The Annual Four Winds Banquet was held at Sawa's Old Warsaw Restaurant (9200 W Cermak Rd, Broadview, IL ) at noon April 14th 2019, and was quite a success. It was Four Winds Ski Club's first time there since the 2016 merger with OPSC (which never had a banquet reserved there, anyway), and met with wide approval with the 31 people who attended the event. The buffet quality, the dining room ambience, the service, whatever, Sawa had it.  Our club leader Russ Butler gave a brief and interesting after-dinner speech concerning the club's past year but spoke of no plans for the next, for, as he explained, he was finishing his final year as president.   Phil Wegrzyn replaced him officially at the April club board meeting.

Speech was followed by "Four Winds - 2019 Wacky Awards", a humorous scripted presentation of awards to club members whose deeds performed during the past year merited recognition. Phil Skultety wrote the awards and functioned as Master of Ceremonies while others delivered the actual award certificates to the recipients. Following is the Public Relation's edited transcript of Phil's written creation, followed by matching photos:

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"THE FOUR WINDS - 2019 WACKY AWARDS" is now in progress!"

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 1 This first award goes to the person who kept us all in the know with the very creative, colorful and fact-filled Four Winds monthly newsletter for the past five years.

So, it’s time to honor him with the MOST CREATIVE award to: Gregg Schuring.
I know it’s a hard job and we’re all thankful that you are doing this for us.
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2 Now we have an award for one of our skiers who has searched the world over and has finally found her favorite run at Aspen Highlands. Somebody at Aspen must have heard about it because they actually put her name on it.

Our TOP RUN award goes to: Kristi Clark.
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3 Next, one of our skiers was heard crying, “What did I get myself into?” This skier decided to hang out with a couple of our knuckleheads who drug him up to the top of Aspen Highlands which is up at 12,500 feet.

So, the I CAN BARELY BREATHE UP HERE award goes to: Craig Paarmann.
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4 Most of you know we just came back from our trip to Switzerland. As you would expect, many of the people on the trip took a lot of pictures. Well, there was one individual in particular, who went above and beyond. While not only logging around a camera bag with some 30 pounds of gear in it on our three excursions, he managed to shoot a record number 770 pictures in a single day. Our accounting team is still out there counting all of the pictures to figure out many he actually took on that trip.
This year’s SHUTTER BUG award goes to: Jack Gildroy.
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5 Speaking of pictures, we were really proud and excited when we heard that several of our Four Winders got their picture taken in the local Davos newspaper. It would have been nice if it was for skiing, but since we are also a social club, we are still proud to present our TOP SHOPPER award to: Beth, Kathy, Pat, Diane, Natalie, Sheri, Val, and Gregg.
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6 We had one of our members on our trip who seemed to have trouble keeping track of all his stuff. Things like a camera, passport, credit card, cell phone and at one point even himself. Like a cat with nine lives, this member continued to misplace things and somehow, he managed to get them all back.
So our LOST AND FOUND award goes to: Tony Z .
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7 While skiing in Davos we came upon a race track there. This wasn’t your typical Nastar slalom course but an actual drag racing course straight down the hill to see how fast you could possibly go.
I’m excited to report that one of our skiers hit a top speed of 92.3 kilometers, or 57.3 miles per hour, and lived tell us about it.
Our SPEED RACER award goes to: Russ Butler.
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8 Our last award goes to one of our trip leaders who went well above and beyond. She worked months and months planning the perfect trip for the group. Exchanging over a hundred emails with the tour operators, the hotel and tour guides. Unfortunately, there was bit of a panic when, on the day before the trip, the flight for 9 of the members who were supposed to fly Swissair out of O’Hare separately to meet up in Zürich airport with the 28 other members on the trip to catch a bus to Davos, was canceled.
Fortunately, the tour operator managed to get the 9 members on to another flight the next day but they first had to fly to Detroit and then on to Zürich to catch up with the group. Well, after that rough start the trip went off without a hitch, until the end of the week. That was when the 11 people who were scheduled to be spending one night in Zürich went to check into their hotel only to find that they did not have any reservations. So, in steps our trip leader to get rooms arranged for all of us. 

 Then, the next morning back in Davos, just when she thinks she is done and that she has the balance of the 28 people standing in the lobby to get ready to leave their hotel in Davos, she finds out that there is no bus scheduled to take the group to the Zürich airport. Once again, she prevails and is able to find an alternate bus to get the group to the airport in time to make their flight home.

And with all that, this trip leader never once lost her cool.

So our TOP TRIP LEADER award goes to: Sheri Butler for putting together what in the end turned out to be the trip of a lifetime and one that I’m sure Sheri will never forget.

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[For an early item see last month’s Davos ski 'n' see - az]

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