at the Centre. Her name is Susan Pierce, and she is a librarian at Parksville Regional Library. Please book a 15-minute appointment with us, starting at 10 a.m., so that Susan can help you. If you have a tablet, ipad or ipad mini, please bring it with you to download onto, make sure that you know how to login to your device and what the password is. A valid library card is also required to download books from the library. You can drop by the Parksville library before this date to make a new card or update your information before the session.

Some scheduling changes for December include the following: no chair fitness or yoga on Wednesday, December 22 and the last bridge will be Friday, December 17.

To end this Newsletter, I would like to send some thoughts your way. I know for some Christmas can be difficult, but I’ll let you in on how I handled it. I became a baker for the month of December. I baked anything I could think of to make others smile, first my children, my extended family, and for all my friends who needed a little cheer. I have always thought of the reason for the season, it’s a renewal time for life and hope. I thank God I live in this town, by the sea, and I have not had the misfortunes others have had with all the rain and now the Tornadoes. I count my blessings, my great husband, my family, my warm house, food to eat, and the ability to be able to volunteer. Count your blessings, I’m sure there are many. All of us at the Center wish you all the very Best Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Bev Swann
Editor