The Chairman's Corner

Notes from Merv Shetler

July 2003

We are working on ways to enhance the Bluebills website and make it a useful tool for our loyal members.
		Recruiting new members is a high priority with your board. One question we try to answer at each Central Leadership Council meeting is "Why would anyone want to join Bluebills?" When we look around the board table, all of us know why we are involved in this organization. As Boeing employees, we retired with built-in awareness of the needs of others. It just plain feels super to be able to continue to make a contribution with people we enjoy. And it keeps the cobwebs at bay. There are thousands of hours being expended to our communities through the good works of our fellow Bluebills each year. Through this web site, we hope to be able to report on some of these activities and the individuals involved. Our aim is to increase communication between our chapters as well as encourage recruitment. Another aim is to get these "feel good stories" into the Boeing communications system.
We are collecting our lump sum volunteer hours for Community Relations, but there are few actual examples available of what we actually do in our neighborhoods to reflect these hours. With an active web site, our activities will be obvious. The company will see a payoff from its investment in Bluebills. Each chapter will soon have its own reporter keeping track of major accomplishments/activities. These reporters will be in touch with our PR person, Nancy Wright, who can package the stories for the appropriate web pages. Mike Yanega has taken on the duties of webmaster. This relieves Dick Beham from the task of keeping the pages current. I am taking a personal interest in this project, and I urge you all: help us feed our website.

Heritage Opportunities

Heritage, our largest chapter, is now running a complete list of Seattle area volunteer opportunities on the website. Check it out at July Opportunities.

Keeping Involved

At our recent board meeting, Bob Lambert described the plight of the hero in the current movie "About Schmidt" starring Jack Nicholson. Schmidt's just retired, his wife has just died and his future happiness is uncertain. The film is supposed to be a comedy, but it has dark moments. You leave with a pretty clear message about how people need to keep involved. That's one of the major benefits of Bluebills. We are happiest when we are working with and for others.

Need a Bluebills Speaker?

At the July meeting, I reminded the three chapter chairs that the quarterly list of activities need to be turned in. I have a presentation that I give (whenever asked) about Bluebills that we update four times a year. If you know of an organization that might like to learn more about Bluebills, let me know and I'll dust off my presentation.

Kids In Need News

The warehouse is moving again! The new location at Kent Benaroya is bigger than the last site, to fit our growing involvement with World Vision and Gifts in Kind. Moving the huge inventory over the summer break will be lots of work but our trusty volunteers are signing up for duty. This program has received national recognition as an outstanding community service. Bluebills -- and Boeing -- can take a full measure of credit for its success.

Salute to Olympic Peninsula Bluebills

I'd like to salute the Olympia Peninsula Bluebills. They are in a recruiting mode and have recently signed up 26 new members. It's a huge territory to cover, from Port Angeles to Olympia, and being spread out sure presents logistical problems. Nevertheless, they've managed to maintain a tight organization. They are involved in a host of community projects, building a playground, helping repair cottages for the homeless and bikes for the needy kids. Plus a spouses subgroup has just been launched. The members will devote their early efforts to transportation for the sick and elderly, and providing relief for caregivers.