About Us - Officers - President's
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January 2011
I am hoping that you had a great Christmas and I am wishing another great year for you, your family and the Sons of Norway.
I don't know if we all had a White Christmas but I do know we all had some cool days in December. Between the cold East Coast Days and my November trip to Minneapolis when I experienced a significant snow storm, it reminded me of why I don't spend winters in the great state of North Dakota.
I was looking at some of the past letters I have written to you and I see that a year ago we were impressed to be getting 90 visitors a day to our web site. A year later we averaged 205 visitors a day to the web site during the month of November. http://www.3dsofn.org/home.html Many improvements have been made to the site over the year and more are coming. Our web master is working on creating another blog where you will be able to post your local lodge newsletter. This will be a great addition for our District. Keep your eye on our web site for the announcement of the blog. It will happen shortly. We are also looking for a local lodge correspondent to provide information to the web from each lodge. Please make sure one is assigned as we start our new year.
District 3 signed up a lot of new members (over 100) in November and December. Almost 60% of them were signed up at local bazaars and I am still missing some reports so the number will be higher. Bazaars are a great way to sign up new members and make some money for your lodge. I know that one lodge reported being close to $50,000 in gross sales so I would like to think they made some money. Another lodge reported making $900 which is also a good day's work. Most of the lodges reported making over $1,000. There is no doubt that the cookie table is a big money maker for most of the lodges. Hampton Roads sold over $2,500 worth of cookies in just over 3 hours. That left many disappointed cookie buyers who will come earlier next year.
We are currently in negotiations with Vesterheim to offer classes in rosemaling and wood carving at LOV next fall. Vesterheim will furnish the instructors and LOV the facilities. It will give our East Coast members an opportunity to be trained by the world renowned Vesterheim staff without having traveling to the Midwest. Keep your eye on our web site for the announcement. Class sizes will limit the number of available slots so when the announcement is made do not wait long to sign up. The classes will most likely be held in September.
January will see a lot of new SON officers take the reins of their lodges. I wish you all good luck and thanks to the retiring group for all that you have done. New leaders normally mean new ideas and new directions. The SON needs both in order to keep growing. Let's all pledge to help these new leaders and those remaining in office during the upcoming term.
Godt nytt år
Ralph Peterson
President
District Three
Sons of Norway
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