Why “TAPS” is played
If any of you have ever been to a military
funeral in which taps are played, this brings out a new meaning of it. Here is
something Every North American should know…Until I read this:
We in North America have all heard that haunting song,” Taps”. The song
gives that lump in our throats and usually tears in our eyes. However, do you
know the story behind the song? If not, I think you will be interested to find
out its humble beginnings.
Reportedly it all began in 1862 during the
Civil War< when the Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men
near Harrison’s landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the
narrow strip of land. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a
soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union
or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the
stricken man back for medical attention. Crawling on his stomach through the
gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him towards
his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered
it was actually a confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain
lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and centime with shock. In the dim
light, he saw the face of his own son. The boy had been studying music in the
South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in
the Confederate Army. The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked
permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial, despite his
enemy status. His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if
he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at
the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate.
However, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only
one musician. The Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series
of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead
youth’s uniform. This wish was granted. The haunting melody, we now know as
“Taps” used at military funerals was born.
The words are:
DAY IS DONE… GONE THE SUN! FROM THE LAKES …FROM THE
HILLS…FROM THE SKY. ALL IS WELL SAFELY REST …DIMS THE SIGHT…AND A STAR.. DIMS THE SIGHT AND A STAR …GEMS THE SKY GLEAMING BRIGHT
FROM AFAR..DRAWING NIGH. FALLS THE NIGHT. THANKS AND
PRAISE … FOR OUR DAYS… NEATH THE SKY. AS WE GO THIS,
WE KNOW … GOD IS, NIGH.
Remember Those Lost and
Harmed while Serving Their Country and Those Presently Serving in the Armed
Forces. May God Bless Them and Our Country!
DISTRICT
DIRECTOR:
Hi everyone:
HAPPY GROUNDHOGS
DAY!!
Although most portions
of the state have had a very mild winter so far, we still have about seven
weeks before spring according to the calendar but this morning Phil saw his
shadow and forecast six (6) more weeks of winter.
KEYSTONE STATE RALLY:
The Keystone State
Rally plans are proceeding along nicely. We have a lot of exciting, fun
activities
planned. Tom and Renee, will be visiting your Chapter soon to
explain the activities in more
detail. HAVE YOU SENT IN YUR REGISTRATION YET????
THE RALLY FLIERS ARE
OUT AND AVAILABLE FROM YOUR CHAPTER DIRECTOR, ASSISTANT CHAPTER DIRECTOR AND/OR
FROM THE WEB PAGE “Get your rally registration in early and avoid
the rush and assure your self a place at the rally. One major change this year
is “TO COMPETE IN ANY RALLY EVENT, YOU MUST
BE FULLY REGISTERED FOR THE RALLY”, EX: Bike Show, Light
Show, Chapter Competitions, Hospitality Room and COY competition.
DAY PASSES FOR THE RALLY:
Contrary to what you
may have heard, WE WILL HAVE DAY PASSES AVAILABLE AT THE RALLY.
The price of a Day Pass will be $15.00 for a GWRRA member and $20.00
for Non GWRRA members.
Just to let you know
how the day passes will work this year:
They will ONLY be
good from 9:00
a.m. until 5:00 p.m. for admittance to the VENDORS and SEMINARS
only, “NOTHING ELSE “. Admission to everything else requires FULL REGISTRATION.
Let’s get started to sell the Keystone Rally Raffle
tickets:
A ticket sells for
$5.00 each and is a very easy way to raise funds for your Chapter. Remember
this year our “CASH BONANZA” gives you 40 chances to win. There will be (2) $1,000.00
winners, (2) $500.00 winners, (4) $250.00 winners, (10) $100.00 winners and
(22) $50.00 winners.
Remember the more
tickets your Chapter sells, the more money your Chapter will receive. We NEED
EVERYONE’S help in this fundraiser.
RALLY AD
BOOK:
It’s not too early to
get your Chapters Ad for the Rally Ad Book into John and Bonnie McClun. A flier
is included with this newsletter. The prices are the same as last year
$75.00 for a Full page, $40.00 for a Half page and $25.00 for a Business Card
size ad. Last year we had 100% participation by the Chapters and are expecting
to do the same in 2008.
The Assistant District
Directors still have a very limited supply of the 25th Anniversary pins available
at a cost of $3.00 per pin. Only 600 of these pins were made so when the pins
that the
Assistant District
Directors have are gone there will be no more.
Evelyn and I would
like to take this opportunity to wish all our GWRRA friends a
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.
“Ride Safe & Ride Proud”
Chuck & Evelyn Stone
PA-District Directors
NE-ASSISTANT
DISTRICT DIRECTORS:
Here it is- February.
Although we are glad January is over, we can’t believe how fast it went. Thank
you to all of our chapter directors and treasurers for getting the yearend
paperwork to us in a timely fashion. Life is much smoother when we don’t upset
Mr. Stone. Now that all of the paperwork is done…relax!!
We started out by
attending Winter Thing in Maryland.
It was really nice to spend some time with friends and people we hadn’t seen in
a few months. There were a few bikes there. Buddy Thompson and Tony Cameron
from PA CHAPTER H braved the cold and rode the 200 plus miles. We enjoy our
bike, but I can honestly say, Renee was glad we were
in the heated car.
We also enjoyed
chapter X’s After Christmas party. The Carriage Inn had the best meatloaf you
ever tasted. Last year, the CD was supposed to order
meatballs and said meatloaf. We all
enjoyed it at the party, and many of us requested it for this
year. It was something a little different
than the usually party food. Too bad the owners have
decided to retire and sell . The Carriage Inn
is to become a Baptist Church. We sure will miss that meatloaf!
We also visited Johnstown again to see about a few improvements in our upcoming
rally.
The Rally plans are
coming along. Everything seems to be coming to together. We have started
visiting the chapters, promoting all the fun events. The plans
seem to be well received. We know
there are a lot of great dancers out there!! As you know by
now, The Western Hoe Down events for
Friday are:
Cowboy Obstacle,
Tote’m Tales, and A Country Line Dance Competition. Please let us know by June 1st if your
chapter is going to participate in any or all of the events.
This year, we will be
supporting the WEST END FOOD PANTRY. This is a food pantry, so, they
prefer all donations to be in “normal” size cans. We believe that the GWRRA
family is very generous and showed that at the last two rallies in Lancaster. We would like to think that the GWRRA membership
would leave their mark on the people in need of help in Johnstown the same way they helped the people in Lancaster. No reward or prize is greater than the feeling that
you get when helping your fellow man when they need it most. We all left our
mark with the people
of Lancaster,
let’s do it for the people of Johnstown. Mort and Ruth Smith are
putting a great deal of work into this project to make it a success. Please do
what you can to help out. We know we told you, you can relax now, but there is
one more thing. Please get those raffle tickets to chapter members as soon as
possible and get them sold. We need returns on a monthly basis. Remember, this
can be a major fundraiser for your chapter. One that is painless. Don’t forget
the district staff meeting is in Johnstown, April 26. It will be held a the
Quality Inn.
Have a great month
Stay warm
Tom and Renee Wasluck
NE Assistant District Directors
And rally Event
Coordinators
PA DISTRICT MED COORDINATORS
“
Membership Enhancement”
This part of the
membership Enhancement program is the Recruitment and Retention As with the other
three programs in MED, this one is very important Recruiting ; a new member of
a organization, to strengthen with new members.
Retention: the act of
retaining, capacity to retain. That is how Webster defines these two words.
That is exactly what the process is in GWRRA -- Add new members and retain the present
members.
The following was
written by June Agee, MED Director:
Membership Cycle:
“Membership retention
is the natural completion of the membership recruitment process. Recruitment
and retention are the beginning and end of the membership cycle. In between recruitment
and retention is the period where the new member’s expectations are either fulfilled,
resulting in a satisfied and enthusiastic member, or are left unfulfilled
resulting in a disillusioned member who is not likely to renew his or her
membership when it expires. While all GWRRA members are encouraged to
participate in the recruitment process and should be active participants in the
activities of their local chapter helping to welcome the new member, it is
ultimately the responsibility of the Chapter Director to make sure that the new
members are firmly integrated
into the activities of the chapter and that the new members
do not “fall through the cracks”.
Cause and Effect: The amount of effort needed to achieve successful
membership retention is to a large degree inversely proportional to the
quantity and quality of effort expended on the first two parts of the
membership cycle, the recruitment and the membership period following
recruitment The stronger the first and second phases
of the cycle are, the easier the third
phrase becomes. Conversely, a strong recruitment phase with
a weak membership phase results in a
retention phase that could be near impossible to accomplish
successfully.” Thank you June. I hope this brings a better
understanding to this one phase of the Membership Enhancement program.
Mort & Ruth Smith
District MED Coordinators
Northeast Region Public Relations
Coordinators
SCHEDULE AND DATES OF UPCOMING CHAPTER X ACTIVITIES:
|
2/17
|
‘X’ Gathering
|
|
3/16
|
‘X’ Gathering
|
|
4/27
|
Tour De Scranton
|
|
6/7
|
B-XLAZY
|
|
9/7
|
X Anniversary party and Bike show
|
BIRTHDAYS,ANNIVERSARIES AND
STUFF:
|
BIRTHDAYS
|
ANNIVERSARIES
|
|
Jan
8 Bill Williams
|
Jan
31 Phil and Jan Paylor
|
|
Feb
27 Carol Rodgers
|
|
|
|
|
FROM YOUR
PA DISTRICT RIDER EDUCATOR:
Hello to All,
Seems
like this time of each month comes around fairly fast. As we are busy planning our years
activities getting them on the calendar. The weather has been rather strange, here in the North-East of PA, there has been some
days when one might get the fever to get the bike out. Then, comes the cold and
ice, or snow and we think again. Just think, however, Spring
is getting closer everyday.
There are still a few
Chapters, who do not have a Rider-Educator, sure would like to hear from this
few. As always, Safety is very important to all of us. Remember, we need an
activity report from each chapter each month to be sent on to Region.
Appreciate your few minutes of time on this.
Be Safe, Mae
WING
DING 30:
We hope
one of the first things you plan to do is go to WING DING 30 in Greenville
South
Carolina. We are fortunate this year that it is being held in the
Eastern part of the country. It
makes for
a great opportunity for many Northeast Region members who have never
experienced a
Wing Ding to try it out. The Northeast Region is responsible for organizing the Grand
Parade, where GWRRA will go into the Guinness Book of World Records for having
the most Gold Wings in a single parade. The Guinness officials will be on hand
to witness and authenticate the event. So here is your chance to go down in
History. Oh, by the way, the Northeast Region is also responsible for the Grand
Light Parade as well. So we will be looking for volunteer help then as well. What
can you do to help? The Grand Parade is where we need the most help. Due to the
anticipated large turnout, we need at least 50 volunteers available. Of course,
the more volunteers the better for everyone. We will need to split into 2
groups; one group for the parade staging and one group for the parade
de-staging. As far as the Lighted Bike Show, we can probably get by with about
20 volunteers. Our
main goal
is for the members that attend Wing Ding to have a good and safe time. Your cooperation
in passing on this information to everyone and then making a list of those who
will help us by volunteering will be greatly appreciated.
What’s
new on www.gwrranortheastregion. org? We hope
you have noticed our new website
sponsors.
Why not look over their ads and visit their website. You may find something new
and
different.
We have had many people email us and ask us if we could provide them with
information on the dates and locations of rallies within our region. So with
the help and cooperation of our
Region
Webmaster, Tom Evans, we will be adding a “calendar” list of rally events (by
date) within our region. Tom Evans suggested we bring it to a higher level. He
will provide a login for the Region Rider Educator and Region Leadership Trainer
so they can put events on the calendar as well. Additionally, he will provide
logins for FA/CPR and other staff positions. Also, he is willing to create a
login for each DD so they too can post their major events within their district
such as rallies, ride-ins, picnics etc. The really huge advantage to this is
that the webmaster (Tom) creates the calendar format, then others post their
own information, and the webmaster is out of it. We use an approver, (that
would be your NERD’s) to make sure that the posting
makes sense, has the necessary information including place, contacts, etc, and
calendar events are not created for competing organizations, beer busts, etc,
before the items are made public. Also, Tom stated that, he could provide a “month-at-a-glance
calendar” that will be very user friendly and look very professional, if you have
a lot of those events to post. Take a look at this calendar for a sample
http://www.ftroop-nj.com/events.htm. The door to communication is ALWAYS OPEN.
When you want to vent, make a suggestion, or any other reason, just contact us.
We will get back to you as soon as we get back from one of our trips…or sooner.
Lorraine & Earl
FROM OUR COY:
We very MUCH enjoyed the “after Christmas party” at
the Carriage Inn… thanks for all the hard work to each of you that made it
happen. A very SPECIAL thankyou to the members of our own chapter as well as Chapters R,H, and
N who came from CLEAR across the state to help us celebrate!!
Bill and
Vicki Weaver Chapter X COY
