Quesnel Legion celebrates 85 years

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Left to right: Coun. Coralee Oakes, Legion president Neil Huntsley, Mayor Mary Sjostrom, Legion Auxiliary president Dolores Follack, Coun. Laurey-Anne Roodenburg and Coun. Peter Couldwell help celebrate the Legion’s 85th anniversary with a commemorative plaque.

Left to right: Coun. Coralee Oakes, Legion president Neil Huntsley, Mayor Mary Sjostrom, Legion Auxiliary president Dolores Follack, Coun. Laurey-Anne Roodenburg and Coun. Peter Couldwell help celebrate the Legion’s 85th anniversary with a commemorative plaque.

So much fun.

If you were at the Legion’s Steak BBQ you will know exactly what I mean. It was a sold out crowd filled with laughter and fun.

First we had Doug and Brian on the BBQs’ cooking up those delicious steaks which went with potato salad, caesar salad and green salad. We were hoping people would be craving dessert after their meal and they did not disappoint.

We had 10 desserts to auction off thanks to various donators and with Peter Couldwell ably leading the auction we could not fail; and we did not.

We raised a whopping $400 for the dessert auction alone. And just when you think it could not get any better – once we tallied up the silent auction figures we were surprised to see that we had raised more than $1000 in that department as well.

We are very happy and grateful for all the support this event received.  It will go far to help support the daily running of this branch.

Mayor Mary, as well as three councillors, Peter, Laurey-Anne and Coralee  honoured our event and all were on hand with our Legion president Neil and LA president Dolores for the presentation of the plaque commemorating 85 Legion years.

As you can see from the picture – everyone appears to be enjoying themselves.

So I figure seeing as I was in partnership with Honey on this event that I may be back in the ‘good books’ again.

You know it seems that I offended some of the Legion patrons with a bit of my attempt at humour in a recent article – which if you know me at all – was certainly not my intention.

So I hope all is well. After all we are all on the same team planning and working at various events to support our local branch. Hopefully all is forgiven and I will try to keep my attempts at humour to a minimum.

But, speaking of humour,  if you will permit me – there is a funny thing that happened during the dessert auction.

I was attempting to be the “Vanna White” of the dessert auction parading around with various desserts – flittering from table to table to give everyone a look at them so they could bid appropriately and it seemed to be working.

Well, there was a donation of these wonderful black forest cake/puddings in dessert cups that were balanced on balls and these balancing dessert balls were set on a tray – everything matched and it was a magnificent display.

Well it was until I attempted to parade with them and ended up with two pudding cups attached to the front of my dress and a mess on the floor.

Luckily those nice people of the Legion ran to my aid and cleaned up my fiasco – and basically just laughed at my inability to juggle pudding cups.

But all was not lost.  We cleaned everything up and managed to get a fairly decent price for the four remaining dessert cups – and thank you Doug for saving me on this one and for Ab for his clean up.

So Roll Call still has not been won.  My dear husband’s name was called last week and we missed our opportunity – but it just strengthens my resolve to be at the Legion Tuesday – Friday, 12:30 p.m. and Saturday at 3:30 p.m. to see if I can win the jackpot. Someone is going to win, might as well be me.

Don’t forget about the Friday buffets and the watering hole coming up for Billy Barker Days – we are still in need of volunteers – ya know ya wanna.

I will leave this week with a quote from a media release from The Honourable Premier Christy Clark, with respect to Legion Week.

“Legions have stood for 85 years as a symbol of what service to community means: strong family values, dedicated volunteerism and support for veterans who have given so much.  In celebration of the Legion’s 85th Anniversary, I want to say thank you for all you have done and all that you will accomplish in the future.  British Columbia is stronger because of you.”

Sharon MacDonald is a Legion member.

 

Quesnel Cariboo Observer