Saskatoon, Canada Inbound
October 16-23, 2017
Patty Niemeyer, Host Coorinator

We will host 12 Ambassadors (6 single ladies and 3 couples) in this return visit. Help us welcome our new Canadian friends by volunteering to help with this incoming Journey. Patty Niemeyer is the Host Coordinator and can be reached at peanutpatti1@gmail.com.

Her committee has most of the planning done, but there are still opportunities to volunteer:
We could use more:
• Day Hosts - escort an Ambassador during day activities
• Small Group Dinner hosts – host a small dinner on 10/21 providing the main course and coordinating with members bringing sides (Contact Haiya Feder-Naftali – hnaftali@juno.com.)
• Helpers to assist with Farewell and Welcome Dinners

Even if you are not volunteering, you can meet the Canadians and attend the Welcome and Farewell parties, and
• Attend any of the activities during the week (please ride the DART bus on our downtown tour so we can continue to use this free service; we need 20 participants!)
• Attend one or both small group dinners (reserve your place with Haiya Feder-Naftali – hnaftali@juno.com.)
Contact Patty Niemeyer ASAP to volunteer – peanutpatti1@gmail.com or Haiya Feder-Naftali to volunteer to host a dinner – hnaftali@juno.com.

The following schedule is also on a Reservation Form sent as a separate file. Please reserve by October 2 to attend events and to attend a dinner.

Saskatoon Daily Schedule

Monday, October 16, 2:38 pm: Arrival Ambassadors DFW
6:30 pm Welcome Dinner: 3883 Turtle Creek Blvd (party room) $12
Park in large parking lot off Turtle Creek, not ‘Visitor Parking.’ Register in Lobby.

Tuesday, October 17: Dallas Day
9:45 am: Meet at Union Station for 10 am bus tour of downtown Dallas and Arts District.
1 pm: Lunch at Dallas Museum of Art Atrium first floor $15
Afternoon: Free to explore museums (DMA, Sixth Floor, Perot, Crow Asian Art, Dallas Aquarium)
Evening: Small group dinners – time/place TBA per hostess

Wednesday, October 18: Fort Worth Day
Meet at Stockyard’s Visitor Center, 130 Exchange Ave at 9:45 am (no free parking)
10 am: Stockyard Tour and Cattle Drive (tour $6/7 on your own; pay there)
1 pm: Lunch at Reata Restaurant, 310 Houston St. (downtown) $13.25
Valet Parking or public lot; have Reata validate ticket for free parking
3 pm: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd Free
Evening: Ambassadors take hosts to dinner (Many restaurants on 7th St and around Sundance Square downtown)

Thursday, October 19: State Fair of Texas Free for seniors
10:30 am Meet at ‘Big Tex’ at for photo op. Enjoy the art deco buildings, exhibits, shows and food
Evening free

Friday, October 20: Arboretum Day
10 am: Meet at Arboretum Entrance (bring memberships to share)
12 pm: Picnic Lunch in the Gardens $5.00
Afternoon: Free to explore White Rock Lake, Swiss Ave, Lakewood
7 pm: Nasher Sculpture Garden, 2001 Flora St. “Till Midnight at the Nasher” (Music, wine, sculpture under the stars) Free

Saturday, October 21: Free day with host
Options: Dallas museums, Heritage Park, Audubon Center, Dallas Zoo, NorthPark Center, Flight Museum or Day Trip to Grapevine, McKinney
Evening: Small group dinners - Time/place per TBA Hostess

Sunday, October 22: Morning free / Wine Tasting
1:30 pm: Wine Tasting at San Martino Winery & Vineyards, 12512 State Hwy 205, Rockwall (Bring nibbles) $10
6:30 pm: Farewell Dinner at La Hacienda Ranch, 17390 Preston Rd. $24

Monday, October 23: Ambassadors depart
Meet 9:50 am at North Olive St Terminal for Mega Bus for San Antonio

    >>>Make your reservations on the separate Reservation Form sent by email<<<

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Coordinators Needed

To  volunteer to be a Host or Ambassador Coordinator or Co-C for an exchange, please contact Patty Niemeyer - peanutpatti1@gmail.com or or Ray Enstam enstam@sbcglobal.net. If you have not been a Coordinator before, give it a try. You will get lots of help and training. Plus, there are some financial incentives. These Ambassador and Host Coordinators are eligible for reimbursement for at least some of their costs. See the Club Policies on page 37 or the Yearbook for 2017.
 
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International Outbound

Sydney and Gold Coast, Australia
March and April, 2018
Possible Extension
Mary Latham, Ambassador Coordinator

Mary has been in touch with both Gold Coast and Sydney and we are close to agreeing on dates for our Journey. (Sydney visited Dallas the last week in February this year and Gold Coast was here in Dallas in 2014. Both clubs are friends of ours and this should be a great reunion.) Dates should begin around March 7- going first to Gold Coast and then to Sydney. Mary will let everyone know as soon as dates are confirmed and she begins accepting applications.

These clubs need to know how many will be coming so they can decide whether they can accommodate everyone who has signed up. If you expressed interest but know that you will not be able to make this Journey in March, 2018, please let Mary know now. She can then open it up to others if there are spaces. (Things happen and after all your planning, suddenly you can't make the Journey. That is all right. Mary will keep a waiting list if necessary).

Mary says: “I hope you learned a little more about Australia in my last email update. Where else but Australia will you find kangaroo road kill. Did you know before reading the article that Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth? Do you know what is the driest of all the continents?

“I am sure you have all been reading about Australia in preparation for our Journey. Please share some the things you have learned with our group. Simply reply to all and send us an interesting fact about Australia. After all, we want to know as much as possible before we go. We don't want to arrive knowing nothing about the country.

“I know some of you plan to do more traveling in Australia around our official Journeys. Those of us in Dallas can take a direct Qantas flight to Sydney and then another flight to Gold Coast. Or if you go for your own personal journey prior to the FF Journey, we can meet in Sydney and travel together to Gold Coast. Of course, we can work this our later when we have all the information on this Journey.

“I would like to know if anyone is planning to travel in Australia prior to the official Journey and who is planning to travel after the Journey. Please let me know so I can coordinate our arrival with each club. It works best if we travel together or arrive at approximately the same time in each city. That helps them in planning our welcome, etc.

“Some of you may have miles with airlines other than Qantas that you want to use for your flights. You are welcome to do so but, again, we need to coordinate our arrival. But more on that later. This is going to be a great trip so I hope you can all make it.”

Tentative plan:

• We will go to Gold Coast first arriving on March 8. On March 14 we will leave our friends in Gold Coast to visit our friends in Sydney. It is a 1 1/2 hour flight between Sydney and Gold Coast but they will have daylight savings time when we go to Sydney so our flight will only be 1/2 hour. Go figure that out if you want.

Contact Mary mary_m_latham@yahoo.com (note the underscores in her email) for information or to express interest or to answer some of her questions if you are on her Interested List.

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Central Israel

Our second Journey, in October of 2018, will be to CENTRAL ISRAEL. This is a country we have never visited and has very limited hosting availability. Estimated costs as follows (subject to change):
A home stay (up to 20 Ambassadors) for one week in Tel Aviv, $400.00 or more; an optional Israeli tour of areas not covered otherwise, $1200.00; an optional tour to Jordan, $600.00.

Michael Wald - mwald999@gmail.com and Haiya Feder-Naftali - hnaftali@sbcglobal.net are Ambassador Co-coordinators for this Journey. They are communicating with hosts clubs who are flexible on dates; they suggest the extension (possible Jordan, Petra) be arranged first. Let either of them know of your interest.

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International Inbound

Something BIG is coming!

Our international Inbound Journey for 2018 will be the ART AND ARCHITECTURE GLOBAL JOURNEY scheduled for May 15th – 22nd, 2018. The Host Coordinator is Felicity Sentance. This special Journey will need a lot of participation but will give us a chance for us to go places and do activities with the visitors that we rarely have done ourselves. We will be needing home hosts, day hosts and many other positions, since there is no Ambassador Coordinator from another club.

Felicity has a committee of twelve members, many of whom have taken on supporting roles. This summer the committee has taken an architecture tour of Perot Museum and visited the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth to check out the architecture tour offered there. An estimated budget was submitted to Allison Lindsey of FFI with a fee of $852 per person for 20 Ambassadors. Allison feels the budget and fee is appropriate.

Dallas delegates at FFI International Conference in Manchester made sure other clubs knew we had this great event coming up. They had a table to distribute flyers on the Dallas Global Journey to Dallas with an Overview fact sheet (download pdf file). Felicity reports interest already, even though we are not quite ready to start registration.


Dallas volunteers Jim Kerr, Sandy Kaiser, Felicity Sentance and Haiya Naftali

All our delegates helped at the table where we also distributed a new Dallas brochure designed by Mary Latham and Mary Williams recruiting reciprocal Journeys to/from Dallas from other clubs. Networking! Teamwork!

Felicity is gathering names of those who would be interested in hosting and otherwise participating in this Journey. So please contact her at fsentance@gmail.com if you’d like to be involved ………. She’d love to have your help.

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Domestic Journeys
By Patty Niemeyer, Domestic Journey Coordinator (in chief)

Reno/Lake Tahoe Outbound

Patty Niemeyer has contacted Reno/Lake Tahoe for a possible reciprocal Journey. They can host an Outbound (to them) hosting 20 people in Aug 2018. No specific dates are set yet. Reno declined a visit to Dallas in 2019 as they have Journeys to three Texas cities in 2018 and do not feel as though they want to return.

Southern New Jersey Inbound

Dates TBD in 2019. Patty Niemeyer will be Host Coordinator.

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Facebook - Thanks to so many people who posted their photos and notes on what fun they were having on our outbound Saskatoon Journey and International Conference. If you don't usually see our Facebook page, take a look - lots of photos. While you're there, LIKE us if you have not already done so. Then SHARE the Facebook news you get to spread the word about our organizations to your friends. It is a great way to increase awareness of what we do, to get new interested members and matches with other clubs. Continue to post your photos, travels and comments about our club.

Remember - you can order your own FFD business cards from Pat Peters or Mary Williams. Give them to people who ask about Friendship Force. Free to you.

The next Board meeting will be Monday, September 11, at 1 pm at Mary Latham’s house. All members are welcome to attend.

Send any changes of address or email to edward perez who manages our database - erperez@acm.org. When you receive changes, please update your yearbook and email list.

Felicity Sentance will be giving a presentation on the just-concluded Conference at our November 11 meeting (4 pm Frankfort-Renner Library).

FFI has published new Journey Guideline and edward perez, Lou Ann King and Patty Niemeyer are working on recommendations for the use/allocation of funds for our Domestic Inbound Journeys and dealing with budget deficits on Inbounds.

Felicity will be back to publish the next newsletter. Deadline for submissions to the Nov-Dec newsletter is
Oct, 25th. Please send your reports and information to Felicity Sentance at fsentance@gmail.com

Where do you want to go? While the delegates to Convention promoted Dallas, they also reached out to other clubs for possible future inbound and outbound Journeys. To get the Journeys that you want, we need to know where you want to go. If you have a preference for a Journey contact Mary Latham and let her know. We can give it our best effort.

See our new club brochure at the next meeting. >

Contact Cathy Ignatin to let her know about members who could use a little sunshine - a call or card. cignatin@hotmail.com

When you get mail from our FFD e-mail address, please do not hit REPLY; that address is not monitored every day. Reply to the person organizing the meeting or exchange. Our address and email:

   Friendship Force of Dallas
   P. O. Box 551151
   Dallas, TX 75355
   friendshipforcedallas@yahoo.com

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Shuttle Service

A BIG THANKS to our six Shuttle Drivers for providing  rides to/from the airport

And a BIG THANKS to our members who requested rides and contributed $800 to our club (about 13% of total club revenue).

Remember, this shuttle service is available to any FF of Dallas member who needs transportation from their home to either airport or from the airport to your home. You can also use this service to destinations other than airports. After your ride, you make a donation to FF of Dallas.

If you need a ride, send an email to ffDallas-shuttle@googleGroups.com [or call 214-699-7574] and all club members who are shuttle drivers will receive your request.

If you would like to be a shuttle driver, contact edward perez and he'll add you to the list. Take this opportunity to help out your club while meeting and learning about your fellow club members. You are not obligated to handle every request, but please do what you can.

If you would like to manage the shuttle driver list, contact edward perez and he'll help you learn how to manage the list. It's very easy - you just need access to email and the internet.

In friendship,
edward perez
Shuttle Service Manager

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2018 Super Convention

Cincinnati, OH - April 20-22, 2018
This meeting will replace our Southwest Conference and will include three provinces:
   GREAT LAKES
   MIDWEST
   SOUTHWEST

Radisson Hotel Cincinnati Riverfront
668 W. 5th Street
Covington, KY 41011

Please join the Friendship Force of Greater Cincinnati for the Great Lakes 2018 Super Conference. Arrive at 2:00 pm on Friday for the “Executive Board” meeting and depart on Sunday at 11:00 am after the “Farewell Breakfast.”

The clubs of Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan are planning many special activities. Louisville and Dayton will have home hosting before and Cincinnati is planning home hosting after. Cincinnati was once called the “Queen City of the West.” Come and see all the special attractions in both Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky.

Please let our president Mary Latham know if you plan to go. The Cincinnati Club would like to have an idea of how many are coming.

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Training Opportunities

Thinking about being a Journey Coordinator but not really sure what that entails? Want to know how to organize one? Our Field Reps have put together a webinar program - you take it online. Kay Binder, our Field Rep, conducted these two this summer and will present more as requests for future trainings keep coming in.

Journey Coordinator Training webinars - We've had approximately 130 people take advantage of the trainings that have been offered so far. Another one was held June 22 and more will be held.

Kay also presented Everything Google Training webinar about how to use Google products to coordinate Club and Journey Events. Here are the links for registration (copy links into your browser and press Enter). We will let you know when more will be offered.

Allison Lindsey - allison@friendshipforce.org

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Stories of Friendship

Send stories of your FF experiences that have helped eliminate barriers that separate us and bring us closer together.
Send to: http://storiesoffriendship.org/

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Rick Steves

Some really exciting publicity! We are a part of Rick Steves’ reviews on traveling. He is gathering info for his
second edition of his excellent book, ‘Travel as a Political Act’, and it seems we will be listed in that book upon publication! He asks to let him know ‘if you have any experience with these groups,’ so please chime in on his initial Facebook post or on his website's blog to second his endorsement of FFI! Leave your comments at:
https://www.facebook.com/ricksteves/posts/10154860587037745

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FFI has changed its mailing address

Friendship Force International
400 West Peachtree St, NW,
Suite 4-980,
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
This new address is our new mailing address only. FFI is now sending out a quarterly e-newsletter which you should receive if you’ve provided your correct email address to edward perez, our membership chair.

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FFI International Conference 2017 - 40th Anniversary

Manchester, UK
August 24 (6 pm) to August 28 (12 pm), 2017
Midland Hotel, Manchester, UK

FFI's International Conference has just concluded and our club had a delegation representing our club: Sandy and Roger Kaiser, Haiya Feder-Naftali, Felicity Sentance, Layla Akgerman, Lee and Mary Latham and Jim Kerr.



They also saw Teresa Wilkin, Marty McNew and other FF friends from other clubs.
{Teresa Wilkin and Leyla Akgerman above; Leyla and Marty NcNew - right)

In addition to attending conference events, our delegates promoted our upcoming Global Arts and Architecture Journey and as well as Dallas as a destination for any Journey. Now that FFI is encouraging clubs setting up reciprocal journeys between clubs, you Board is taking steps to reach out to other clubs to invite them to visit us. Other clubs are doing the same. This is how we managed to get our upcoming Journeys between Dallas and Saskatoon and our journeys next year to Australia and Israel.

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When you travel with another club you help fill their seats and make new friends in another club as well as your destination club.

See the FFI openings: https://www.friendshipforce.org/journeys/

They are also listed on our website on our Other Clubs page.

If you are interested in any of these journeys, contact the Coordinator ASAP. The decision for a journey to go or to cancel occurs at least 90 days preceding a scheduled date. Notice of remaining seats can be out of date as journeys fill and there are cancellations. Contact the coordinator concerned for the most current information.

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