Club 34 met in person last Tuesday for the first time in nearly 17 months. It was great seeing some old and familiar faces. 18 and 12 showed up for both sessions. We even had a few new folks come join us for the first time. Michael Roche who recently joined the meetup site came by to take a look and has committed for this Tuesday afternoon. Michael is retired, owned a printing company, and once upon a time played with other Scrabble clubs in south Orange County. Gee Gomez, a customer service representative from Phoenix, who also joined meetup came by for the evening session and has committed for the first two Tuesday nights of every month. We will have another new player join us Tuesday night, Lilian Brotherson, who recently moved from Pasadena to Long Beach, and joined the meetup site as well.
I have tried to meet up with Miguel Jardon, IHOP manager, a few times this week without success. I wanted to talk about the events of last tuesday and hope that he will let us start a bit earlier if possible. I still have hope for that. July 27 was a big success. We had a waitress service us throughout the afternoon session but not so much in the evening. We had at least 10 players have dinner at 4:30 but service was a bit slow so we did not start the evening session until 5:45. We did not finish until 9:15 so I want to speak to Miguel about some improvements along those lines. I am very happy to announce that Club 34 spent $411 on food and drink throughout the day. This is something else I want to bring to Miguel’s attention. That comes to $20000 for the year from Scrabble Club 34 at that rate. This should make Miguel very happy and hopefully give me a bargaining tool in discussing an earlier starting time. I went over the receipts very carefully. Everyone stepped up to the plate and I am very thankful for that. A few of you however failed to write your names on the receipts so please do so next week…
Lorry Higgins wanted me to tell all of you that the voluntary donation box will stay at her play area throughout the afternoon session. All monies received will cover meetup costs, lottery tickets and IHOP gift cards during the year. But the donation box is strictly voluntary…
The Friday virtual club went along without much fanfare yesterday. We have 12 regular and 5 on the waiting list. Please keep in mind that Amnon and Anthea will no longer do the stats for that club, just the Tuesday in house sessions at the IHOP… The new Club 34 has some changes that I have discussed in earlier posts. We are no longer a walk-in club. Everyone has to have an appointment and a confirmed seat so we avoid byes. It worked out very well Tuesday with one exception. It is very important that all of you read the blog every week so you know what is happening. Of course that will not always be the case. Somewhat showed up Tuesday without notifying me or ever reading the blog and paid the ultimate price. He had no choice but to return home. At least he didn’t lose a game…
We played in a maskless environment Tuesday but that will NO LONGER be the case. From now on, everyone must play wearing a MASK. You can only take it off while eating or drinking. I’m afraid there is no other way. With the rapid uptick of Delta variant cases, it is the safest way to continue playing Scrabble. We have hand sanitizers displayed throughout the room. USE THEM!!! Keep your equipment clean at all times. I am quite fearful that the IHOP could close down again or have social distancing, limiting us from using our playroom. Let us pray that wont be the case….
We have 18 for the afternoon session–lapinski, poder, reikes, polan, dambrosio, marcus, creighton, scafuto, peterson, higgins, hanggie, trachtenberg, helphrey, engel, weinfeld, bennett, rickhoff and michael roche.
For the evening session there are 10–poder, reikes, dambrosio, polan, lapinski, meyers, palmos, cassidy, gee gomez and lilian brotherson…
See all of you Tuesday….
David Poder, Director
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