Vestnik Graduates Info

From the Desk of SPJST Vice President Delisle Doherty It’s Your Life

Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill went tumbling after. When they got to the bottom, Jill fixed Jack’s wound, and they fell in love with each other. They got married, had kids and lived happily ever after . . .

Or so they thought. Jill was a stayat-home mom while Jack brought home the bacon. When Jill died, Jack realized they never had insurance for her. Jack always had insurance, but never thought of insurance for her. After all, she was a stay-at-home mom. Now he has the extra cost of putting his kids in daycare so he can work. He has to hire someone to help him clean and cook. He is missing work to take the kids to the doctor. He didn’t realize the time it took for all the extracurricular activities. Band, sports, choir, plays . . . everything takes time and money. Within two years Jack had to change his job to accommodate his new life schedule.

It doesn’t matter who brings home the bacon or who takes care of the kids, when one partner is lost, there is a tremendous cost to the survivor. When looking at life insurance for you and your spouse, you should include future costs. Know what your plans are. Are the kids going to be active in school? Do you plan on having your kids attend college? If that kid can’t attend college, their entire life just changed direction. What cost and lifestyle changes will need to be made if only one of you are around? Are the kids going to need to be put in daycare, or is a nanny going to be hired? All this needs to be considered. After all it is called “life insurance” — not death insurance. How do you continue to live? The Cost to Leave One Behind

Think about everything you have done in life. What would have changed if you were alone to do it? A good daycare alone would be between $800 to $1,000 per month per child. Would the mortgage payments, car note, taxes, schooling, and groceries take away some of the vacations you had? Probably. College may be out the window. Extracurricular activities that you spent with your kids to help the grow their character? Probably not. Family nights out? Not anymore.

If you knew you had to give all of this up, would you want to make sure you were protected? So why do we think $10,000 is enough? $10,000 might bury you or your spouse, but it sure would not bring back those things in life we enjoy. Under-insuring yourself guarantees your family will have to make choices on what to leave out of their lives. Do we want to put them in that situation? Would you want to be put in that situation?

Need to review your insurance? Contact your SPJST Sales Agent or Regional General Agent (RGA) listed on page two of this week’s Vestnik, and they will be glad to help. I am always glad to answer any questions, too. All you have to do is call me at 832-2322049. My door is always open - figuratively and literally. —SPJST—

Attention SPJST Graduates

and parents and grandparents of graduates!

Graduation may still look a little different this year . . . but we want to make it special by providing a ★ ★ ★ Senior Spotlight ★ ★ ★

All SPJST high school or college seniors are encouraged to submit photographs and information that showcase them as a person and an accomplished graduate! Each graduate will be featured in a special section of the Vestnik.

To be included, please complete the following information and submit along with up to 4 photographs no later than May 31, to:

Online - www.spjst.org/graduates Email - vestnik@spjst.org • Text - 254-534-0807

Mail - SPJST VESTNIK Editor Melanie Zavodny P.O. Box 100 • Temple, Texas 76503

Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you wish to have photo(s) returned.

Name ________________________________________________________ Lodge No. and Name _________________________________________ Graduating from (name of high school or college) ______________

______________________________________________________________ Major/Degree (if applicable) ___________________________________ Parents _______________________________________________________ Grandparents ________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________ Accomplishments (optional) ___________________________________

______________________________________________________________ Future Plans __________________________________________________ Message to Graduate/Additional Information (optional) __________

______________________________________________________________ Phone _______________________Email___________________________ — Graduates must be SPJST members —

From the SPJST State Fraternal Director

SPJST member to come to camp with you. They will have to pay $350 to attend.

• If your child is a current youth club member and has made seven out of 12 meetings, SPJST will pick up the cost of camp.

• Youth who attend lodges with no youth club can attend seven adult meetings and qualify for camp without paying. The lodge secretary will need to provide the Home Office with copies of the membership roster of each meeting the youth attended.

• Youth who have not made at least seven meetings will be prorated $35 per meeting missed. Youth can make up a meeting by attending another local youth club. Please see your youth leader about this.

• Parents and grandparents, please know your child or grandchild can attend camp this year for $250 — as long as they have a current SPJST life insurance certificate that is in force.

• Parents and grandparents, if you have an in force certificate and your child or grandchild does not have one, he or she can still go to camp for $350.

• Please contact me if you have any questions about attending SPJST Summer Camp.

State Fraternal Director shares June updates

June Fraternal Focus Hosted Live and You’re Invited

Supreme Lodge President Brian Vanicek will host the next Fraternal Focus webcast on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at 7 p.m. The webcast is open to all SPJST members who register. Webcast topics vary from month to month. The lively webcast typically includes reports on select lodge happenings, organizational updates, and the “topic of the month.” As an added bonus, the names of two webcast attendees are drawn at the end of each show for prizes. It’s fun and informative. I encourage you to join in on the June presentation.

This link will take you to the registration page: https://spjst.org/fraternalfocus/ or you can go to www.spjst.org; click on events in the upper menu of the website. After you register for the webcast, you will receive a confirmation email that you registered for the event. Please see the next Vestnik for more “topic of the month” information.

SPJST District Annual Meeting

Here are the scheduled 2021 district meetings. Thank you, district officers, for scheduling your meetings on the Sundays recommended by the Supreme Lodge.

District One—Sunday, June 6

Lodge 9, Snook District Two—Sunday, June 13

Lodge 48, Beyersville District Three—To Be Announced District Five—Sunday, June 27

Lodge 81, Needville District Six—Sunday, June 13

Camp Kubena District Seven—Sunday, July 25, 2021

Jourdanton Community Center

Flag Day—June 14

The week of June 13 to 19, 2021, is designated as “National Flag Week.” During National Flag Week, the President will issue a proclamation urging United States citizens to fly the American flag for the duration of that week. In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day. In August 1949, an Act of Congress established National Flag Day. Please take a few moments on this date to pause and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag; and we encourage you to talk to your children, grandchildren, and friends about what the flag means to you. In these days we are living in, it’s important to remember that so many others have given their lives to secure our freedom so please participate in this national observance. Your lodge may want to join with a veterans organization in your community and be a part of the celebration. This would count as a service project/community outreach.

SPJST Summer Camp Information

Please know all campers must have finished kindergarten to high school senior to attend camp. For camp registration, go to the SPJST website and under programs, click on summer camp registration that will direct you to the CampDoc website to register, or click on this link: http://app.campdoc.com/register/spjst.

• Youth members, this year you can invite a friend to camp! Yes, that’s right. Your friend or friends don’t have to be an 2021 SPJST Camp Dates Leaders-In-Training (LIT)/Teen Camp

Wednesday, June 23 to Sunday, June 27

Junior Camp Session One

Wednesday, July 7 to Sunday, July 11

Districts Three, Four, Five, Seven

Junior Camp Session Two

Wednesday, July 14 to Sunday, July 18

Districts One, Two, Six

Strategic Planning for Your Lodge

SPJST recognizes the importance of fielding a fraternal program that is relevant and in touch with the lives of its members. Whereas some lodges are experiencing a resurgence in member participation, others have been less fortunate. There are reasons for this: While it is certainly possible for a lodge to experience a level of success without a plan, those lodges whose members have invested the time and resources into a mission and goals can look forward to achieving success at a much quicker pace.

A great place to start is by conducting a simple - and fun - strategic planning session that helps to answer, “What is my lodge doing to make a positive difference for its members and for the community?” And with a little bit of advance notice, President Vanicek and I would love to lend a hand with the process. With just a little preparation, it is possible to conduct this three-step exercise in 60 to 90 minutes. In the end, the information that is collected can be useful in constructing a strategic plan for your lodge.

It makes for a fast-paced and enjoyable program. Topics that don’t typically come up in your regular lodge meetings will be — the positives as well as the negatives — and then we talk about how to build on the positives and what we can do to eliminate the negatives. When we’re done, your lodge will be well on its way to moving forward with a clearly defined mission statement. If you’d like to have us come in and work with your lodge, please give Brian 254-534-2902 or me 254-534-0681 a call, and we’ll set it up.

Fraternally, Frank Horak State Fraternal Director —SPJST—