FFSFBA Newsletter February/March 2005

After a slight �bump� in the road, here we are with a new slate�a new year to spread our hope for world peace.

Our first activity for the year will be WORLD FRIENDSHIP DAY, starting in New Zealand and ending 24 hours later in Hawaii, a celebration shared around the world. Atlanta (FFI Headquarters) is working to help our organization grow by 30 new clubs. Colleen Scott is planning an international dinner, sharing ethnic food and hopefully some international dress. So, on March 1, please plan to attend and try to bring at least one guest. F.F. is suggesting a $10 donation per person that will be spent for new club organization. I believe our club can surpass that amount.

I would like (belatedly) to welcome our new board members, and give a big thank-you to LOUISE HEIDUK and the previous board for the past 2 years of great leadership.


Honoring the outgoing board members and committee chairs (not all appear in this photo)	Joanne and Norm Crane, Foresters; Louise Heiduk, outgoing President; Joy Hillman, Treasurer; Dee and Dave Gustavson, Newsletter; Gail, Activities chair

There has been a change of date for the incoming exchange from Osaka, Japan. They will be leaving Japan August 16 for a 5-day stay in western Colorado, so they should be here about August 22�28.

If you already signed up to host, please let me know whether this change is okay or causes problems for you. If you didn�t sign up to host, but are interested, we still have a few opportunities available.

Nineteen Ambassadors from FFSFBA will be going to Atlanta April 15�20. We are looking forward to a beautiful southern spring. Our gracious hosts in the Atlanta club will show us the sights including the FFI Office, CNN Headquarters, Coke World, Stone Mountain, beautiful gardens, and other historical sites. Some members are planning pre- or post-exchange excursions on their own. Join us at the next club meeting following the exchange for a full report.

The Milwaukee Friendship Force Club is very interested in having an exchange of visits with us. At the moment the proposed timing would be that they would come here in Fall 2005 and we would go there in 2006. Of course, if we have a trip to New Zealand in the fall, the two would have to be separated.

Santa Barbara is hosting a Western Regional Conference on March 11. Board members are welcome and there are lots of places to stay nearby.

There will be optional activities on Saturday March 12. If you are interested, please contact me.

Our club plans additional fundraisers for Friendship Force International, to start new clubs in various parts of the world, with silent auctions at the May 15 meeting and possibly the July 10 picnic.

Colleen Scott and I will organize these events. We hope everyone will have fun and get involved by donating and buying an item or two for this worthy cause. Think of items or services that you can donate. The sky�s the limit, and no item is too small�a small gift can be combined with one or two larger things to make a more interesting package.

Here are some ideas for donations: New items that you no longer need or want. Ask your friends who own or manage a hotel or restaurant to donate a gift certificate toward one or two nights� lodging, or request a meal or two at a restaurant you frequent. You�ll be amazed at what you can get if you ASK!

Consider donating a week-end stay (or even a week!) at your condo, cabin, or beach house. Offer a �Day on the Bay� on your sailboat, with lunch.

Are you a good cook? How about donating an ethnic dinner for 4, 6, or 8? Maybe you have a specialty or are a great barbecue chef. How about a dessert night for several people? If you bake delicious cakes, pies, home-made bread, pizza, or make ice cream, you can offer some for the auction, or how about a pie each month for 6 months?

Service ideas: donate 2�4 hours of computer expertise, secretarial work, or organizing clutter in someone�s home or office; offer gardening advice, pruning, or weeding; offer a guided hike or walk, including a box lunch. Or work together with a friend to combine some of these ideas.

Can you donate free tickets to entertainment spots, such as to a theater, Monterey Aquarium, Bonfante Gardens, MOMA in S.F., Great America, museums, etc.?

Offer a walk and tour of your town, with lunch or brunch. Ask your mayor or other prominent person to donate a tour of their office, or the City Hall, with lunch or brunch for 1�2 people. Search your attic for antiques and celebrity items, such as a book or record signed by the author or composer.

Friendship Force is a non-profit organization, so all donations are tax-deductible. Donors will be acknowledged in a program and in the newsletter.

If you have items to donate, ideas or suggestions, or would like to help, please call Colleen or Dee, or email Dee. You can bring your Silent Auction items to Dee at the March 1 meeting in Newark.

Our first General Meeting for 2005 will be held on Tuesday evening, March 1, World Friendship Day. This will be a Potluck dinner with surprises and fun for all members and friends. (See separate sheet for details and to make your reservation.) Anyone who would like to apply their decorating talents, please contact Gail Boyd by February 20.

You do not want to miss being part of this special event for World Friendship Day. BRING A FRIEND!

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2005 WORLD FRIENDSHIP DAY
GENERAL MEETING 6:30 P.M.
AT THE NEWARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

The Newark Presbyterian Church is located two long blocks off Hwy. 84 in Newark, just east of the Dumbarton Bridge.

Going north on 880, take the Decoto Road/Hwy. 84 exit west. Take the first exit�Newark Blvd.�and then turn left under the freeway. Proceed to the second left�Cedar Blvd. Turn left at Cedar Blvd. and then a quick right into the church parking lot. The church is on the corner of Newark and Cedar.

Coming across the Dumbarton, take the second exit�Newark Blvd.�turn right and continue to Cedar Blvd. Turn left at Cedar Blvd. and then a quick right into the church parking lot. The church is on the corner of Newark and Cedar.

Because our FFSFBA Club is so scattered geographically, we are attempting to keep united by having get-acquainted gatherings in the various areas in the months when there are no regularly scheduled meetings.

Share your event with other members! E-mail an article and photos (if possible) to the newsletter editor, newsletter@ffsfba.org soon after your event.

With only two members not able to attend, ten FFSFBA Area Coordinators gathered at the home of June Cademartori on January 18, 2005 at 11:00 a.m.

Reports of upcoming activities of the 6 Areas were given. The activity will be planned by the Area, but will be open to anyone in the Club who wants to attend. Watch your E-mail for the events planned in the next few months.

Colleen Scott was a guest at this meeting. She presented the plans for World Friendship Day. Area Coordinators will be doing their part in making this day a success. Each area will be contributing a door prize, in the form of a basket of goodies, assembled and brought to the dinner on March 1, 2005. Each coordinator will be contacting the members in her area to urge them to attend or to send a donation. Everyone is urged to bring a guest as a way to introduce them to Friendship Force. The aim of the dinner is to increase the friendship in our club and to spread it around the world.

After the business meeting, a delicious potluck was enjoyed by all. Members stayed on until mid-afternoon, enjoying the fellowship and making plans for the future.

Next meeting of the Coordinators is Wednesday, April 6, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. at the home of Joy Hillman.

Area Groups 1 and 2 are planning a no-host brunch at Dipsea Restaurant in Mill Valley in late February or early March. After brunch we will be off to a special art studio on a private boat house in Sausalito. We will be hosted by an internationally known artist from Zimbabwe who specializes in watercolors of wild life from Africa, California, etc. When we have a firm date, we will advise you. If you are interested, let me know�you don�t have to be in Areas 1 or 2.

Ten Friendship Force members from Areas 5 and 6 gathered at Katharine Kleinke�s Sunnyvale home for a dessert party on November 19, 2004.

After introducing ourselves and describing a unique exchange experience, we enjoyed getting acquainted with our five guests, whom we hope will be interested in joining our club.

Our next event will be a Valentine�s Party on February 11 in our Los Altos home.

On Saturday, January 29, the Mission San Jose group (Area 8) of the FFSFBA took a docent-led tour of the Museum of Local History in Fremont. It is located in the Mission San Jose District. It was educational and fun to see the various items that brought smiles and memories to many of our group.

After the tour, we walked across the street for a no-host dinner at the Sei-Sho Sushi Japanese restaurant for a delicious meal. We tried out our chopstick skills, but some had to resort to the more obedient fork.

The twelve members who attended were briefed on International Friendship Day plans by group chair Ruth Edwards, and then chatted about current and future travel scheduled for 2005. It was a wonderful afternoon and evening.

We have lost a special member. JoAnn DeRoos passed away Saturday evening, December 18. Services were held on Wednesday December 29 at Centerville Presbyterian Church.

JoAnn was the widow of FFSFBA�s ex-president, Andy DeRoos. She and Andy hosted and also traveled on several exchanges. JoAnn created the Friendship Force windsock which has marked our meeting sites for several years.

Each year the Membership Chair has to write an article asking his/her friends to send in their dues again. This year is no different. The time has come for all members to realize that they are part of one of the best organizations in the world.

Friendship Force has noble goals and reaches them every time you either participate or contribute to the local club or the international one. Your dues earn the opportunity to participate in exchanges (going, hosting, or interacting with new friends), engaging in local activities (summer picnic, trips to the snow, visiting San Francisco City Hall, local parties, sailing on the Bay, holiday luncheon, etc.), receive frequent newsletters, and the chance to get involved in serving the organization.

Japan will soon be coming to the Bay Area, and we will be going to Atlanta and New Zealand. These are excellent choices. I have personally been to both of them and I know that anybody who accompanies the group will have a terrific time. I guarantee it!

Now is the time to join the Force. Annual membership dues are $35 per individual or $55 per couple or family. If you get your dues in before March 15, 2005, you can deduct $5 from the total. See the insert for details.

Last October I traveled to India on a Friendship Force Exchange with a group of 22 Friendship Force members from eight different states.

We ambassadors were hosted for one week in Friendship Force members� homes in Nashik, a city of about 1 million population, located about 120 miles east of Mumbai (Bombay). I traveled with Mary Lou Hudson, my friend from the St. Louis, Missouri F.F. club.

We flew to Mumbai, stayed overnight in a hotel, then took a bus to Nashik the next morning. We endured the six-hour long bus ride in 90-degree hot and humid weather without air conditioning. Although we arrived in Nashik two hours later than expected, (due to heavy rain and road construction on a mountain pass), our hosts awaited us with warm welcomes and fresh floral bouquets.

This was our host club�s first incoming exchange, but they planned a terrific program for the whole week. The first night was a welcome party, when we were entertained by many excellent colorfully costumed dancers who demonstrated cultural dances from their region. After the show, many dancers approached Mary Lou and me for our autographs and photographs. Did we feel like celebrities!

We stayed in a nice, modern home (4 bedrooms, and 3 baths), which our hosts, Madhukar and Malti designed and had built 18 years ago. In their yard, they have rose bushes, green tea plants, coconut and mango trees, but no lawn to mow. On the first morning in our host�s home, we were offered a large variety of foods for breakfast: cornflakes, bread, butter and jam, cheese, pomegranate seeds, apples, a fried-rice dish with curry, onions and peanuts; green mango juice, orange juice, and hot tea, of course.

We got to know our Indian hosts well while staying in their home. They shared their work, traditions, food, hobbies, and their daily schedules with us. Our host spoke English well, but our hostess spoke only Hindi and Marathi, (the regional language), so we used a lot of smiles and sign language to communicate with her.

Our hosts took us to visit his brother and family and they served us brunch in their home. Their daughters stayed home from school, so they�d have a chance to meet Americans and practice their English.

Our host family has a son, daughter, and son-in-law living in Indianapolis. After our visit, they became grandparents, and have already applied for visas so they can visit their family and new grandchild in the U.S.

While driving us to meet the rest of our group, our host had to dodge cows in the road. Cows are all owned by someone, but they are protected, and have the right to roam wherever they wish. The cows seem to realize that they are actually safer right in the middle of the road, because traffic manages to go on each side of them. We saw every kind of transportation imaginable: mini-taxis, bicycles, a man riding a camel beside the road, motor scooters, and cycles, (once we saw a family of 5 riding on a cycle).

While giving us a tour of the city, our host showed us the factory which he owns. He has about 50 employees in his company, which manufactures cable terminals, etc., and exports the components to UAE and Africa. He has 10 employees in his second company which sells propane canisters to families for use in kitchen stoves. He plans to start a third company, which will export black tea to the U.S.

I was fascinated by the colorful and uniquely designed fabrics of the saris, which every woman and girl wore. Wherever we drove or walked, there was a colorful ribbon of saris winding through the village or city streets, worn by women as they marketed, swept the street, herded the sheep or cows, tilled the land, planted seeds, made dung patties (to sell as fuel), walked with their children, carried wares on their heads.

One day our hosts took us shopping for saris. Never having owned one or even tried one on, it was a challenge to figure out what to do with the 6 yards of fabric. The store clerks helped us pleat it and drape it over our bodies. In fact, everyone within the surrounding departments in the store stopped their work and came over to watch Mary Lou and me try on saris in front of the mirror. We were probably the first Americans they�d seen trying to choose a sari from the hundreds stacked in the bins.

Daily bus tours of the Nashik region included the Coin Museum, the Spiritual University, Gurkul, Swami Samarth Center. People of all religions are allowed to come here to learn, worship, and meditate. They showed us a film describing their products for sale, such as soap, and various medicinal items made from cow's urine. They now have 56 items on the market.

We visited various temples, and also a sculptor�s gallery displaying Madan Garge�s work. We observed his marvelous sculptures, some life size, and even larger. He was invited to participate in the Gandhi Peace Foundation�s competition, which he won. The city of Riverside, California then commissioned him to make the Gandhi sculpture. We viewed this fascinating 12-foot-high sculpture which took him eight months to complete. On October 2, 2005, Mr. Garge�s sculpture will be installed in Riverside�s City Center, and he and his wife will attend the unveiling.

One of the highlights of our stay in Nashik was having the opportunity to observe the Ganesha Holiday, a festival that lasts for five days and takes place only in that state. The celebration was going on during our visit, so one night our host Madhukar drove Mary Lou and me to downtown Nashik to see the Ganesha Festival. (His wife Malti had left the house at 6 a.m. with friends to deal with their new tea business.)

Our host drove us through WILD traffic, while we heard constant horn-honking. (We were told that horns are not used in anger, but to alert people of one�s location. I still don�t understand how people can distinguish one horn from another, or know where the sound is coming from.) He finally parked the car, then we walked through the streets, weaving in and out of mobs of people. We got jostled about, and sometimes I felt that the only thing holding me up were the ten people surrounding me. At times we held hands in order to stay together.

While trying to drive through a traffic jam, a policeman stopped the car and said, �You�re going the wrong way. This area is for pedestrians only.� Our host replied, �I have international visitors with me.� The policeman blew his whistle, raised his arm to stop all traffic (pedestrians, motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, and cars!) and motioned everyone to move back in all directions. This made it possible for our host to make a U-turn and drive in the opposite direction.

We parked the car and walked a block to visit a public Ganesha shrine, the largest and most popular one we saw. Our host walked us to the exit to save us from standing in the long line, explaining to the guard that he had international visitors with him. The guard stopped people in all directions to let us pass through the crowd to get to the shrine. Mary Lou kept turning around to ask me, �Are you still with us?�

I was keeping up okay, but as we were leaving, the crowds pushed me into a large square glass donation box perched on a pedestal. I grabbed it to steady it, just in time to keep it from falling over, breaking, and spilling out all the money.

We photographed some of the beautiful shrines and colorful lights as we walked by them. Sometimes I couldn�t see over the crowd, so I held my camera up high and randomly clicked, hoping I was recording the scene.

We passed all kinds of street vendors selling apples, roasted corn, peanuts, bananas, apples, etc. We walked around dogs lying on the street. As we drove through town, we felt like celebrities riding in a convertible. Several people sensed that there was someone foreign sitting in the car. People stared at us, but their faces lit up when we smiled back at them. They mouthed �Hi� or �hello� through car windows and some asked us in English, �Where are you from?�

We drove across the Victoria bridge, parked the car, and walked to the Godavari River, considered one of the holiest rivers. This river�s water is believed to liberate the soul of the person whose ashes are immersed there. It was a lively place even at 11 p.m., with many vendors, worshippers, bathers, and clothes washers at the scene.

Following the one-week stay with our host and hostess, we went on a 10-day tour of Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra. Visiting the Taj Mahal was definitely a highlight for me.

The exchange trip to India was a terrific experience for me! I encourage you to check into exchanges that other U.S. clubs have scheduled. You can join them, if there�s space. The F.F. magazines list all the exchanges, and occasional emails also describe them. Just this week, in fact, the Phoenix Friendship Force Club�s exchange director sent an email inviting our club members and other West Coast clubs to join their exchange to Helsingborg, Sweden in late June. There�s only one club in Sweden, so lots of clubs want to go there. This is a rare opportunity for our club! I hope some of you can go! Call our president, Joy Hewitt, for more information.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
President@ffsfba.org: Joy Hewett
Vice President: Bernice Batcheldert
Secretary: Karen McCready
Treasurer: Joy Hillman

STANDING COMMITTEES
Activities: Gail Boyd
MembershipChair@ffsfba.org: Barry Rader
Newsletter@ffsfba.org: Dave and Dee Gustavson
Parliamentarian: Louise Heiduk

EXCHANGE DIRECTORS
Inbound
Japan: Darlene Boyanich
Outbound
Atlanta: Katharine Kleinke

SUPPORT COMMITTEES
Domestic Exchange Coordinator: Eleanor Wilner
Exchange Banker: Bernice Batchelder
FF Merchandise: Lois Smallwood
Foresters: Norm and Joanne Crane
Program: Lynn Teifert
Area Group Coordinator: June Cademartori
Special Events: Elizabeth Shumway
Sunshine: Darlene Boyanich
Webmaster@ffsfba.org: Geri Bechtle