Current Newsletter

December 2009                                                                   Volume 34 Issue 1 

Presidents Report

Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday’s Turners!

Greetings Fellow Turners!

I am happy to say the Turner newsletter is back and we will make every effort to keep you informed on turner topics and events in the future. On behalf of myself, and the newly elected slate of Board Officers, we would like to wish all our members a healthy, happy, and safe holiday season and New Year.

Our newly elected Board of Officers are: Maureen Boylan – President, Marion Oppelt – Vice President, Gail Goetz – Treasurer & Financial Secretary, Theresa Buehler – Recording Secretary, Renata Hertel - Corresponding Sec., Matt Bursig – Cultural Chair, Jim Goetz – Phys Ed., Rich Voss – House & Events Committee, George Zink – Newsletter/Website. The Trustees are: MaryJo Bursig, Inge Trampler and Armand Santillo. The annual meeting was held on Nov. 19, 2009 at the Knights of Columbus Hall. The meeting commenced as a new Board was voted on and elected. I am happy to report that as a society financially we remain solvent, but the need to increase our membership is vital.

As a society, we face tough challenges ahead for increasing our memberships and, as a core group, we need think of creative ways to increase our funding. In this tough economy, it is not an easy option when we don’t have a gym. From a marketing perspective, we have to think of ways to re-brand our society to make our membership offers attractable for those to join. This will be discussed at our first meeting of the year and in ways we can make this happen. My door is always open and the Board is always here and open to any suggestions you may have on how to increase our funding and make our society stronger. It takes a great core of volunteers to succeed, but we always can use more. If you can’t attend in person, email us any ideas you may have to be involved with suggestions. Please donate your time for future events and make every effort to get more involved.

Over the past few weeks several parties holiday have taken place. On Nov. 24th, the Herring Essen was held on Tues. night. The men had their steak tar-tar while the ladies had their little get together in the bar with assorted sandwiches and extra plate or two of herring.

Dec. 5th was the Altersriege Christmas party attended by several of the members who roast and toast themselves and share merriment.

Dec. 15th was ATNY’s Christmas party that was well attended and a good time had by all.

Future events coming up: Jan. 31st will be the Kale and Pinklewurst dinner at ATNY at 2pm. Make your reservations at the ATNY desk. Earlier in the day, the Board officers will have their first meeting of the year to plan our goals and events moving forward. Sun. Feb. 14th at 8:30am will be the Winter hike. There will be more news to report later on as we move forward.

On behalf of the Board we wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Respectfully,

Maureen Boylan
     settermo@aol.com

 

2009 Steuben Day Parade

Once again, the Long Island Turners marched in the Steuben day parade held on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. Even though we were a small group this year, we represented our club with pride. We even had a new addition to our marching group, Bryn-Debbie Goetz's daughter marched along with her grandparents: Jimmy and Gail and proud parents: Debbie and Paul. Matthew's friends came along representing the scouts. And his civil war Reenactors (New York Turner Regiment) followed behind us. The weather was perfect and the parade was well attended. We enjoyed the marching and camaraderie and partaking of the beer and bratwurst after the parade. This is one of the few German events in NYC and we should be proud that we can represent the Long Island Turners. Hopefully, we will have a few more members and their guests marching with us next year.

2010 Hallenfest

The Hallenfest is just around the corner and we will need more cultural entries this year.

Long Island has won this district competition many times in the last few decades but with our membership shrinking, we need to step up and use our talents to contribute to the competition. The Hallenfest will be held on March 7th, so if you are an out of town member, please send us your entries. Other members; please drop them off at Jimmy's or the Bursigs.

If you have any questions, just contact me at YankReb84@aol.com.

Matthew Bursig

 

From the December 2009 edition of the Max Kade Center for German American Studies Newsletter:

The New York Turner Archives Find a Home in Kansas

On October 30, the Max Kade hosted a reception to welcome a delegation of the New York Turnverein. Representing one of the first gymnastic societies in the United States, the Turners of New York were here to deliver and entrust their valuable archives and books to the Max Kade Center. This major archival acquisition will augment the Lawrence and Milwaukee Turner collections at the Max Kade Center and enhance our reputation as a significant national research facility.

See the video of the reception at http://www2.ku.edu/~maxkade/keel.shtml

The New York Turner Archives and the Max Kade Center

Hans Sammer

Ferdinand Beinert, Frank Wedl and I, senior members of the NYTV (now known as the American Turners New York) have an aggregate affiliation with the Turners of over 215 years.

This long-term affiliation with an institution that was founded in 1850 brings us to the bittersweet moment today when we convey the archives of the NYTV to the care of the Max Kade Center for German American Studies at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas.

These records include the original minute books of the founding of the Sozialistischer Turn Verein in 1850, written in neat German script, the incorporation of the Society in 1857 as the Turn Verein in the City of New York, and the merger, in 1983, with the Mt. Vernon Turners, to form the American Turners of New York.

The NYTV was the third oldest Turner organization in America promoting the gymnastic practices developed by Friedrich Jahn, in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century. Turner organizations provided a social home for German immigrants, many who were escaping the consequences of participating in the failed revolution in their homeland in 1848. That democratic zeal was burnished in the United States where they participated in the antislavery movement and actively campaigned in 1860 for the nomination and subsequent election of Abraham Lincoln.

The New York Turners immediately responded, in April 1861, when Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers, following the attack on Ft. Sumter, by forming the 1,200 strong 20th New York Rifles Regiment.

A large engraved slate tablet, which is currently displayed in our Turn Hall, lists the Turners who died in the Civil War and is trimmed with the names of battles in which their regiment was engaged, including among others, Antietam, Oak Swamp, Fredericksburg and Hampton Roads.

The Turner Hall represented a social venue for its members. In living up to their slogan of “A sound mind in a sound body” classes were provided, until recent years, in the German language, fencing, drama, singing and dance, as well as gymnastics. The Society is proud to have had twelve of its members represented in the Olympics.

We traveled the 1,300 miles from New York City to Lawrence, Kansas, to demonstrate that the documents being transmitted, approximately 850 pounds of records were meaningful to us and our fellow members. We wanted to be here to indicate we were entrusting these records to a group that had an equal interest in these archives as we have. We are pleased that Frank Baron pursued retrieving these archives from ATNY. We entrust them to you. We look forward to seeing the product of what might be buried in these records of historical significance and hope they are a resource that meet your expectations.

On the Website

We wrote a report of our experience at the 2009 German National Turnfest in Frankfurt with the intention of publishing it here in the Tidings. But it turned out to be 2 1/2 MSWord pages long and unless we used our smallest print, it didn’t fit here. You can see it and a report on the Galas as well as a lot of photos taken by Frank Wedl and me at www.liturners.org

GZ