Welcome to our annual Christmas gathering |
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A beautiful Christmas tree with PSST gifts to be exchanged
(Please note: Placing the cursor over a picture gives you some info on it....)
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Ed Ladd, Mahandran Rajasuriar and Thad Magyar socializing.
Members arrived with gifts in hand around noon to start our annual Christmas gathering. As usual, this months meeting is the largest of the year. Many
members are freed up this time of year to come out and socialize with their fellow society members. Once again, Ruth Merrill was gracious enough to host
this large event. This is the forth year in a row that Ruth has hosted this meeting and we thank her for her generosity. In appreciation of her efforts, the
society thought it be fitting to present Ruth with a small token of our appreciation. We purchased a little nativity sculpture that was accented with palm
trees, of course.
As customary, Ruth put on a feast for all to enjoy. Along with her main dishes, members brought side dishes, salads and of course desserts! Everyone
had plenty to eat and there were still leftovers. A fabulous meal with great friends, truly Christmas! After the meal, we had a brief meeting where we covered
some of the issues the society is working. One of these items was the possibility of becoming a non-profit organization. There are many pros and cons to
doing this and it is still under review. We also discussed the issue of helping out the San Antonio Botanical Garden in identifying and creating signs for their
palm and cycad garden. We have made head way on this project and may get it accomplished early in 2005 with the help of a couple members, namely George and Virginia Gause.
Romeo Montalvo announced that he and fellow PSST member Robert Robles have been working on creating a botanical garden for the city of Brownsville. The property has
been purchased and plans are underway. We here at PSST congratulate them on their generosity and progress and look forward to helping them establish a beautiful garden for
all of Brownsville to enjoy.
After the meeting was held, we conducted our annual anonymous Christmas gift exchange. Those that brought gifts were given a numbered ticket. John Volk conducted the gift exchange
by calling numbers that were pulled by society members along with an a joining gift that was also picked by the member. As usual, nearly all of the gifts were palm related and usually very practical.
Here are some of the pictures from the gift exchange.
After the gift exchange, members toured the beautiful gardens and enjoyed another beautiful south Texas winter day. Here are
some pictures of Ruth's garden, enjoy.
and one last picture from Ruth's |
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A beautiful south Texas nativity scene.
Meeting summary by John Volk. Photos by John Volk unless otherwise stated.
