Issue 39, October 2nd
What a fantastic time of year at our club. Yesterday we had a great turnout for our 3rd YAP JROTC Annual Charity Clay shoot! This was a banner year, previously we topped around 60 shooters, and we had 96 SIGN UP for 2016!!! Also this was at a new venue which brought us closer into town, and had motorized carts for all the shooters to ride. A big thank you goes out to Hank at Duckworth Construction and Jamie at Savage Bros. Painting. These two members have supported our shoot for multiple years. Hank gave us our start in year 1 as title sponsor; then he recruited Jamie as a joint sponsor for the 2nd and 3rd years! On top of that they joined the club and were very active in recruiting participants as members of our committee. In addition, this year Steve DeSorbo had Coordinated Benefits sign on as our Ammo sponsor! Additionally Erin Eiras reached out to a friend who’s a local Director at Wal-Mart, and obtained our first ever Lunch Sponsor (though Tom Kennedy took care of the cooking.)
The JROTC cadets from Lee High returned to assist by manning the clay launchers and helping us keep score. Additionally they made sure all shooters were prepared with adequate safety instructions and helped keep things progressing smoothly. Like golf, it’s easy to see “pace of play” slow, but our volunteers were a big help. We had several items donated which, in SBMC fashion, were auctioned off live to add more to the success of the tournament. Finally another big thanks goes out to Tiger May at On Target Sports in Orange Park; for the second year in a row he donated an Over ‘N Under for us to raffle off.
Now I know many of our members follow Facebook, but if you don’t you may not have noticed Jay Cann was in the hospital late last week. Don’t worry; he’s ok and the proud owner of a brand new hip! I personally didn’t realize he had been having problems previously, but was in touch with him the evening of surgery and the day following. We spoke Friday, all was good, and he was being released later in the day. If you’re a newer member, you may not yet have had the chance to get to know Jay very well. He’s been fortunate to be swamped with work which has kept him busy on the days of our meetings. Jay’s been running our Charity golf tournament with Crump Kirby for 21 years, handles the printing of our nametags and the podium signs, but most importantly is probably one of the nicest most generous guys you could ever meet. Please keep Jay in your prayers as any surgery has post-op risks to consider.
Now every week I begin the meeting stating “The purpose of this organization is to promote the material, civic, social improvement and betterment of Duval County, in general, and specifically to promote the welfare and advancement of the Southside of Jacksonville.” Coincidentally this week’s speaker is exactly along those lines. Josh Zenner is the Director of Operations (head guy) at the new TopGolf facility at the Town Center. This is certainly a material improvement, betterment, and definitely an advancement of the Southside of Jacksonville. I’ve visited their facility in Houston and it’s AWESOME. They’re known for consistently being busy, and it’s not just a fancy driving range like some believe. There’s so much more, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise and steal Josh’s thunder. I’ll give you a hint, think Latitude 360 for Golf….but with better financial management of course. This is a great example of how strong Jacksonville is, as they have certain criteria by which they measure cities when considering expanding to new locations. I can’t wait for it to open on Nov. 5th, I’m just jealous it’s so late in the year and we don’t have time for a social function as a club. Maybe next year Nico might schedule one of our golf outings there or something. Regardless it’s a blast and you’ll enjoy hearing all about it from Josh this week.
Last week our very own member, and former Sheriff, John Rutherford addressed the club in the capacity of a candidate for Congress. As you know he’s running for Congressman Crenshaw’s seat in District 4 this November, he took advantage of our weekly candidate spotlight. As a rather funny coincidence, his opponent David Bruderly was there as a guest and will be speaking for 5 mins at this week’s meeting.
