2000 News

About the Helios Chapter in Clearwater, Florida
by Fran Glaros

2001 chapter officers:

This year's officers are:

President: Fran Glaros
Vice President: Stacie Feola and Desi Plutis
Secretary: Anna Tripodis
Treasurer: Ann Andreson
Corresponding Secretary: George Glaros
Governors: Gus Tsambis (Chairman), Nick Plutis, Gus Stefanadis, Tony Mavronicolas, and Marko Feola

We now have 170 paid members for 2000.

Dr. Stanton Tripodis our member is now National V.P.

We still continue to have our monthly dinners with different members sponsoring these. Sometimes they are not able to cook, but we have enough cooks in our chapter, that if someone is willing to donate the cost of the food, we can always find good cooks to rustle up the food.

This year we held our AGIAS MARINAS picnic inside at our Leski, and the attendance was about 35-40 and it was much better than an outside picnic in July. Pete Petchakos sponsored the dinner in memory of his beloved wife Anita and daughter Ava. Fr. John Glaros did the blessing of the loaves in memory of our dear departed members.

A typical Florida downpour happened just before we finished eating, and this was one time when it was to our advantage to have a storm. Many members stayed and played cards conversed with each other and truly enjoyed our time together. We usually rush out as soon as meals are over, as everyone is always in a rush to get back home, so this was great for a change.

We have dinner sponsors lined up for the rest of 2000. We also had a very successful garage sale in May and earned $750.00 for our chapter. Those who couldn't work, donated good usable items and made it all worthwhile.

We hope to have another garage sale in the first part of November, when the weather is a bit cooler. May is just too warm in FL. We also plan to introduce a craft and card party once a week starting in October and include a pot luck supper, by each person bringing one dish that will serve 4-6 person's. Since we own our chapter home, it seems we need to use it more than just once or twice a month and this is how we plan to start.

Our Greek History addition to our monthly news letter is still done by husband George Glaros and our members seem to enjoy what he writes. One I liked was this: In ancient Greece internecine wars were called off so that peace could prevail, while the Olympic games took place. Nowadays we call off the games while fighting our wars. Would you call that progress?

Our monthly 50/50 raffle continues to help donate a few extra dollars to our chapter and the winners always seem to donate part of their winning back to the chapter, which I think is extremely generous.

Our leski kitchen was remodeled this year complete with a steam table and revolving shelves for our much used cleaning items. It makes it a real pleasure to work in there. Our next project is a dishwasher.

Our Annual Dinner dance is scheduled for Saturday, January 27, 2001 and as always we hope for lots of winter visitors who always help make it a success.

We now include a youth page in our monthly newsletter and we wish a happy birthday to our members children and grandchildren who have birthdays that month. We also include puzzles and a bit of American History, such as a couple of past presidents and their back ground. We keep trying different things to keep our youth interested. We have an annual Easter Egg hunt and Christmas party (with gifts for each child according to age and gender) thanks to our VP Stacie Feola and her husband Mark.

submitted by Fran Glaros