Checkout the December 2011 Newsletter from the Embassy of Denmark.  The Embassy also has a new website, enjoy!!

It is that time again!!   Time to renew your Danish Club membership for another year!!  We ask those renewing to send their membership to us before January 31, 2012.  And don’t forget to tell your friends, as we always welcome new members as well!!

We’ve attached the Membership Form for 2012, please complete the form for yourself and your family and return to us along with a cheque payable to the “The Danish Club of Ottawa”.

As a non-profit organization we rely heavily on the help of volunteers.  The main reason The Danish Club of Ottawa has continued for survived for over 36 years is because of all the wonderful volunteers that have been so generous with their time.  If you are able to donate some time to help us at any of our events please complete the volunteer section of the membership registration form.

In addition, we also welcome your ideas for any new events, activities, etc.  Please feel free to send us an email with your ideas and/or write your ideas on the back of the membership registration form.

We appreciate your continued support and look forward to another year of activities and hyggelige times with the new and continuing members of The Danish Club of Ottawa.

We have been blessed with an exceptionally beautiful and long fall. It is hard to believe that another year is coming to its close.

Pastor Elisabeth Arendt is back on the pulpit from a shorter than usual maternity leave, having given birth to an adorable little girl in December last year. We welcome her back here in Ottawa on Sunday, December 11, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 272 Crichton Street.

This Service is in Danish, but everyone is welcome. It is a wonderful way to start the busy Christmas season, to sing our well-known Danish hymns and listen to the traditional Christmas gospel.

After the Service we meet next door in the Church Hall for our usual coffee and tea, with goodies. At Christmas time it is tradition, though, that we have “æbleskiver”, courtesy of Bodil and Peter.

If you can spare some of your own Christmas baking for the coffee table, it will be very well received. Hope to see you there.

Many thank yous’ to all club members for their attendance and support of the ‘club’ functions held this past year. To the Board of Directors, including Sue-Anne Nielsen, Andrea Still, Tove Essoudry, Mark Mutrie, Niki Miller, Jeff Jessen, Helen Marjos and Louise Hansen, my gratitude for supporting my ideas and helping in seeing them through to the end.

Our church committee arranged three church services and the ‘club’ had ten other functions over the course of the past year. The planned bus trip to St. Hans at Sunset Villa had to be cancelled due to insufficient numbers and the Anniversary Picnic was cancelled as well due to bad timing, and lack of organized support. All events were dutifully reported in our Viking News.

The Clubs Membership totals 201 (170 Adults and 31 children) broken down into 30 family memberships, 28 senior couple, 37 senior single, and 14 single with 3 Life Members.

The Scholarship Committee comprised of Pia Stenholt, Pernille Lamontagne and Lisbeth Hansen submitted a draft proposal to the board in the late year, which was revised and returned for them to elaborate on before presenting the final outline. The board thanks this committee for the time and effort.

It has been a difficult year to run the ‘club’ this past year as our treasurer had to return to Denmark for family reasons. My thanks go to Sue-Anne Nielsen for stepping in May to get the bank records and the clubs finances in order for the year-end audit. To go forward in the upcoming year members from the club need to step up and help by taking an active role in the board and as a volunteer at helping in set up and organizing our events.

Our constant link to our members has been our web site and the Viking News. Our thanks go out to Lisbeth Hansen for “baby sitting” the website for many years. Catherine Droessler has come back to the club and has taken over the Web Master duties and has also committed herself to be a member of the new board. Our other unsung hero of the day is Shawna Tardif who has (in my humble opinion) done a wonderful job as the ‘editor’ of the Viking News; she must have been a teacher in a past life, because all my mistakes vanish before it goes to print. My thanks once again, goes out to all who make this possible for our members.

Thanks to John Olsen and Flemming Leicht for their auditing again this year. Thank you to Leif Janichen for stepping in to chair this meeting once again. My best wishes to the Danish Club as we forge ahead into another year.

E.D. (Ted) Hansen

This is just a friendly reminder that the Club’s Annual General Meeting is this Friday (Sept 23^rd) at 7:30pm.

St. John’s Lutheran Church Hall
272 Crichton Street

It is important that you come out to support the club. As with all of our events, there will be some tasty snacks!

We hope to see you there.

The days are getting shorter, nights longer, temperature lower, wind a little stronger, guess what’s coming? Trusting your summer was safe and fun filled, welcome to the fall. Have you seen any leaves change their colour yet? Or am I pushing just a little?

We have just had a wonderful afternoon at the Senior’s Lunch, with two of our members receiving a Life Membership Certificate. Door and lottery prizes were won by many in the group, with the proceeds going to the Danish Museum in Dickson Alberta.

Our A.G.M. is next week on the 23rd.of September, and I hope a lot of our membership will attend and voice your opinion on the ‘clubs’ continuation or closing. We can continue only with your commitment. Think carefully about this, my friends, please attend the meeting, hear and be heard!

Ted Hansen

During the last year, I have used this part of the Viking News to convey my thoughts in my own words about some of the things going on within the club.

I now find it hard to say goodbye to two board members, Sue Anne and Andrea, who have served the board for many years and have been a big help to me this past year. Sue Anne has reminded, corrected, prompted, and supported me as I have stumbled through many activities this past year. Andrea was always there with the correct document or quote from a past meeting. They have done well and I wish them some rest and relaxation as they both well deserve it. We the remaining few, look to you the membership to help us continue by stepping up and filling the void, so that we can carry on.

May you all enjoy the rest of your summer, drive carefully on your trips, and return safe and sound to your loved ones. See you in the fall.

Ted Hansen