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West Point Parents Club of New Jersey
September 2011 Newsletter
NAME BADGES…..As part of your lifetime dues, we give each family two name badges to wear at club events and other times when they are at West Point. At A-Day, we distributed these badges to those who stopped by the lovely reception that was organized by Julie Dickson and supported by Ira and Bridget Peezick, Debbie and Bruno Savo, Bob and Susan Spellerberg, Christine Freitag, Sandy Benarick, and Taylor Aaron. If you did not get your badge, yours are enclosed. In some cases, we have on record the name of only one parent, so Lisa Brosnan, our membership chair as well as Club secretary, is in the process of getting those updates. Once those updates are made, we’ll make a second order to get those badges and likewise mail those out. If you have any changes that have to be made to your badge, or need one for a spouse, please email Lisa Brosnan at .
General Membership Meeting
Our Away-Game Tailgate will double as a general membership meeting. It will be short and informative as our By-Laws obligate us to formally induct our Officers. / AWAY-GAME TAILGATE!
With only four home football games this year, the WPPC of NJ is trying something new—an away-game tailgate. So, come cheer on the Black Knights when they kick-off against Air Force on Saturday, November 5, 2011. We’ll all be meeting at the home of Karen and Joel Boroff, at 49 Fuller Avenue, in Chatham NJ 07928. We’ll watch the game on Big Screen TVs and use our collective spirit to bring home a win! The event is free. The game starts at 3:30, so come at 2:30 pm to settle in and watch any pre-game festivities. Here is what you can bring, to serve about 6 people:
Class of 2015 families: appetizer (chips/dip, cheese and crackers, as examples)
Class of 2014 families: a side dish (vegetable casserole, mac/cheese, a favorite salad, as examples)
Class of 2013 families: desserts
Class of 2012 families: soft drinks.
We’ll have chili and all the fixings, along with other beverages and the paper goods. The dress is very casual, and like all events, other family members are welcomed. Any questions—email or call her at 973-761-9597 at work or call Joel on 201-715-4950.
Please RSVP by October 28, 2011.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
November 5, 2011 Away-Game Tailgate Army vs. Air Force
Sunday before Thanksgiving Boodle Party (tentative)
December 10, 2011 Army/Navy Game at FedEx Stadium, Washington, DC
March 8-11, 2012 Plebe – Parent Weekend at USMA for the Class of 2015
March TBD Firstie Dinner for the Class of 2012 (watch for emails!)
May 13, 2012 New Cadet Luncheon for the Class of 2016
Our Fund Raising Event!
Last year, the WPPC of NJ embarked on a new fund-raising event, the Army-Navy Raffle. The idea was conceived by our current President Bob Mosera who, together with Joel Boroff, did the heavy lifting in setting up and administering the raffle. The club sold chances of $10 each to win 2 Club Level tickets to this December’s Army/Navy game, a 2-night stay at the fabulous Ritz Carlton with Limo transportation to and from the game, and a $250 spending voucher. Pretty neat! The club will be able to donate $5,000 after expenses to the Directorate of Cadet Activities (DCA). This year, starting some time in November, club members will again receive a booklet of tickets to sell. These will be mailed to you. We are still finalizing the hotel and other details, so watch out for those updates.
The WPPC of NJ Web Page
The Club has a very nice web page, which received a major update this past March, thanks to the work of Joel Boroff and our work-study student, Jason Plefka. The next stage for the website is to create a members-only protected portion of the site. There, the names of all club members and their hometowns will be listed, but not home addresses, which may be obtained from the Membership Chair on an individual case basis. In this way, you can learn who your nearby neighbors are, to help with trips back and forth to USMA. Besides that material, we also plan to post club minutes there. The Executive Board meets either in person or by phone, so our minutes will be listed there, to help keep everyone informed. We also plan to create electronic folders for the different functions we run, so it is easier to pass the baton to the next head of an event. If you would like to volunteer for the club, we could use your help in the area of web management. We need someone to keep on top of web content, telling our web manager to delete old material or to update new material that members will give the web coordinator. The coordinator, in turn, will tell Jason, the web manager, “what to do.” This is a job you can do at home or wherever, and certainly is more flexible in terms of time. So, help us out! The site is _http://www.west-point.org/parent/wppc-new-jersey/home.html.
What is a Boodle Party? What is Boodle?
Second question first. Boodle is a term that means a group of people, a bribe, counterfeit money, or a lot of money. I do not know how the word “boodle” infiltrated the USMA jargon, but it means a box of sweets, treats or goodies. Boodle can be akin to legal tender with cadets, trading, say, Peanut M&Ms for a Kit Kat bar. Each year, the WPPC of NJ has gathered, under the able leadership of Kathy Zapcic, to fill boxes of treats for our cadets. She has delivered these to the Academy in December, just as the cadets enter the Term End Examination (TEE) period. At our Boodle Party, we gather to “stuff” boxes. It is quite a bit of fun, sometimes lubricated with a bit of party juice. Members pay $5.00 per box—an order form is sent to us to request a box for our cadet. Members have been more than happy to pay $10 for additional boxes for the roommates or friends of their own cadets. The USMA Central Guard Room has always been amazed in December when over 100 of these treat boxes are dropped off. So, watch your emails for this year’s Boodle Party. The date has traditionally been the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but that has not been finalized. We thank Kathy so much for her gifts of time and leadership on this and we are finalizing a new chair of this event, as this newsletter is prepared.
The All-Academy BallSome of the other WPP clubs around the nation offer some very nice programs. One that we tumbled onto is the All-Academy Ball. At these functions, a dinner/ dance is organized, inviting cadets from all the academies. Last year, our son (Alex Boroff) and his date attended the All-Academy Ball of the WPPC of Long Island. Cadets in uniform were free and dates and other family members were $70.00 per ticket. My son had a terrific time. It was held in Glen Cove, about 15 minutes from the Midtown Tunnel. This year, the event is on December 26, 2011 at the New Hyde Park Inn, on Long Island. The president of the WPPC of LI graciously welcomes our cadets and their families. He tells me that, after dinner, the lady cadets will be able to change into dancing clothes, and he suspects that the guys will go that route, as well. Go to http://www.west-point.org/parent/wppc-long-island/welcome.htm.
Communications
Just as a double-check on communications, if about 6 weeks go by and you have not heard from your class representative, please follow-up with an email to him or her. We may have an old email address or somehow it was dropped off the distribution. The officers get together by conference or in person about every 6 weeks, so, at a minimum, you should get some news items from those meetings. As always, send a note to any of us if you have a great idea or want to express a concern. As we all have experienced, sometimes just a note about “can you fix this” or “what if we did that” can really make a difference for the better. Emails of officers and class representatives are at the bottom of page 4. / Hosting an Event
From time to time, our members have said they would really enjoy hosting an event for the club, but wonder if their house can “hold all those people.” Not to worry—most of us have smaller pop-up tents that we can bring along, to help make an outdoor function work. Some members have been able to host events at their local firehouse stations and other group rooms (library common rooms, church halls). So, if you’d like to bring us together for a pot-luck meal, give this some thought!
Volunteers Needed!
We are an organization run by volunteers. We really can always use an extra pair of hands. Consider, please, stepping up to help us out. We need helpers and “shadow” people for:
. Club Vice President (you can do this!)
. Firstie Farewell Event
. A-Day Event
. Membership Coordinator--this is a great opportunity, since it does not involve being at a specific time or place—very flexible!
. Fund-Raising Committee—this is running our raffle or executing a new idea to raise money for our club and USMA
. Be the Treasurer-in-Training—again, this can be done from home and Joel Boroff is a pleasure to work with!
. Write the Newsletter—another at-home job. These are irregular, since we do quite a bit via email.
We are thrilled that Cathy and Mike Varriano (Class of 2015) have graciously offered to spearhead the R-Day reception for the Class of 2016! Way to go!
The Associate Membership Trial
Two of the benefits we have as a club are our proximity to USMA and our knowledge of the area (I am sure you chuckle when someone asks on plebe or parent net, “are there any good restaurants in NYC,” or “where is LaGuardia Airport.” To capitalize on our strengths while also extending support to parents farther away, the Club is going to “test” an associate membership idea. Under this structure, those who live in areas that are not served by a WPPC (or have only a small one) or for those who already belong to a more-distant club (we do not want to “poach” from other clubs, so if there were a club in place, to be our associate, the family would have to also belong to the home WPPC), we are going to offer to them an associate membership option. While we a still working through the dues structure, which will be in the range of $90 to 100, associate members will be invited to A-Day and Firstie Farewell functions. Their cadets will be included in our boodle distribution. And we will pair these families up with WPPC of NJ parents, for informal mentorship, which has tremendous value. If our trial works, we’ll need, eventually, an Associate Member Coordinator.
Shout Outs and Thank You’s
We all benefit from the support we get from our volunteers! We are proud to say “thank you” to those who made a difference!
Firstie Farewell for Class of 2011: Joel and Karen Boroff, Lisa and Neil Brosnan, Rob Mosera
New Cadet Luncheon for Class of 2015: Sandy Benarick and Sandy LoBianca
New Cadet BBQ: Joel and Karen Boroff
Mentorship: Matt Westervelt
R-Day Reception: Christine and Frank Caruso and Matt Westervelt
½-way through Beast Party: Neil and Lisa Brosnan
A-Day Reception: Julie Dickson, Ira and Bridget Peezick, Christine Freitag, Stan and Sandra Benarik, Robert and Susan Spellerberg, Debbie and Bruno Savo, Taylor Aaron.
Name Badges: Karen Boroff
Web Page Revision: Joel Boroff
Current Club Officers
President: Robert Mosera () 2015 Representative: Sue Shepherd ()
Vice President: Neil Brosnan () 2014 Representative: Karen Boroff ()
Treasurer: Joel Boroff () 2013 Representative: Joe Neuman ()
Secretary: Lisa Brosnan () 2012 Representative: Tim Livolsi ()
Officer elections will take place at our Away-Game Tailgate, on November 5, 2011.