Peter Lebeck Chapter #1866

Greetings to each and every one of My Brothers and

Ta-Tas from the Humbug - -

This year has been a turning point for Peter Lebeck. Much like the ZZ Top song says, we've been up, we've been down, take my word; we've been 'round. We've had disappointments, lost brethren, and didn't get a plaque for our 50th Year. But on the positive side, we've gained many great new brothers, and we've reworked a good part of the way we operate. We've made PXL more businesslike and brought it more in line with what the government requires of a historical nonprofit organization like ours. The new groundwork we laid this year ensures that our Chapter will be in good fiscal and legal shape for the future.

We are less by two Brothers, John "Vortex" Hagelstein and Steve "Historically" Born. They were both members who contributed a great deal to our chapter and will truly be missed. John was able to contribute greatly in helping us regain some of our lost history and archives. Steve was an XNGH who was instrumental in setting up the PXL hosted 6-way Doin's in California City, the largest Clamper gatherings Southern California has ever seen. May God speed them on their journey to the Golden Hills.

As fate (or voting by inebriated Greybeards) would have it, I ended up doing a second turn as Humbug mid-year, and once again was overwhelmed by the generosity and hard work that comes from this great group that is Peter Lebeck. Nothing proves that more than our attempt to plaque Minter Field. After months of hard work by several of us to put together a Doin's and to erect a monument to the flyers of World War II, the petty bureaucrats at the Shafter Health and Safety Department threw up so many unreasoned eleventh hour roadblocks that the airport's board of directors pulled its support of our plaque and doin's with only days to go.

Rallying as only Clampers can, our Brothers managed to engineer (in the space of less than a month) a Clampout at Camp Okihi near Bakersfield which turned out to be a bang-up event and netted us ten new PBCs and one still very fresh retread. I have never been prouder of our officers and volunteers for pulling this one off. Satisfactory!

A good sized delegation from Peter Lebeck also made it up to Idaho to help our member Bob "Barbarosa" Haynes inaugurate the new Snake River Chapter. While that event didn't work out so well for some of us (just check out my photo), I'm sure Barbarosa was proud to have us along, just as we are proud of Barbarosa.

I can't adequately express what an honor and a privilege it has been to be your Humbug once again. We have many good things in the works and an absolutely superlative crew of officers and volunteers to make it all happen I ask you to please throw your support behind incoming Humbug Mike "MGM" Ramirez-Mares and his crew of miscreants as they work to ensure that your Clamping experiences just keep getting better.

My heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who've pitched in, and I'll thank each of you a bit more appropriately in person.

Now it's on to the Widders' Ball and time to get back to the stove!

Clampfraternally yours,

Tim "Ptomaine Ptimbo" Gillespie, XNGH #50 and 49
NGH - - 2010 and 2011

BOGUS

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