May 1, 2013

Hello, all you Celtic Ladies.

Time for a summary of the Annual Meeting and Gathering and an update of the events that we have scheduled for the rest of the year.

Don't forget. The semi annual meeting of our Literary Exchange is May 11, Saturday, from 1PM to 3PM at the 1^st Congregational Church, 1405 S. Hwy 67, Plymouth WI. Thank Dorothy Rose for again being able to provide the meeting place. We are discussing books written by Patricia Monaghan. Patricia, in case you do not know, was one of our Celtic Women International members and a BIG supporter. She passed away last year. I do have several of her books if you haven't read any of her work and would like to.

The Annual Meeting and Gathering of Celtic Women International was last weekend, April 26-29 in St. Charles IL. At the Hotel Baker. I am so sorry that more of you could not attend because it was so exciting.

We checked in all day Friday and joined for our first meal at Mc Nally's Pub across the street from the hotel for our evening dinner following a reception at the hotel where we were given an “assignment” to learn more about our fellow attendees. I was paired with Gail, who I have known “forever” and someone new to me, Lorraine, who is simply fascinating and I hope we see more of her.

The next day we held the annual meeting. Congratulate Debbie O'Grady and Janet Bieschke fore renewing their positions as the current President and VP. The whole new board will be in the next newsletter.

Following the meeting, we had two speakers. The morning speaker was our own Maureen Smith whose presentation was called Accessing Works of History, Literature and Arts Online. Even those who might not use computers would be amazed at what is out there, free for the reading. She had provided us with websites that are invaluable, giving us the first steps to so many sites that she had to do all the research for.

The afternoon speaker was a farmer from Illinois, Bill Scheffler (wish you could have been there,Rosemary M.) who spoke of the energy around us. His talk was entitled Irish Round Towers and Today's Gardener. He has studied the round towers in Ireland though he has never really seen one in literature. I can provide his sources. The round towers were built to harness the energy from the air and funnel it into the ground which with proper planting provides stimulus to the plants. Crops on the correct side of the towers grow better than those on the opposite sides.

We saw a Tony winning play, The Seafarer, on Saturday night and then the next day after a scattering ceremony summarizing our endeavors and pooling our energies for the trip home, we headed to our homes.

You simply must come next year, we are planning on going to Madison WI.

After the Literary Exchange, the following events are scheduled.

June 16^th is Bloomsday. We will again celebrate ON THE 16TH, at 52 Stafford. We are already listed in the Sheboygan County's Living Here. Details will follow.

July - Either dinner some Wednesday at the Stafford or as some people are out of pasties, maybe a baking session. I am willing to provide the ovens.

August has lots of opportunities for us to be with each other.

1. Beth Dipple of the Sheboygan County Research Center is planning a Gathering of the Clans, at St. Michael's Church in Town Mitchell. Details will follow. This is very time and sometimes money consuming for Beth. I told her we would help by providing desserts like we do for the Christmas Tea and have done for other events. I think it will be on August 11^th but will reaffirm this as soon as Beth lets me know.
2. Gaelic Storm will be performing at St. Brenden's in Green Bay the nights of August 14,15.
3. .Milwaukee Irish fest will be the weekend of August 16-18. I am planning on going for both Saturday and Sunday. I will be sending Friday and Saturday nights with my niece who will go with me on Saturday and then will come home after the festivities on Sunday. Check irishfest.com if you have a computer and you can explore.

To enjoy a bit of Scottish Culture, the Highland Games are held on Labor Day weekend in Wauwatosa.

We will celebrate our annual Samhain pot luck and entry into the dark season, the season of rest, on Sunday October 27^th. This is such a comforting meeting. We always get a good turnout and have the BEST meal ever. So put it on you calendar, for sure.

The semi annual Literary Exchange will be scheduled for November. Joan Kramer will keep us informed as to that and we will decide what book we will share at the meeting May 11.

Our 8^th Annual Christmas Tea, presented for the public is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, December 7 with the 14^th as a backup at the Plymouth History Museum in Plymouth. We co host this with the Plymouth Museum and the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center. Here again we need bakers for the tea goodies. Thank you LuAnn Cleary Benninghaus for agreeing to handle this for me.

That's it for the year. We are a busy group. If you hear of anything, don't forget to let me know and I can send the information to everybody through my group lists.

Dia Dhuit

Mary Kunert

920-893-5139