As President of the Denver Council, I decided yesterday about 1pm to cancel our meeting on Friday evening. This is the only time that a meeting was cancelled in the thirty years that I have been a member of the Council. I checked the news at noon yesterday. The weather report indicated that temperatures would drop below freezing by 5pm creating the conditions for “flash freezing” or black ice on the roads by that time. In the interest of safety, I decided that the best course was to cancel the meeting.
I contacted our guest speaker, CDR Joel McMillan as well as the US Coast Guard Cryptologic Unit Colorado to let them know and then sent out a message to all who registered for the dinner. My apologies to the few people who showed up at the Hilton Garden Inn yesterday evening.
Since the Council will have to pay for the food that we ordered I asked the hotel to prepare the meals for donation to the Homeless Day Shelter in Aurora. My husband, JJ, and I drove to the hotel to pick up the food for delivery. We drove it over to the Shelter, which was doing a brisk business in check-ins and had vans lined up to transport folks over to an overnight shelter. We met the Executive Director of the shelter, Jim, who seemed quite appreciative of our donation. I am glad that the food was put to good use.
Our next meeting will be held on Friday March 21st at the Hilton Garden Inn Denver Airport. Our guest speaker will be retired Navy Commander and Denver Council member, Chuck Ridgway. Chuck was awarded first prize in the CNO’s Naval History Essay Contest in the Rising Historian category for his entry entitled, “From Distant Shores: How the Experience of the Imperial German Navy’s East Asia Squadron Can Help Understand Chinese Overseas Naval Ambitions.”
I hope to see you in March, when the weather will be balmier!
Florence Mackin
