Author: Phill Goldman

Every year, Jersey Mike's Subs helps raise money for a special local charity. Jersey Mike's locations in the Twin Cities are raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Minnesota with 100% of of sales being donated on March 25th. The money goes to help with patient transportation, personal costs to patients and families undergoing treatment, research, and to help fund LLS' largest celebration of their survivors of blood cancer each year.

With recent events, we are expecting a loss of the amount of money we raise for LLS. We have been raising money at each of our meetings and many of you have come to my stores on the Day of Giving helping raise hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the years. If you were planning on donating at the March meeting or going to the store for the Day of Giving but can't make it, please consider donating at this link. If you are still up to participate, know that the stores will still be open and delivery on our app is available to make the day a special one!

Thank you to everyone for all of your continued support!

The world around has changed, and we change to respond. For decades we've met at set times, together to share plans, accomplishments, stories, and challenges. But now, we must change...

The novel coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19 can't be beat yet, we can only slow it down by taking precautions not to get infected, and even more importantly to prevent transmitting to others who might not be able to fight it off. To that end, we will meet using technology rather than location; we will plan on a far shorter timeline than monthly meetings might allow, and we will avoid events that unnecessarily expose anyone to the virus. We will react quickly with a primary focus on the health of our members and families.

Starting immediately, we change how we communicate

• The calendar will be near real-time, and show change as well as current plans.  If an event was planned for a date and time and must be cancelled or postponed, the original date will remain in place with that label.  You can read the calendar through the Events menu
• Rather than large, curated articles for a monthly newsletter, we'll post short articles as we learn. If you have information to share with the group, post it to the site using the Post an Article link under the MY USSNOKOMIS menu.  It will get a review before it's posted to be sure we get all the information to the right places.
• Because things will change quickly, we won't wait for the monthly newsletter. Every Wednesday at noon, the website will automatically create a journal of newly published posts and sent it out to you.  Please take the time to read it.

If this were simply a few weeks of inconvenience we would not need these changes, time would be our friend.  It is not. Though we hope for a quick reduction in illness and rapid deployment of viable protections, our experience says the first will take months, the later will take far longer barring some luck and hard work.

Some of what we invent today may live on - please let us know what is working for you, and what needs some polish.

The National Lutheran Choir just sent out a notice that the Gala will be held online this year, in line with all of the other affected events this spring.  Look for details how or if we can help, but it's safe to assume we won't be going to the hotel on the 19th of April.

Stay home, stay safe, stay healthy.

The March 29th Chuckwagon Fundraiser Dinner has been postponed, not cancelled.  It was announced at the meeting before we knew how serious the lockdowns were going to be, and it turned out to be the right move.  We'll be rescheduling it in the fall, presumably after we've gotten through the worst.

Dinner Tickets: Let our ticket-buying guests know that we won't be holding the event, and that we've rescheduled to October 25th. The tickets they've purchased for dinner will still be good on then.

50/50 Raffle: Since you don't need to be present to win, we don't need to be present to hold the raffle.  We will still be drawing the winner on March 29th.  If you sold raffle tickets, please do two things for us

1. Get the money to Pam, via check, PayPal (instructions later), or you can email Pam at for further instructions
2. Get the tickets with the purchaser's name on it to Pam for the drawing, still being held on March 29th.

Silent Auction Items: We really don't have a way to complete the auction remotely. We're still going to need them, just 7 months later.  Please hang on to 'em, create new ones with all the new time we have.

Thank you to  everyone who's sold tickets, made auction items, and planned another great event.

PayPal instructions

You'll need your own PayPal account to make this work. Log in to PayPal and select the Send/Receive menu item at the top of the page.  When asked who to sent the money to, enter ''. Since this counts as Sending to a Friend, there's no fee involved.  In the message, please list your name and what the money covers, let's make Pam's job easier.  Walk through the rest of the menu, and you'll complete in no time.

Well, here's some good news - we had a good meeting on Saturday.  The remarkable thing is that we didn't meet at the library, we did it online.  Eighteen folks connected to the meeting using a mix of computers, cell phones, smartphone apps, and land line phones.   If you weren't looking at the status panel you'd have had a hard telling which was which.

Thanks to everyone who participated in good meeting etiquette. Thanks for dressing for the meeting, at least as far as the rest of us could tell.

The meeting went better than some in the professional world.  If you'd like a quick view of how it often goes, enjoy this video from Tripp and Tyler.