The Anchor
November / December 2012
Do More. Care More. Be More.
INSIDE 0 New Anchor Clubs 0 Leadership Opportunities & Internships 0 Anchor Advisor of the Year 0 Dues are due! 0 Find us on Facebook!
The Flagship Newsletter Graduates! Welcome to “The Anchor!”
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s the Anchor program continues to grow and evolve along with our members, we want Anchor membership to best reflect the passion for service and friendship Anchors hold dear. As we support and guide youth members along their journey to adulthood, membership can serve to “anchor” them through the joys and challenges of adolescence and young adulthood. We hope the new name and design of the newsletter reflects this spirit. It is also easily recognizable to those we serve and most importantly, those we want to join our Anchor family. We want advisors to share the newsletter with members and members to share it with friends and family. Print and post it on your school bulletin boards. Please use it to get the word out that Anchor is growing and changing to meet the challenges of today’s youth by instilling in them responsibility, honesty, citizenship, leadership and open-mindedness. As Anchors, we do more and care more. Welcome to “The Anchor! We hope you enjoy it.
Anchor Membership Survey Now Online – Participate and Win a Club Pizza Party! How great is Anchor? Tell us! And help improve your membership experience! A very short, on-line survey is open now for all members. We need your feedback, opinions and ideas! Find it at http://questionpro.com/t/AJcTTZOkea. Survey password: ACMS
The club with the most members responding by December 14th will win a club pizza party donated by headquarters … so get that computer mouse clicking now!
Four New Anchor Clubs Bring Membership to 8500! Saltillo High School, MS (Sponsor: Pilot Club of Tupelo, MS)
What started in the spring of 2012 as the desire of a new Pilot Club member to have her daughter become part of a high school service club was realized on September 29, 2013 when the Pilot Club of Tupelo had the honor of chartering the Saltillo High School Anchor Club. Sarah Crouch was identified as a potential sponsor and, after of summer of contemplation, committed to forming an Anchor Club at Saltillo High School. She was able to quickly gain interest and by the early September had more than enough girls to charter a Club.
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About 100 attended the chartering ceremony in late September, and the excitement of the 45 new members was easy to see. District Governor Janie Cirlot-New and District Anchor Coordinator Barb Adkins oversaw the chartering ceremony as parents, friends, and the Pilot Club of Tupelo proudly observed. Claire Cash, as President; Emily Finch, Vice-President; Shelby Bickes, President-Elect; Mirella Gallardo, Secretary; Ashton Smith, Treasurer were installed by Barb Adkins as the Club’s officers. Suzanne Bingham also serves as an Anchor sponsor. The members of this club have already begun helping out the community and Pilot Club of Tupelo by volunteering time in early September at the Pilot Club’s arts and crafts sale to begin raising money for a handicap accessible playground for the area. We fully expect to see great things to come from this new Anchor Club!
Liberty Middle School, NC (Sponsor: Pilot Club of Morganton, NC)
While in line to sign the charter, a middle schooler was overheard to say, “This is so much! I’m going to do this again in high school!” On November 2, she and over 80 girls in the school became charter members of the first middle school Anchor club in North Carolina! She will get her wish as they all will matriculate to Freedom High where there is an active Anchor club. Much credit goes to Crystal McKinney for her hard work and her enthusiasm and her plans to make this Anchor club a reality! In addition, the Pilot Club of Morganton is also very grateful to Debra Lancaster for her dedication to the Anchors at Freedom, Patton and now, Liberty Middle. One of the greatest blessings specific to this new Anchor Club is that it is located beside North Liberty School. North Liberty is different than Liberty Middle School. North Liberty is a Special Education School for kindergarten through 12th grade. Crystal McKinney, the Anchor Sponsor for Liberty Middle School says she intends to partner with North Liberty. Her Anchors will be mentors to the special needs students at the neighboring school. Her Anchors will be reading partners & tutors. They will also help with special fun activities. One she mentioned was helping with a Diva themed party. At this party, the Anchors will pamper the special needs students (ex: make-up, nail painting, etc). What an awesome and meaningful future for this New Anchor Club with Pilot’s service focus of Brain-Related Disorders.
Tremont High School, MS (Sponsor: Pilot Club of Fulton, MS)
The Anchor Club of Tremont charted October 21, 2012. Congratulations to the PC of Fulton for working on and perfecting the organization of this new club! Thank you to Regina Upton, the club’s advisor. We can’t wait to see all the great things you will do. Welcome to all our new Anchors!
Anchors Care More. The Portal Anchor Club, a community service club at Portal Middle High School, plans to continue the tradition of the JROTC Thanksgiving Food Drive at Portal Middle High School. The Portal Middle High JROTC program always did a wonderful job feeding needy families for this holiday. Last year, the Portal Anchor Club took over the project. During Thanksgiving of 2011, with the generosity of Portal residents and Harveys supermarket near GSU, the Portal Anchor Club collected enough food and turkeys to feed 28 families in the Portal area! The club hopes to do as well this year. Thank you to Shannon Hattaway, Portal Anchor advisor.
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Brenham High School Anchor Club President Jared Gold and his Ag-Mech project won 1st place at our Washington County Fair and more recently Grand Champion at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. It comes equipped with a TV that slides down in to a storage cabinet, 4 spotlights to see what is cooking, a flag pole, side burners for large pots of bar-b-q side items!
The Astronaut High Anchor Club in Titusville, Florida carved pumpkins for Joe’s Club (Brevard Alzheimer’s Center). They delivered the pumpkins and treats to the clients on Halloween. (AC Sponsor: Pilot Club of Titusville). Florida District Anchors gather to view and evaluate centerpieces to give out awards for the top 3 entries. The centerpieces were donated by Pilots and later auctioned off as a fundraiser. A portion of the proceeds went to the Florida Anchor District.
Be More…Anchor Leadership Opportunities Freedoms Foundation – Spirit of America’s Youth Leadership Conference $500 Grants Available – Due December 15th. • • • •
This exciting and informative conference is February 21-24, 2013. There are a total of six (6) grants available, $500.00 each, one (1) per District to assist with Anchor expenses! The cost of the program is $450.00 which includes accommodations, airport pickup and drop-off, all meals from Thursday dinner through Sunday breakfast, and the program itself. For more information about Freedoms Foundation, visit http://www.freedomsfoundation.org. You can also check out the new 2013 Spirit of America Youth Leadership brochure on the PI website, www.pilotinternational.org. All Grant Applications must be sent to headquarters Attn: Freedom Foundation Grant and postmarked on or before December 15, 2012.
NEW! International Convention Internships – New Orleans, July 2013!
Thanks to a generous donation to Pilot International to benefit the Anchor Club program, an exciting new opportunity is available! Six interns will have their convention registration fee paid to attend the 2013 Convention in New Orleans! Interns will work on-site at the convention to gain valuable leadership and service experience and be able to attend all Anchor convention events. More about this exciting opportunity will be announced in the coming months.
Do More. Anchor Advisor of the Year Award
Have you thought about nominating your advisor as Anchor Advisor of the Year for all she/he does for you in making your club a success? It’s time to begin thinking about it! Applications, guidelines and more information on the nomination process are in the Anchor handbook. Tell us why your advisor ROCKS! Nominations are due JANUARY 15th to headquarters!
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Are you Online?
Anchor Advisors and Club Members should subscribe to our email communications system called “Constant Contact” for the latest Anchor news. Go to the Pilot International website http://www.pilotinternational.org. It’s easy to do and takes just a couple minutes! We want Anchor Advisors and Anchors to be part of the ever-growing Anchor Clubs International Facebook page. This is another great way for Anchors to receive up to the minute Anchor news, make great connections, share information, video clips, and photos of events. Here’s a recent post from the Anchor Facebook page: Avalon Anchor (FL) A food drive for the holidays —“We are competing with another local middle school to see which school can collect the most food - last year we collected over 2,000 food items. It officially starts tomorrow and we have already collected over 700 items. :) Our goal for this year is 3,000 items. As a reward for their efforts, the students get to see some of their teachers “tortured” at lunch. We have 3 lunch groups so each lunch has a goal of 1,000 items - when they reach 250 items a few teachers get pied in the face, 500 items - a few teachers have to eat can dog food and if they reach 1,000 items a male teacher gets his head shaved. If we reach our school goal of 3,000 items one of our teachers who is a HUGE Gator fan will have FSU shaved into the side of his head. We have found that this type of reward really motivates middle schoolers :) I will keep you posted on our progress :)”
Anchor Administration Changes
Resources — We are continuing to streamline processes and migrate as many resources (manuals, forms, booklets, etc.) to the Pilot International web site. As new ones become available they will be put on the web site and the old resource taken down. Please be sure you are utilizing the most recent resource. All will be date stamped as they are revised and new ones created. In addition, we will no longer be mailing these resources with the exception of Anchor charters and membership certificates which will continue to be sent via regular mail. Correspondence to clubs, advisors, district teams, etc. will be done through email, which is now a standard process anyway. In addition, some regularly sent correspondence is being discontinued. For example, we will no longer compose letters to clubs confirming that dues have been received. Instead, clubs, advisors, etc. will receive an email only if dues are delinquent at the times outlined in our policies. As other changes occur, we will put them in The Anchor and other electronic communications so please make sure your email address is current with headquarters. We encourage you to take advantage of the web site to view and download what is available. Our Anchors are leading the way in our technologically driven world, and we want to serve them in the same manner where possible. In addition, we believe it is important to be good stewards and citizens by doing our part in conserving paper, ink, electricity, etc. and using those savings to provide additional membership benefits to our current and future members. To find what you’re looking for, click here: http://www.pilotinternational.org/anchors/anchor-resources.
DUES ARE DUE!!
2012-2013 International Dues –to Headquarters by December 1, 2012. How do we pay? The 2012-2013 International Dues Invoice form is in your handbook and the web site under Anchor resources. Annual International Dues: $10 per member for grades 9-12; $5 per member for grades 1-8.
Get More. Need exposure for your club? Be part of the next edition of The Anchor newsletter, scheduled to be emailed in January. We want to know what your Club is doing, so email your news, photos, newspaper articles, etc. to anchor@pilothq.org.
Need Help? Info? Suggestions? Feedback? Your continued dedication and commitment to our Anchors is what makes this program so rewarding. We want to hear from you! We want to help advisors and members along the Anchor journey. Contact Louise at louise@pilothq.org or anchor@pilothq.org or the PI headquarters at 102 Preston Court, Macon, Ga 31210-57868; Phone: 478-477-1208. Happy Holidays!
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