Volunteer of the Month
Archives

November 2019
Linda Sowell

Photo of Linda Sowell

This month we’d like to shine the light on a new, yet not new volunteer. If you read last month’s newsletter, specifically the Activity Spotlite, you would have read a bit about Linda Sowell. Well this month we’d like to shine an even larger spotlight on her as our Volunteer of the Month. Linda is the new Gadabouts Trip Coordinator. She had been working in the Thrift Store and was asked to be a relief in the Trip office. When a vacancy occurred she was asked to take over, which she was more than happy to do. Since then she has been busy scheduling new trips, chaperoning trips on occasion, and generally managing our hustling and bustling trip office. Linda also serves on our Board of Directors. If needed she also helps out at our special events. Originally from Chicago, IL, she moved out to California with her husband who was in the Navy. Once out here she was not content to stay at home raising her two kids (who themselves provided her with five grandkids), but worked in numerous types of jobs. Her main career was in Food Service. She started out at McDonalds as a cashier, and worked her way up to manager. Then she transferred to the school system where she became the Director of Children’s Nutrition for the Bear Valley School District before retiring. Thanks Linda for helping to take our members on trips of a lifetime.

Featured Class

Photography and Digital Imaging
Date: October 31, 2019
Time: TBD
Length:
Cost: members
       non-members
Instructor: Ricardo Tomboc
Location:
Description: The class is taught by Ricardo Tomboc, a San Bernardino Police Department Forensics Specialist, who apart from taking pictures for a living, takes them for fun. The classes are generally 1.5 hours long for six Wednesdays. The class fee is $25 for seniors and non-seniors. The class is more for beginners as well as those who wish to hone their photography skills. Depending on the skills of the class, he will cover basic photographic principles and digital operations. If you don’t have a camera or are unsure which to buy, there will be some film SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras available as loaners, until you know what you are looking for. You will also learn the in’s and out’s of digital photography, but he can still do film photography as well. If you go old school, you will be responsible for the purchasing and developing of the film. Whatever camera you do decide to bring, make sure it has manual adjustments or is a SLR. So if you’d like to learn how to capture a moment in time forever, come by and register or call us at (909)862-8104 for more information. The class is not yet scheduled as the instructors needs 10 students to proceed. So if you would like to take the class please call us so we can let the instructor know.

Featured Activity

Scrabble
Time: Mondays 1:00 p.m.
Cost: Free members
      Free non-members
Location: Game Room
Description: The scrabble group is looking for people who know how to mind their p's and q's. Or any of the letters of the alphabet. The group is down to a handful of players and are ready, willing, and able for more players to join them. Basically, 'Scrabble' is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Proper nouns, abbreviations, or hyphenated words, with some exceptions, are not allowed. You can however, come up with the theoretically highest known score of 1,778 points for joining 8 already-played tiles to form the word OXYPHENBUTAZONE across three triple-word-score squares, while simultaneously extending 7 specific already-played words to form new words. Our Scrabble group meets every Monday at 1:00 p.m. in the game room, and is free for everyone. Good luck on the OXYPHENBUTAZONE.
Health Fair 2012
By: Mike Sylva
Maybe it was the prior rain, and gloomy skies. Or maybe it was the lack of a flu shot shortage, or concerns of a flu epidemic. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because of the seemingly year round availability of shots. Whatever the reason was the crowd was a bit thinner this year at the center’s annual Health Fair. That made it a bit nicer for those who did show up at they weren’t standing in line for a hour, getting impatient and simply wanting to get their flu shot and go. Still, for free flu shots this year, when other places are charging $25 a shot, we thought more people would brave the cold weather.

This year people came in at a more leisurely pace and were able to stop at each table, talk to the various vendors, and pick up lots of useful information before getting their shot. It may have been a trickle, but at least it was a steady trickle with new people arriving all morning. The sad part is the inevitable amount of phone calls we will receive after the event wanting to know if they can still come in for a shot.

Thanks to the volunteers who came to set up and work the fair, all of our wonderful vendors who came out to make this a success. Additional thanks go our to the Highland Police Department’s Citizen’s Patrol for their excellent traffic control. Mostly we would like to thank our event sponsors, the Physicians of Beaver Medical Group and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.