Last Newsletter

January - February 2008 Volume 33 Issue 1

Presidents Message

Elections for the Board of Officers were held at the General Membership Meeting on November 12, 2007. The list of our new officers is on page 2, the only changes were: MaryJo Bursig is now our Treasurer, Maureen Boylan is our Entertainment Chairperson, Rich Voss is House Committee and Armand Santillo is Trustee. We had an application for one new member, Eileen Mazzella from bowling. Since then Al Vazquez, also from bowling, has transferred to us from ATNY.

On March 8^th there will be a Benefit for Jessica Martell, the daughter of our Financial Secretary, Jim. Jessica just turned 3 years old this month and has cancer. She has been in and out of the Schneider’s Children’s Hospital since September and when they can get the tumor small enough, she will be going to Massachusetts General for a special proton treatment. It would be wonderful if you could come out and support the Martell’s, the benefit will be at the Knights of Columbus, 263-15 Union Turnpike, Glen Oaks, NY, 7:30 PM, with a buffet dinner and dancing (DJ) for a $25 per persons. There will be raffles for many different things, including gift certificates for restaurants, a tricycle, liquor, etc.

The Hallenfest will be held on March 2^nd, so if you have anything you would like to enter, please contact Matthew Bursig or Jim Goetz for an application. If you need to have your items brought to ATNY, they will be happy to transport them for you.

Maureen Boylan has requested email addresses for our members, so if you have one, please email her at settermo@aol.com so that she can keep you posted on upcoming L.I. Turner social activities.

Longevity is something that the turners are known for, I am pleased to announce that John Pesha was presented a 50 year membership pin, and I have request a 40 year Gold Card for Steven Keller. Congratulations to you both.

Gail Goetz

CULTURAL NEWS

Attention all Long Island Turners:

The Cultural Competition will be held at ATNY on March 2nd The cultural competition is usually sparse following a National Festival. But hopefully, some of you have been busy since last summer and can enter a few items. Everyone who attended the festival and have some great turner shots, enter them. If you cannot bring the items to ATNY, please contact me and I will arrange to have them brought up to the club.

My email address is yankreb84@aol.com. The Hallenfest is only a few weeks away, so it is time to get busy.

Good luck to all.

Matthew Bursig

2009 Turnfest in Frankfurt

The German National Turnfest will be held next year in Frankfurt. A group of Turners from the New York District have attended and competed in these mostly quadrennial Turnfests since Hamburg in 1994. Before that, some hardy individuals travelled on their own to several German National Turnfests. Further back in time, American Turners traveled to various Turnfests in a group and competed in the events. Recently the groups from our district attended Turnfests in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. It has become their standard practice to remain in Europe for the week following the Turnfest. The Turnfest in Berlin was followed by a cruise of the Baltic visiting the costal cities of Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn ,Visby and the home port of Kiel. Tentative plans are being made for another cruise, this time to the Mediterranean.

Annette Asmus, our able and energetic tour leader, has again graciously accepted the job of shepherding our intrepid band to the Frankfurt Turnfest. If it is anything like the previous tours, it will be well remembered for an exciting and most enjoyable time. At this year’s Kale and Pinkelwurst dinner, Annette passed around a sign-up list for those interested in joining the Frankfurt tour. It’s not too late to join the group.

Keep in touch with the progress on the Turner’s national website www.americanturners.org in the Festival section on the Frankfurt 09 page. If you are thinking of joining the group, you can sign up there for emails that will keep you informed of the itinerary and provide details as they develop.

There are over a million Turners in Germany and their National Turnfests draw in the order of a hundred thousand people that compete and take part in a dazzling number of events. Just walk around the city and you will find something involving the Turners.

Parades, ceremonies, exhibitions, demonstrations, fitness tests of all kinds and all levels of competition are all part of the Turnfest experience. It’s a good time with good friends and one to treasure forever.

Annette Hoffman to Visit New York

Annette Hoffman is an historian from Germany who has written several books and many papers about the Turner Movement in America. Annette is now the Vice President of the Turners and among many other things, is active in promoting the Frankfurt Turnfest. She will be visiting the United States and will be in the New York area around April 4th. The main purpose of her visit, as an historian, is to interview American Turners. Primarily, she wants to know why they are members of a Turner Society. We have no further details concerning her visit at this time, but will post them on the website as they are made available to us. We will also continue this topic in the next newsletter.

Frankfurt Turnfest Website

For those Turners with access to the Internet and interested in the 2009 Frankfurt Turnfest, their website is www.turnfest.de. You will find all sorts of news posted there, but it is in German. If you need a simple translation to English, Google “Turnfest+2008” and choose the translate link provided to www.turnfest.de. The translation is more word for word and does not always make for easy reading, but it does give you the general idea of what the article contains.

Right now the Turnfest website has mainly organizational news and not much of particular interest to the American group. This will change as we get closer to the Turnfest. The main exception is the clip that runs about one and a half minutes and flashes scenes from other Turnfests as well as some from around the city. Right now the city of Frankfurt has their own website that provides an English translation. In the site, at the top of the home page, just click on the British flag for the English translation. You will find Frankfurt to be a modern, growing and fascinating city.