Honorable Order of the Blue Goose, Intl.

With twenty-four names in the Grand Nest database, the Westchester Pond is one of the smaller Ponds in the Honorable Order.  But when it comes to charity, they’ve come up big for years. They are an inspiration and prove year after year that your Pond can touch people’s lives regardless of the size of your Pond’s roster.

Their main charity is the Rosary Hill Hospice, and they have been hosting a Holiday Gala for their clients for over twenty-five years.

MLG Lisa Kane’s family and the Pond have volunteered their time and money to support the Rosary Hill Hospice’s clients at their Christmas Party with food, refreshments and companionship for a few hours.

Rosary Hill is dedicated to the palliative care of people afflicted with incurable cancer during the last days of life.  On November 12, we posted on the Blue Goose Facebook page and asked our Ganders to consider making a small donation to Rosary Hill on behalf of Blue Goose. We were thrilled to see checks come in from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey. When added to the Westchester Pond’s $300 check, we presented Rosary Hill with $575 in Blue Goose donations.

On Saturday, Sue and I joined Lisa and Monica Kane and six Westchester Pond Ganders at Rosary Hill to spread some holiday cheer to Rosary Hill’s clients, their families, and staff. We brought in homemade cookies, three pizzas, platters of vegetables, fruit, cheese and crackers, and charcuterie.

We helped wheel ten patients into the party room, visited with them, held their hands, and served them food and poured them drinks. I even saw one Gander holding a bed-ridden patient’s hand and dancing with her.

Gander George Schiff and his wife also brought in 7 bags of blanket pads crafted and donated by the St John Church in Darien.

Music was provided by Gerard Corbett, and he played and sang pretty much all the Christmas songs out there, including that famous duet by Bing Crosby and David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

It was a very humbling and touching experience and showed me once again why I love Blue Goose.

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones.

Dan Rich,

Grand Nest Historian

Most Loyal Grand Gander 2019-2020, 2020-2021

The Michigan Pond committee is working hard to line up a great convention. According to our website, www.2024bluegooseconvention, we have 107 days, 19 hours and 50 seconds, as I write.  Please check out the site and remember you can register there. We have discovered there is a typo on the registration. It says the Grand Ball is on Friday but It is on Thursday, August 1st! Here are some of the events that await your arrival:

Tuesday, 7/30/24 – Golf Outing at 11 at the beautiful new Cardinal Golf course onsite at Saint John’s Resort. Appetizers and open bar after golf. Welcome Party at 6 with DJ and Karaoke.

Wednesday, 7/31/24 – Meetings in the morning. Motown Museum tour and tour of Detroit in the afternoon. Hospitality/Garden Party at 8. Opportunity to exhibit. DJ, All Michigan brand foods.

Thursday 8/01/24 – Meetings, Volunteer Giveback, all industry luncheon. Reception and Grand Banquet 6-12p.m. The awesome, Fifty Amp Fuse will provide our music.

There are some neat spouse/guest activities lined up like a trip to Greenfield Village, Motown Museum, Spa services, Shopping, Garden party with lunch, wine pairing and chair yoga. Yoga every day for anyone and/or walks.

Thank you to the following corporate sponsors: Eberl, Sedgwick, Prism Specialties, Secrest Wardel, Recovery Cleaners, Chenard & Osborn, Ivera Group, Wilds Management and Consulting, Sunglo, CRDN, Inspection Connection, Paul Davis, SERVPRO, Renewal by A-One Cleaners, Renewal by Classic Cleaners, and Rimkus. Thank you to the 245 Members whom are listed on a special tab of our website.

GNH Report Whistler 2023

From PMLGG Linda Meik: 

I assembled a snapshot of the charity endeavors of the 116th Grand Nest Convention.

I have delivered the Care Bags to both hospitals, and I will say it was semi emotional.  They were so appreciative as they had not been able to accept any donations all of last year during the pandemic.  Today, one can deliver some items, but must be curbside.

The nurse case managers kept hugging me telling me this was the best medicine they could deliver to some of their patients.

Ever hear the phrase “Under-promise and Over-deliver”?

Well, the Hartford Pond committed to preparing and delivering 50-75 sandwiches to
the ImmaCare Men’s Shelter in Hartford. But through the generosity of so many
Ganders who donated their time, and local supermarkets who donated grocery
supplies, we ended up preparing 115 full lunches. 

The Pond’s officers did a terrific job organizing this event, sourcing loaves of bread, turkey, ham, cheese, lettuce, cookies, apples, snacks, paper lunch bags, zip lock bags, bottles of water, etc.

The officers were very successful in gathering local support including a huge
donation from the Drust Family of ShopRite who donated enough ingredients for our
volunteers to build all of the sandwiches. We are also grateful for additional
donations from Stew Leonard’s, Price Chopper Supermarkets, and Big Y World Class
Market.

Our Hartford Pond members have always given freely of their time and resources, and that was never more evident than seeing fifteen Ganders meet at the home of
Prism Specialties ERS ART TEX in Hartford where MLG Ron and PMLG Cristine Kern
set up a conference room for the sandwich assembly and the office entry to build
the lunches.

The conference room was buzzing with activity as our 15 Ganders split into four
teams to build cheese, ham, and turkey sandwiches from the donated deli, bread, and
lettuce. The sandwiches were placed in duly labeled paper bags by our fourth team, where they were whisked away to the entry and filled with an apple, snack, cookie, and a bottle of water. Here’s a shout out out to United Property Restoration Services
for donating the water for the lunches.

But today’s event was more than just preparing all those lunches. We also set up
three collection sites around the state (Prism Specialties ERS ART TEX in Hartford, United Property Restoration Services in Middlefield, and Servpro in Danbury) and
asked for member support in donating clothing items, household items, and
personal care items for the shelter. 

The lunches and collected items were delivered to ImmaCare in Hartford and the
Super 8 motel in Middletown where ImmaCare is supplying temporary shelter for the
homeless.

The Pond also donated $500 to ImmaCare, through the
generosity of Mike Nardulli and our good friends at the
New York City Pond.

Thank you all to the wonderful volunteers who made this
day special and help so many people during these tough
times and cold temperatures. We could not have done all
of this without your support. 

Honorable Order of the Blue Goose International Grand Nest Convention 2022 (constantcontact.com)

All Ganders & Goslings Welcome! Look forward to seeing you there!

Grand Nest Historian and PMLGG, John Bishop, has prepared our 2020-2021 History. 

Take a gander….  2020-2021 History

You can also find other History documents on our website Honorable Order of the Blue Goose, Intl. » Histories of the Grand Nest

Enjoy! 

This year’s Marketing Committee focused on one thing – how did Blue Goose respond to the Coronavirus
pandemic of 2020-2021?

We recognize the historical significance of documenting our activity during this unprecedented time period. We
hope the dedication and creativity you will read about on the following pages will be an inspiration to your Pond
and the future generations of Ganders.

Marketing committee report 2021

“Sometimes the cards ain’t worth a dime

Lately, it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been”

(Jerry Garcia; Bob Weir; Phil Lesh)

The history of how the Hartford Convention took a long strange trip and shape-shifted from 2020 to 2021 and then into a Days of Fellowship is a saga that unfurled over six years of planning starts, a stop, a second start, a second stop, and an eventual reimagination.

Our convention committee started planning the 2020 convention in 2015, when I succeeded the National Capital Pond’s Bill Olson as a Grand Nest Officer for the Eastern Region. As 2015 slowly gave way to the years that followed, our team assembled an ambitious fun filled convention for 175- 200 Ganders and guests to be held at the Hartford Marriott in July 2020. A 60’s themed Welcome Party, live performances of the national anthems, remarks from Jim Calhoun, a golf tournament, a dinner cruise with a steel drum band, a trip to a vineyard, ballroom dancing with mimosas, a magician, a spouse program, a children’s program, a gala Banquet and Ball, a registration website, and corporate and individual sponsors were all set and ready to go. Decorations and goodie bags were ready. We were just four months away.

And then came along March 2020 and we all learned a new word – “Coronavirus”. As the virus spread, we started to see Blue Goose events cancelled on both sides of the border. We were first optimistic that things would be fine by the summer, but that turned out to be wishful thinking and we had to postpone the July 2020 convention and reschedule it for the following year.

That involved a lot of moving parts, as Blue Goose needed to move the Grapevine, TX Convention from 2021 to 2022 and the Whistler, BC Convention from 2022 to 2023. This required a lot of behind the scenes work, but we got all of our geese in a row and were thrilled to see all of the dominoes successfully fall into place.

We had to reschedule every single speaker, performer, and activity to move from 2020 to 2021, and miraculously we were able to do just that.

But as we entered late 2020 and early 2021, the public health picture was still bleak, and it was becoming clear that our vision of a large “conventional” convention at the Hartford Marriott for 175 people just wasn’t in the cards for a second consecutive year. So, we cancelled our Marriott contract as well as all our contracts with Tunxis Country Club for golf, two restaurants, two bands, a magician, Coach Calhoun, a dinner cruise, and a transportation company.

And now we’ve planned a third version of our summer get-together, albeit a slimmed down and very different version. It will be a two-day affair held live in Glastonbury with live streaming available to any member that would like to be a part of this historic event.

Some of the event will be familiar to you Convention veterans -you’ll see the delegate voting for, and the installation of the officers, charity presentations and an activity, and the Memorial Service. Some of the event will have a different look, like an afternoon visit to a winery and an outdoor socially distanced dinner.

None of this would have been possible without the best and hardest working Convention Committee in the 115 years of Blue Goose history. Thank you, Mark Angiletta, Kevin Brady, Jon Hale, Wendy Hubbard, Lisa Kane, Lori Kovanda, Bill Mullen, Bob Partridge, Paula Pelletier, Sue Rich, and Meeting Planner Extraordinaire Cheryl McShane.

I also want to thank my colleagues on the Grand Nest for their support, advice, understanding, flexibility and most of all, their friendship.

Dan Rich, Most Loyal Grand Gander

I had a terrific time tonight visiting with the Edmonton Pond and joining their Virtual Whiskey Scotch Tasting. Our host was Steve Richmond of Vine Wine Merchants in Edmonton, and many of the 21 Ganders on-line were fortunate to have ordered a tasting kit with a wee nip of five whiskeys to sip, compare and contrast.
Steve was a real pro, and entertained us all night with awesome tidbits about the history of whiskey, aging, legal requirements on ingredients, percentage of alcohol, the different features of barley, corn, millet and rye, casks and barrels, Scotch vs. Bourbon vs. Whiskey vs. Rye vs Peated Whiskey, collectable whiskeys, and Provincial shipping policies. The man was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge.
Seated in front of his store’s impressive “Wall of Whiskey”, he introduced the night’s five drinks – Jack Ryan 12 year old Irish Whiskey, Scotch Tullibardine Whiskey, a Dutch Millstone Rye Whiskey, a Bibb and Tucker Bourbon from the USA, and an Ardberg Single Malt Scotch Whiskey.
The good-natured banter before the presentation began made me nostalgic about all of the good times I’ve enjoyed with my Canadian friends, and how much I miss you all.
As Steve Richmond said when he finished up, someday “we’ll meet up again on the Whiskey Trail.”
I hope that trail brings us together again very soon.
Thank you Cori and everyone who worked so hard to put all of these moving parts together for tonight’s program.
Dan Rich

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