If you didn't make it to the November meeting, here's what you missed!

We're a little late getting to this, but thank you to all who came out to our November general membership meeting at Milanos Monday evening. It was a disappointingly low number turnout, but certainly understandable for a holiday week and the bitterly cold weather. The food, once again was excellent! Betsy Winget, Executive Director of the Senior Center Services gave us so much great information about what the Center has to offer. Today's "seniors" are younger than ever, and if you're 50 yrs or older, there is something there for you. Several CIAO members are enjoying their services. http://seniorcitizens.ws/ Thank you, Betsy!

The CIAO Family Christmas Party planners have been very busy making sure this will be a great event for all members and their children and grandchildren. The party will be this coming Sunday, December 1!!! 11am-3pm at the Old Barn Out Back in the banquet room. Cost is $12 for adults and CIAO is paying for all children 12 years and younger. If you have not yet made your reservation, please call Von McMichael 419-647-4766 or Ann Bonito at 419-302-8900 asap so they can make sure Santa has enough gifts for all of the children. Please join us!

In other business, we have TWO openings on our Board of Directors. If you would be interested in joining the Board, please contact any officer or Board member or send a private message here or to our Facebook page. The term would be for one year until our next election when all of our board members will be up for re-election. Please consider stepping up; our organization's continued success and growth depends upon different opinions and perspectives. We are a diverse group of people, men and women, wide ranges of age, education and careers. No experience necessary! 

Ladies!!!! Next Thursday, December 5, 6pm at Tamarac golf course restaurant. Please join us as we treat ourselves to dinner. We'll be tossing around ideas for more things we would like to do together, both for fun and to help where we can. We are currently putting together our Final Exam week/Christmas care packages for our 15 2013 Scholarship Recipients. We've received a couple donations and continue to need much more. We would like to send homebaked cookies, homemade or store bought candies, hot chocolate/cider/tea packets, stocking stuffer type small gifts, or anything else you think college students would enjoy (does not have to be food!). Please bring donations with you to dinner at Tamarac or send us a message here and we can pick it up from you. These kids are doing great halfway into their first year in college, knowing that their CIAO family is thinking of them will be a great surprise. Thank you!

Our Pasta Dinner Planning committee needs YOU! Palm Sunday will get here sooner than we think and there is so much to be done to prepare for our biggest event of the year. This committee's next meeting will be at Tamarac at 6:30 January 8, all are welcome! If you would like more information on how you can help, please contact pasta dinner chairman Bill Sarno (bjsarno@hotmail.com) or any officer or board member. 

There will be NO general membership meeting for the month of December. Meetings will resume in January with our annual mixer Jan 27, place to be announced. 

And finally, we have a winner!!!!! Congratulations to Roger Doty whose name was drawn at our general meeting Monday evening. Roger was present and went home with $300! The pot is back to $100 for our next drawing, it could be you!

November General Membership Meeting

Our next General Membership meeting will be held Monday November 25th, at the Milano Cafe'.  Appetizers will begin at 5:45, dinner at 6:15 and the meeting/speaker will start at 7. Our dinner last month was exceptional and we received many comments on how good it was.

 Betsy Winget, Executive Director of Senior Center Services on West Elm St. is our guest speaker. The Senior Center Services is an outstanding facility and CIAO members will be surprised by all of the services that are provided that can greatly improve the quality of an individual’s life. Attend this month’s meeting and learn how to live younger!

   Our cash drawing is up to $300! If we draw your name, you must be in attendance to win or the money goes back in the pot for the next drawing. Please join us!

We have photos posted from our Reverse Raffle. Check out the Event Photos tab! 

Are we really just two weeks away from Thanksgiving? How did that happen, where did time go? We've had our first snow of the season, we're busy planning our holiday gatherings and we're already getting fliers for Black Friday sales. Everyone is busy busy busy!  Here at CIAO, we're no exception. Over the next few weeks we have several things planned, a great mix of holiday fun with something for everyone. We've got opportunities to make new friends, get together with old friends and more ways than ever to be involved.

Coming up this Saturday, November 16, we will hold our annual Reverse Raffle at the Knights of Columbus Hall.  Our Raffle committee has spent the last several months working to make this a great success. It will be a fantastic evening with great food (catered by Milano Cafe'), great fun and your participation enables us to continue helping so many worthy charitable causes. Tickets are sold out. Thank you to everyone who will be attending and thank you to all who have contributed their time and donations. 

Our next General Membership meeting will be held Monday November 28 at the Milano Cafe'.  Appetizers will begin at 5:45, dinner at 6:15 and the meeting/speaker will start at 7. Our dinner last month was exceptional and we received many comments on how good it was.

 Betsy Winget, Executive Director of Senior Center Services on West Elm St. is our guest speaker for the November meeting. The Senior Center Services is an outstanding facility with a dedicated and professional staff that offers many benefits, activities and programs to Lima Area Residents that are 50 years old or older. CIAO members will be surprised by all of the services that are provided by the center that can greatly improve the quality of an individual’s life. Attend this month’s meeting and learn how to live younger!

   Our cash drawing is up to $300! If we draw your name, you must be in attendance to win or the money goes back in the pot for the next drawing. Please join us!

We will hold our CIAO Family Christmas Party, Sunday December 1 from 11am-3pm at the Old Barn Out Back. This will be for ALL CIAO members and their children/grandchildren.  Cost for adults is $12 and includes buffet. CIAO is paying for the children 12 and under. Santa will be there with gifts for the little ones! Call Von McMichael at 419-647-4766 or Ann Bonito at 419-302-8900 to make your reservation.

Our next CIAO Board meeting will be Monday December 2 at Westgate. Dinner at 6/meeting at 7. Any members of CIAO are welcome at our Board meetings, we only ask that you let an officer or board member know in advance that you would like to come. (See our Officers and Board of Directors tab for contact information.) 

For the ladies! Thursday December 5 at 6pm, the ladies of CIAO are getting together for dinner at the restaurant at Tamarac Golf Course (Stevick rd). This will be the first of many events that we will plan together. The goal is to get to know each other better, make new friends, toss about ideas for things we'd like to do together and also help where we are needed. Our first project will be Christmas care packages for our 2013 scholarship recipients. We want to let them know that we are thinking of them as they head into final exams weeks and the Christmas holiday. (Next year we will expand to include all college students who are members or children of CIAO members but we do not yet have that information for this year.)  We are asking for anyone who is able, to bring some homemade Christmas cookies/treats (that pack and travel well), hot chocolate or cider mix, store bought Christmas candies, or other small "gift" items that might be appreciated by college students and can be included in our packages. There will be 15 packages, so just a little bit from many of us will make a very nice surprise for them.  We will package and send them out by the second week of December. If you cannot make it to our ladies' dinner at Tamarac, donations can also be brought to the general membership meeting on November 28 or you can contact Susan Lucente  (susan@lucente.org) and someone can pick up donations from you.  Your contributions will be deeply appreciated!

Planning for our 2014 Pasta Dinner is under way and we need as many members involved as we can possibly get! This is a huge event and there are ways for every member to help, no matter what your abilities are. We have an immediate need for people to serve on the Pasta Dinner Planning Committee. If you can help with this, please contact Pasta Dinner Chairman, Bill Sarno  bjsarno@hotmail.com. The Pasta Dinner Committee will meet at Tamarac Golf Course restaurant on Nov. 20 at 6:30pm. ALL members that are interested in being on the committee are invited to attend.