Chartered in 1983

Colorado Springs Chapter

 November 2010   

President Carol Bryant
Stanley Steamer

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I try to reflect on what I am thankful for at this time of year and I know we have so many items on our lists. It is a time of sharing and giving and remembering what we have and what we have accomplished. I was thankful for the opportunity to attend L-Cam and get an excellent conference on leadership education, fellowship with our members, meet new friends from other EWI Chapters and just having fun.

Sharon Bennett, the Corporate President, wants to promote the philosophy of “Keep it simple”. There are a lot of new changes going on with Corporate and one way is the independent management company to help provide better support for all the Chapters. The new corporate by-laws are available for your review on the International website. For those who attended L-Cam it is an opportunity to bring home to our membership what we have learned and to share the excitement of EWI to everyone here at home. I heard this comment from one of the speakers at a previous conference – “EWI continues to evolve by honoring its past and embracing the future”. This is our commitment to EWI as a member if we are to grow our chapter.

Please think about going next year to Minneapolis, MN- if you would like to have some excellent educational courses in leadership development, see how international pulls together all EWI chapters across the country and have some fun getting to know your sister EWI’s.

Have a wonderful month and a great Thanksgiving.

Click on the Company names to view the member's website.

Action Coach
ADD Staff
Aflac Insurance
Aqua Prima Center, Inc.
Ameriprise Financial
Artemis Skin Care
BKD, LLP
The Broadmoor Hotel
Cachet Basket Company
Cris Carter Law
Colorado Association Services
Colorado Springs Country Club
Colorado Springs Utilities
Colorado Technical University
Cornerstone Retail Team LLC
Enchanted Signs
Ent Federal Credit Union
The Food Designers
Foster Electric
Goodwill Industries of CS
G.D. Michell&Associates
Harloff Company
Heritage Title Company
Home Instead Senior Care
Lynn Severson Interiors
Mountain States Pipe & Supply

If you have a website please notify Cris Carter; This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Old Town Guest House
Old West Cigar/Old West Homebrew Supply

Support Your
EWI Member Firms

Click on the underlined names
to view the member's website.

Chapter Meeting Information:

Date: Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 5:30pm
Location: Colorado Springs Country Club, 3333 Templeton Gap Rd. Colorado Springs CO. 719-634-8851 RSVP by November 5th by 5pm.

Topic: PROTECTING YOUR ASSETS

Registration & Networking Cost: $35 for Members, $40 for Guests

Dinner Menu: Carved Beef Wellington Knob Creek Honey Salmon Winter Rice Blend Vegetable Dessert Coffee, Tea, Lemonade.

Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to interact with our own panel of experts on how you can PROTECT YOUR ASSETS. Whether you are a business owner or just looking out for your own personal interests, these ladies will be able to answer your questions.

Kate Carr, CPA with member firm BKD Cris Carter, Attorney with Cris Carter Law Susan Davis, Trust Specialist with Wells Fargo Bank Joan Saucerman, Long Term Care Specialist  

Should you need to cancel your reservation by the Friday before the meeting, you MUST receive a confirming email from the SAA that your cancellation is received.  If you do not get a confirming email from SAA, your reservation is still in effect and you will need to pay for the dinner that was reserved for you.

List of Upcoming Programs:

  COMING UP....

December:

December Meeting December 8 ,2010 Annual Luncheon at The Broadmoor

“Decadent December Fund Raiser”

By Pat Cooper

Due to the very busy Oct Chapter meeting, we thought it would be helpful to provide more information about our Decadent December activity to clarify any missed details during the meeting.

Upon return from LCAM, your 8 Toga clad Representatives learned of a great fund raiser that we felt would be attractive to our Chapter.

The reason we are pursuing this activity, are three (3) primary reasons:

• less man-hours than our golf tournament with a great profit potential

• the start of a new committee to be “Philanthropic Committee” that manage the funds of this fund raiser

• potential marketing of EWI within the Non-profit community.

The idea was purposed as “No Dirty Dishes” where 7 gift certificates from local restaurants were raffled. Tickets sold for $20 per ticket and each EWI was asked to sell 20 tickets.

With the idea, we proposed it to our Board of Directors at our Oct meeting; this is what resulted:

1. Since we cannot offer raffle tickets (requires license), we will sell Door Prize tickets and select the lucky winner at our December luncheon.

2. In addition to offering 7 gift certificates from local restaurants valued at approximately $50 each, we decided to include other items such as, house cleaning , carpet cleaning, Pedi and Mani, other spa items, and a basket with chocolate and wine, maybe a cool candle…and any other items that would add value. Potential package of $500 to $600.

3. The name purposed is “Decadent December”, to reflect the season. The marketing plan is to give a family a break during the busy Holiday season.

4. Often times through the year our Board is asked to fund various non-profits. Initially our thoughts are have the ability to fund non-profits. The funds from this activity will be placed in our B/C/DP (Business/Career/Development Program). Therefore we will be limited by IRS regs to use these funds specifically for, EWISP, ASIST and/or miscellaneous general philanthropy projects only.

5. We will ask each EWI member to sell 10 tickets for $20 each. Potential gross amount of $10,000 (50 X 10 X $20) less our expenses.

Please direct any questions to the committee that will be handling this activity for its inaugural launch.

Carol Bryant, Audrey Shrive, Robin Patterson, MaryGood Forsyth, Eileen Wolff, Rita Worster, Susan Davis and Pat Cooper

Your 2010 LCAM Representatives . 

Programs Committee:

Program Corner 2010

November - Panel discussion on How to Protect Assets, Wills & Trusts, Personal Business Structures  
December - Broadmoor Holiday Extravaganza

Meeting requirements and RSVP

Everyone must RSVP Yes or No. No later than November 5th, 2010
EWI Program Coordinators must confirm attendance numbers with the hotel or other catering company in advance.

• No shows are charged -- we need to have timely RSVPs into the Sergeant-at-Arms the Friday before the monthly meeting which is the second Wednesday of each month.

• It costs EWI to pay for those that RSVP and don’t show. Once our numbers are confirmed with the hotel or other catering company, any no shows and any late cancellations must be charged in full.

• EWI is required to pay for all of its registered guests, whether or not they attend.

Sergeant At Arms (SAA):

RSVP and REGRETS FOR CHAPTER MEETINGS:
In an effort to make the thankless job of Sergeant at Arms a little easier, we thought we would explain in detail the proper RSVP procedure for the chapter meetings. It has become evident that there is a great deal of confusion regarding this matter. We hope this will clear it up for you! If you have any questions, please contact Terri Flores Brown or Deb Haar, your current Sergeant at Arms team. Thank you to all who regularly RSVP on or before the deadline each month! You are so appreciated!

Please remember that the deadline requirement for RSVP/REGRETS is the Friday prior to the monthly chapter meeting. The chapter meeting is held on the second Wednesday of each month. (Except for the month of June. The golf tournament lunch serves as the monthly meeting and is typically the first Friday of June).

Members who do not RSVP by the deadline create a snowball effect for the Sergeant At Arms, the programs team, the caterer, and often the venue. With some programs the meal issue can be problematic if the adjustments are too dramatic. In some cases board members have offered to forfeit their meal if it came to that. We've come close but luckily haven't had to resort to that. Going forward we can not guarantee a meal for those who RSVP after the deadline or for walk-ins with no RSVP.

The sooner we can get your information; even if it's only the RSVP/REGRETS e-mail, it is extremely helpful and appreciated. You can wait to pay at the meeting. So, just because you RSVP doesn't mean you have to make your payment at the same time.

If you are a member paying for a guest, remember to ensure you've paid the $40 fee and not the $35 fee when you receive your confirmation, if it's short please be prepared to pay the difference at the door as we will mention it to you!

If an RSVP is made and not cancelled by the Friday before the meeting the member can be charged for the event.

We will continue to send out the roster for your review and feedback as there are times we have missed the information you submitted online. Thank you for reviewing the roster and responding. This has been very helpful to us!

Please remember to go online to http://www.springsewi.com/ and submit your RSVP or your Regrets. You may pay online if you like (this helps us tremendously too).  Please remember to do so NO LATER than the Friday prior to the meeting.

Ways and Means: 

Ways & Means Committee Report

Ways & Means Needs you!

We have the Sponsorship packets available to present to possible major sponsors for the tournament being held on June 3, 2011 at Kissing Camels.

If you know of any potential sponsors and would prefer Ways & Means to contact them directly please send a note to Mary Good and she will contact them.

Please start thinking of or procuring items for the Tee Bags, Silent Auction, Door Prizes etc... It’s never too early! If you need a place to store them let Terri Flores-Brown know and she can begin cataloging and storing items that are non-perishable. If you have any ideas please share them with us!

Look for the upcoming e-mail announcing our first Ways & Means Committee meeting, we need your help!.

Save the date for the golf tournament, June 3, 2011.

Terri Flores-Brown and
Mary-Good Forsythe
Ways & Means

Scholarship Committee:

EWI continues to support 4 ladies with scholarship funds.

If anyone is interested with helping on the committee:

Please contact Cindy at 719-634-5555 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Cindy Stermitz
Controller, Mountain States Pipe & Supply
111 W Las Vegas
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
Phone 719-475-4053
Fax     719-667-1012
Cell     719-352-5994

Membership – October 2010

 Attention Members - Check your Major/Minor Descriptions

We are in the process of aligning our member firms to the Major and Minor descriptions as published in the EWI Corporate Procedure Manual.  Please log on to the Corporate website and check the Major and Minor listing in your profile for accuracy. 

Retain ~ Recruit ~ Grow

GEWI Corporate has challenged all chapters this year with new membership goals -- Suggested MINIMUM goals are 90% retention and 11 new member firms. Please help us succeed in this goal. Growing our membership benefits the backbone of our chapter as well as our individual members and their firms. If each one of us brings in one new member firm this year we will have successfully enhanced our own networking path and strengthened our ties to the EWI initiatives of Careers, Communities and Connections. Please invite prospective members to the Chapter meetings. Thank you for your referrals - keep them coming!  If you know of someone who might like to hear from us send their contact info to Susan Davis - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

*Attention Members - Attendance Requirement --

Member Firm Attendance Requirements: Each Member Firm must be represented by a representative or an executive at seven (7) meetings within the Chapter year and must not miss three (3) consecutive meetings at any time during the term of the membership. We also offer flexible membership whereby if a representative cannot attend a meeting that they can encourage and/or send another person from the firm to attend the monthly chapter meeting. Our chapter encourages our firms and the representatives to be “member’s in good standing.”

*Silver Key Holiday Project

Giving Tree ornaments:

Every year our local chapter participates in helping Silver Key Senior Services make sure that our seniors in the community that live independently, often isolated or lonely get a gift at the holiday season. These gifts are delivered by community volunteers. More importantly, with every delivery, seniors receive the companionship of caring volunteers taking time to visit and share the joy of the season. Mikki Kraushaar who was a long time and honorary member of Springs EWI started this holiday project and we have continued it in her memory and the good work she did in the community for our seniors. At the October and November monthly meeting we will have a basket of the ornaments (which are made by Girl Scout troops).

Giving Tree Instructions

1. Select and remove an ornament from The Giving Tree basket. Each ornament requests a special gift for a senior. Be creative.

2. Purchase the gift. Place the unwrapped gift in a gift bag with tissue paper to help hide the gift.

3. Feel free to include a holiday greeting card if you wish. (Please do not include any personally identifiable information besides your name.) Be creative.

4. Attach the ornament securely to the outside of the gift bag and return it at our December luncheon on December 8, 2010. They will be delivered to Silver Key.

5. Donations are also greatly appreciated.  

October Meeting Summary: 

The October EWI meeting was a delightful mix of lively political discussions, opinions along with laughter and good company!

Our speakers, Andi Leopoldus with AKL inc. and Lynn Telford VP and COO of Pikes Peak United Way gave us a fair and balanced review of several of the highly charged November ballot issues, their presentations generated much discussion and we heard from much of the membership regarding questions and concerns they had on the issues. We have many politically savvy ladies in among us, this made for a great discussion.

EWI annually participates in the holiday gift program with Silver Key Services, so we began passing the basket for this event. Many of us are familiar with the program but for the newer members here’s how I t works: Each of us has the opportunity to pick gift tags prepared by the girl scouts, the tags indicate the type of gift requested and we purchase the gift and return it to EWI at the Broadmoor luncheon in December. Please place the gift in gift bag with the tag attached (please do not wrap!)

The Silver Key holiday gift tags will be passed around again at the November meeting, if you would like some tags before that contact Susan Davis.

We were also given a quick overview of a new fundraising program called “Decadent December” which will be lead by a new EWI committee to be known as the “Philanthropic Committee”. For more specific information refer to the detailed e-mail sent out October 25 by Pat Cooper.

We enjoyed a delicious dinner catered by Muck Duck Restaurant from Green Mountain Falls, CO.

EWI Online Program

EWI is pleased to announce new online learning options. These classes, offered in distinct suites, are designed for maximum learning, while allowing you to finish a suite at your own pace. These suites are packed full of great knowledge to build your leadership tool kit.

Contact the Corporate Office at 801-355-2800 with any questions.