[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 59-03, July - September, 2005 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

Wonderful Ontario hospitality

By Paul Arnone, Society Board Member

Hi Folks! My tenure is winding down now as Society Board Member. We have just voted Barry Towner as the next paired district board member. Our plans are to meet just after the convention in Brantford to make for as seamless a transition as is possible for the benefit of us all.

I know I’ve mentioned the wonderful Ontario hospitality in the past and that it is REAL!

I did want to be sure that you are all aware of the joy you’ve brought to me and my wife [Carmen] as we’ve travelled to Ontario for barbershop business and a great deal of pleasure.

Don Pyper, in introducing me at the first Ontario business meeting I attended, stated that “Paul has a warm-blood connection to Canada.”

As it was a new term, it had to be explained to me and since then, over the past three years, the meaning has been adjusted in my mind and heart to include the warmth of the people of Ontario to me personally.

But I am still in service for you until the end of the year and please be assured that I will continue to help wherever I can beyond that. The business of the Society is not able to be done without the work of the membership in each chapter doing their part. Ontario has been a leader in the Society in so many ways and I ,of course, expect it to continue.

President Wylie, has been a great communicator of the many happenings at Salt Lake City and I will only emphasize that there are many opportunities for success set before us. The only requirement is that you use the tools available to gain that success.

If you didn’t get a chance to meet Ed Watson, our new CEO, do put it high on your list of things to do. He wants to sing a tag with everyone!

One more to do item, if I may,  Roger Lewis stepped in and did a terrific job for the Society, under some very trying circumstances, as interim CEO. Perhaps you could thank him for doing that work to keep the Society on an even keel.

Sing well and often!     k