Friday at the IHOP!!

Everyone plays at Club 34.  No one sits out.  That has been Club policy for quite some time.  I established the 2 versus one policy some time ago.  Some players do not like that so they choose to sit out or just go home.  That is their choice.  I will not discuss how it came to be since it has been discussed many times over the past few years.

I wanted to address the Friday session somewhat differently.  I have tried to do everything I can to be assured of an even number of players for Friday.  I have called members during the week to see if they would be coming.  This past week I had a cancellation Thursday night so I called Kim Peterson and Melissa de la Fuentes.  They were not available but Bill Lapinski was so I rested assured that we would be even for Friday’s event.  At 11 am Friday Marty Sturgeon walked into the room.  Just two days earlier Marty told me Friday would NOT be an option for him because of the early starting time of llam.  But obviously something changed because Marty showed up making it an uneven number of players.  After game #1 Bill left to make us even and assured me that he had plenty of other things to do.  But I felt bad because Bill  agreed to come help me out and came from Mission Viejo.

I would like to ask all of you to text or email me during the week if you plan to attend Friday’s session.  It is so important that we be even for this event.  At the present time I have five players who have committed to Friday every Friday and they are Paul Trachtenberg, Bruce Dambrosio, Beth Byrne, Debbie Bloom and myself!  There are many more who will come Friday but not every week and they are Bill Lapinski, Renee Kahn, Inge Weinfeld, Elly, Reinhold Bauer, Rick Duncan, Bob Freiberg, Melissa de la Fuentes, Joanie Scafuto, Donna Dwaileebe, Lisa Ocone, Kim Peterson, Susan Rice and Mark Bennett.  So please let me know if you can make it prior to Friday!!!

We look forward to seeing Paul Rickhoff this Tuesday after a 3 week vacation in Chicago.  I spoke with Jeff the other day.  Jeff is in Ketchikan, Alaska, searching for glaciers and will be back to direct the Tuesday evening session September 3.  We look forward for the return of Beth Byrne and Tom Brown in a few weeks.

The second annual Club 34 championship is just around the corner, September 24 and October 1.  I will have a signup sheet in the playroom this coming Tuesday.  There will be 3 divisions of 8 players, maximum 24 players, $20 buyin.  Lets have a great event…

 

David Poder, Director

Advertisements

The Dog Days of Summer!!

That might be true of baseball but has nothing to do with Club 34..  We had one of our finest turnouts yesterday when 28 and 12 came to play our wonderful game.  Three new players came to visit us.  Billy Nakamura is a very fine player from Los Angeles who frequents Alan Stern’s club on Wednesday nights in the Fairfax area of LA.  He is an occupational therapist currently looking for employment.  We hope to see more of him in the future.

While we were playing the first game yesterday afternoon, two ladies came into the room unannounced and observed.  They then played two games and seemed to have a good time.  Paula Hembleton is a retired dentist from the UCLA dental school while Arlene Somerville is a retired medical transcriber.  Both ladies live in Huntington Beach and from my brief conversation with them, perhaps the only thing that may keep them from attending many sessions with us is grandmotherhood, a pleasant malady that has stricken other members of Club 34.  Are you listening Karen Sturm and Joanie Scafuto??

You will not believe this but Paula found Club 34 from an advertisement I ran in the Orange County Register FOUR years ago!!  It took her this long to gather the nerve to come play with us..   And this is a lady who for years practiced dentistry, one of the highest stressed jobs there is..  So I think both women can handle the mild stress that we may have to offer them!!  I hope to see alot of them in the future.

I never thought 5 years ago that I would be able to find even a few new Scrabble players so I fully anticipated that I would quit directing Club 34 after a few months.  But the opposite has occurred.  Directing Club 34 has taken on a life of its own.  It keeps getting bigger and better.

It was so good to see Desiree back after her short illness and also Bruce after his personal issues.  Over the next few weeks we should see the return of Jeff Polan, Tom Brown, Lou Block, Paul Rickhoff and Beth Byrne from their extended vacations.

I was happy to see James Cassidy return last night and also David Postal, the mailman…  David just completed a marathon 100 game tournament in New Mexico, traveled across country yesterday and came straight to the IHOP last night..  Now that is love brother!!!  Not only is Club 34 getting bigger but so many of its members truly love the Club and spending time with its family members on Tuesday and Friday.

I am always trying to promote the Club for Friday action so I happened to see Melissa de la Fuentes as she was leaving yesterday afternoon.  I asked her about Friday since she had come one other time.  She told me that she will try to make it but also let me know that she has a dogie she hates to leave alone.  Hmm, I seem to remember Kim Peterson telling me the same thing a few weeks back.  So many things Club 34 has to compete with but it will persevere….

 

David Poder, Director