October 19, 2011

Back to back activities – Real Live (Non-Wii)  Bowling and Auctions!

By tmcgee

Tonight we were treated to dinner and bowling at the AMF Sunset Lanes. 

Watching him bowl cracked me up, so Matt St. Germain, I dub thee “weeble wobble”. It was his first time playing in 20 years and he beat all of us in the first game with a 165.   Allison Kiser was the best female bowler first game with a 138!  Also, Ashley proved a woman could recently have a baby and then beat Greg Hare at bowling!

I'm proud to say my roomie, Michele Yanchar, beat Matt in the next round.

As expected, some of us (me included) had trouble keeping the ball out the gutter.  It was all good, though!

Excerpts from bowling:

Dr. Carol’s comment after the game "I lost . . . even Sonya beat me!"  Ouch!

Michele - “Why can't 9 be a strike?”

Kim - “Why can't bowling be more like poker!”

Dr. Damon  - "the boys are coming back".  I never did find out if they really came back from behind or what!

Dr. Carol - "The game ain’t ovah sista!"

Colleen - "I have no clue how I did that" got a strike.  Woohoo!

After getting a strike, Dr. Carol, who hasn’t played since high school, commented "I have never done that in my entire life".  Cross that off your bucket list, girlfriend!

How this came up I have no idea but roomies Sarkis and Doug bet if Sarkis could roll a ball and reach 30 mph, Doug would give Sarkis a foot rub in full view of the team.   We’re still waiting, Sarkis!!

Award goes to Sarkis for the best Matt St. Germain impersonation emulating a Boston accent when stating "pick up a spare".

This blogger (Tina McGee) broke 100 and found out that Greg Hare cheats at rock paper scissors!

It was nice to have a break from our busy lives to just kick back and do something totally fun. We get caught up in our careers and home life and may not take the necessary time to relax.  I love how we come together as a group from various brands, with different careers and diverse experiences, and gel into a team. It’s a refreshing feeling.


After bowling, we met at the parlor room for our silent and live auctions.  This was the first silent auction that I had ever participated in and I was trying to learn as much as I could from the experienced attendees.  At the CSC, I asked a lot of people who had been on previous missions to give me suggestions on what items would be sold at the auctions.  Everyone was scoping the goods which ranged from SpongeBob figurines to artwork, from shirts to diamond jewelry, from a ceramic bathtub figurine to kamikaze cat and mouse bookends.  Wine and goodies from Hawaii, Canada and Virginia were also on display.

The silent auction was interesting as people would put down bids, move on to another item and then return to find that someone had outbid them on the first item.   Towards the end there was a lot of hovering as people congregated on the most interesting items.  Bids were being written down extremely fast as the countdown towards zero grew closer.  In some cases, the last bid was just a scrawl (sounds like someone we know, Dr. Mark!) because we were writing so fast.  There was lots of laughter in the room during the process. 

The auction gave me a chance to look at our employees in a new light and to become even more impressed.  Not only were these people volunteering their time knowing that they would return to a lot of work at their offices.  Not only were they giving up a week of family time.  But these same employees were donating their own money to the OneSight cause.   

The live auction was a blast.   Jessica and her demonstration of the “Virginia is for lovers” care package was a hoot.  There was a “spaaarkling” diamond bracelet donated by Adrienne Ruebusch and auctioned by Matt St. Germain that was purchased by Dr. Carol and two OneSight bracelets made by Dr. Carol. It was wonderful and very appropriate to see those bracelets go to Darla and Leslie (aka Darla 2) who I know will treasure it forever.  It shocked me to see the picture frame and mat that I purchased get chosen for the live auction table.  I made sure that every member of the core team signed it and I was lucky enough to get an extra signature, that of outgoing Executive Director, Greg Hare.  I’d like to believe that Greg’s signature increased the worth of this simple gift, which will grace the walls of Barbara Elledge’s office.  Bravo to Kim Trentham and Cathy Verdin, the fundraising team, for a very successful auction.  The auction raised $2,000 for OneSight!  Good job, Team Richmond, you rock!!

At the end of the night, we found out that Michele won $7 in the Mega Million Powerball.  She was pretty impressed since they don’t have lotteries in Hawaii.  Atlantic City . . . here we come!

Bowling and Auctions

Bowling Alley
Auction Goodies.
Did you know that Tony Danza was in a show after Taxi!!
Dr. Carol in her second career as an auctioneer!
Listening to the Auctioneer.
Jessica selling the benefits of having Virginia memorabilia.

4 Comments

  1. Dawn says:

    Hi Team!
    Sounds like you are all having a great time and helping a lot of children.  The week seemed to go by so fast, even for me watching from the “sidelines”.
    Thank you to all of you and especially to Darla, Leslie, Jessica and the rest of the coordinating team.

    Posted on Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:43 pm EST

  2. Chris says:

    Aloha from Hawaii! Just wanted to say GREAT JOB to Hawaii’s very own Regional Manager Michele! Keep up the good work and we all miss you here back home! Best wishes from store #2972 Poipu!

    Posted on Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:19 pm EST

  3. Janeece says:

    Haha. I woke up down today. You’ve cehered me up!

    Posted on Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:59 am EST

  4. Rhonda L. Osborn says:

    I believe you guys had a great time I can see that on the photos. Keep up the great work http://www.learn-spanish-blog.net/

    Posted on Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:49 pm EST

Commenting is not available in this content entry.