During the past weekend the Rossland Legion
Branch No.. 14 played host to the Zone Fall
meeting. Nine Legion branches were in attendance
plus a dmen or more people representing VFW
branches in the U.S., Deer Park and Airway
Heights from Spokane.
The meetings started on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
and continued on until 4:30 p.m. when they broke
up to allow the ball to be made ready for the
evening banquet and dance. The banquet was
catered to by the Rebekah Ladles in the Oddfellows
ball and very lively music was provided by
Souveniers. I got the impression that everybody
wished that the music would continue longer than it
did, but then I guess there's a limit to everyone's
endurance and that includes quite a number of
those dancing. I know it's a long time since I spent
as much time out on a dance Door.
Rossland's Mayor Gordon Jenks welcomed the
delegates to our city, extolling the virtues of people
who live in our part of the world where the sun
shines a lot and the air is clean and fresh. He made
mention of the fact that if any delegates found
parking tickets on their vehicles they were to take
them to Zone Secretary Jim Schuck who would
process them, like tearing them up and depositing
them in the nearest garbage disposal.
Airway Heights Ed Tomasitis spoke next and
invited all the branches present to attend a parade
in Spokane on April 26, 1988. He said be would
arrange to have the same group of musicians who
beaded our parade, accompany us down there to
bead thei march. He also mentioned a renewal of
the golf tourney between Canadian branches and
the American ones. He jokingly added that they
would be prepared to give lessons to anyone in
need of them.
. After be finished t.alldng, Mel Ringhiem of the
Grand Forks branch said be fully apected that his
branch would gladly put on the tourney at the
Christina Lake Course. It will be an 18-bole layout
by spring. The tourney will be called the Can-Am.
Despite the fact that John McFarland and
Garry Seefeldt spent considerable time setting up a
speaker system at the ball, those speaking had to
be reminded several times to use it as a number of
people at the back of the ball complained and
finally the message got across. Then on Sunday
morning the·initial session was conducted without
the aid of a speaker system. It was one of those
cases of lack of communication, I didn't intend that
to come out that way, but it did anyway. Communications were restored and the rest of the day
went along swimmingly.
·
Back to Saturday, the Kaslo branch told the
meeting they would like to send more people but
travel and lodging apenses plus what they considered a rather high tariff for people taking in the
sessions, prevented more people being present.
Several explanations were offered by the host club
and others for the charges and it was cleared up to
Kaslo's satisfaction.
·
Bingo in local Legions was given ICIIDe time in
discussions.
Hall and Doug Mcllaae. of the
Trail club both spoke on the subject. Ball
saying that, "Charity is not benevolence · and
benevolence is not charity." He added that B11110 Is
no longer a Legion preserve. Mcisaac said that &be
city fathers in Trail had been asked to intervene
when it was nnnored that two commercial bingo
operators were caming to Trail to start up. The
council passed a ruling keeping those kind of
people out of town.
Codlllittees were struck with membenbip
going to the Kaslo
wa Uld....means to

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cliscussum.
Hall and Doug Mclaaae_ of tbe
Trail club both spoke on the subject. Ball
11•
saying that, "Charity is not benevolence · and
benevolence is not charity." He added that BJqo is
no longer a Legion preserve. Mclaaac said that the
city fathers in Trail bad been asked to intervene
when it was nunored that two commercial bingo
operators were coming to Trail to start up. The
council passed a ruling keeping those kind of
people out of town.
Codlmlttees were struck with membenblp
going to the Kaalo branch, ways and means to
Nakusp, sports to Trail, veterans affairs to Sabno,
and public relations to Zone Secretary Jim Schuck.
Presentations were made to Ed Tomuitis and
Jim King the reps of the VFW from our Dominion
President for work towards friendship between our
two countries. They, in tum presented citations to
Zone Commander Earl Moffett of Nakusp.
On Sunday morning the DVA rep, Wllf Solonlk
spoke to the gathering citing that there are going to
be changes in the way the DVA eaten to veterans.
He said there was also a move being made to
prevent vets from having to make the long trip to
Vancouver to get certain medical help. He also
suggested picking up a book called The Elder
Statesman available at all Shoppers Drug Marts in
the province.
Doug Mcisaac, on sports, spoke at some length
on venues of various Dominion and Provincial
competitions. Rather than make mistakes on scme
of these, I would like to suggest contacting Doug
at the Trail branch and you will get this info firsthand. I know Rossland will host 1988 Zone Darts
and Nelson will do the same for the Legion·Zone
Curling this coming spring. He congratulated
Grand Forks on the Zone Golf Tourney which
hosted 76 members and earned some $800.
On membership, it was brought up that
grandchildren of vets should be given the chance at
membership and that Fraternal members should
be allowed more input into the branch. I know that
Rossland bas an excellent group of Fraternals who
do a real good job for us.
Branch activity reports for 1985 showed that
they have been busy with varied degrees of a
successful year. Sale of tulip bulbs was blgb on the
list, others included renovation of premises, Grand
Forks, Nakusp did work on their cenotaphs and
Salmo will erect a new cenotaph next year, the
ground work for which was 1one this year. All
reported work on the coming celebration of our
60th anniversary.
Ladies Auxiliary Zone Commander Dorothy
Gyte of Rossland gave a very good report on LA.
activities and hoped that the trend towards L.A.
members taking up Legion membership would not
go so far as to deplete the ranks of the L.A., saying
that their numbers bad gone down some in 1985.
The subject of "Where do we go from here?"
took up some time. Several subjects were approached and suggestions made ranging from
enlivening our meetings to prevent boredcm,
sending young associates to provinclal conventions
to give them a taste of the Legion's business, and
follow up on new members to get them to take a
more active role in the organization. Jalmer Hall
of Trail, a very experienced Legion executive, says
we have to change the face of the Legion, get more
young people active as these are the people who the
Legion bas to depend upon in the future.
All in all the input was terrlflc and we sball
look for some progress in the follow-up
suggestions.
Til next time, then!

-r-o