Welcome Provisionals!

We are pleased to announce that all of this year's proposed Provisional members were voted into the club at our September general meeting and were welcomed at our October general meeting with a social held in their honor!

We'd like to welcome the following ladies into our Junior Auxiliary family:
-Marcy Bolding
-Kimberly Chisam
-Nicole Chisam
-Tiffany Gannon
-Lacey Jones
-Tiffany Keeton
Ashley Moore
-Pamela Shelton
-Rosie Shirley
-Veronica Stepien
-Anne Vance
-Kelly Wood

From their applications we learned that they are a very hard-working, passionate and dedicated group of women and we're very excited to have them join our group!

We hope that in the next few months that they take opportunities to get to know the other members of the club and that they learn a great deal about J.A. and what this organization is all about. The work that we do is not always easy but it's always rewarding and we're happy to have these ladies to join our cause!

Member Appreciation Brunch Recap

Our Member Appreciation Brunch was a success!

It was open to all active, associate and life members and it was really a great opportunity for us to spend a little “off-duty” time together, getting to know each other a little better, sharing individual and group accomplishments, welcoming new Active members, celebrating our Associate and Life members and, of course, giving out some awards!

___________________________________________________________________

Those award winners were:

• Jennifer Brooks - Member of the Year
• Jamye Jaco - Executive Award for Service
• Pam Cantrell - The Presidents Award for Participation and Enthusiasm

The awards say it all! Congratulations ladies!

___________________________________________________________________

Members that were granted Active status were:

• Cole Black
• Lori Womack
• Jennifer McBride
• Carly Bruce
• Allison Tupper
• Danielle Miller
• Christie Gilispie
• Jessica Higgins
• Aimee Hale

Congratulations Ladies! We're so excited to have you in the club - You were such an enthusiastic Provisional Class and we're so excited to see what you'll do now as Active Members!

____________________________________________________________________

Members whose status changed from Active to Associate (meaning they served the equivalent of 1 Provisional year and 5 Active years in J.A.) were:

• Jennifer Brooks
• Pam Cantrell
• Joyce Britton
• Tina Smith
• Dana Roller
• Toree Craven

Congratulations to y'all too! Your service to J.A. and to our community has meant everything...you've made the club what it is today and the rest of us definitely have some big shoes to fill!

_____________________________________________________________________

Finally, members whose status changed from Associate to Life (meaning that they served the equivalent of 10 Associate years OR paid the equivalent of 10 years' Associate dues) were:

• Diane Wood
• Joyce Britton
• Cindy Rogers
• Jackie Reed
• Tammy Womack

You ladies have set such wonderful examples for the rest of us! We're so excited to be able to celebrate your service to the club and to Warren County...our Life members are really the rock on which our chapter is built, so congratulations to you on this milestone!

____________________________________________________________________

So thanks to all who attended this brunch. It was so much fun! Please feel free to email jamcminnville@yahoo.com to make suggestions for next year's Member Appreciation Event.

P.S. I'll be posting pictures as soon as I get them...keep watching the blog! -Ashley

Annual Education Conference

Twelve of our members attended the Annual Education Conference in Birmingham, AL.

Susan Burks, Natalie Miller, Allison Tupper, Ashley Gillentine, Jamie Lorance, Jennifer McBride, Brooke Totherow, Shauna Wiley, Cole Black, Kristy Weeter, Holly Magness and Tabetha Sullens all packed their bags and headed out for a girls' weekend full of learning, bonding and networking with other chapters. We even got two national honor while there; the Robbins Family Scholarship Challenge - Sapphire Crown Recognition...and the Efficiency Award!

We all had a great time...and just last week a story about our trip made the Southern Standard!

Check out their site at http://www.southernstandard.com/ and we're in the lifestyles section for Wednesday June 18, 2008....and click here for the link if you can connect to it - read all about us!

We're in the News!

Wednesday's Style Page in the Southern Standard had a story about our mural that was painted by J.A. Life Member Pat Bigbee. Go check it out at http://www.southernstandard.com/ or use this link!

The Bicentennial Committee is using the mural for the L. Virginia French Ball on Saturday night. Go to this link to learn about the details for this event.

What is Junior Auxiliary?

For those of you who don't know; Junior Auxiliary of McMinnville is a chapter of the National Association of Junior Auxiliaries (NAJA) - a christian-based organization focused on making a lasting difference in our communities by meeting the needs of the citizens, especially the children. Our organization's slogan is "Care Today - Character Tomorrow"...along the same lines of the "Teach a Man to Fish" school of thinking. Click here to see the NAJA website.

We are a group of women, here in McMinnville, who believe that we can make a difference in Warren County and in order to do that, we participate in and host several service projects in the community;

from the fun and family-friendly Christmas in the Park, which has become a community tradition - a music, games and hot apple cider-filled night in downtown McMinnville that encourages family togetherness and community fellowship;

- to Coats for the Community, a project in which we collect donated coats and winter weather items from all over Warren County and then set up at the mall in the fall in order to give out the coats free to families and individuals who need them.

We also host the Junior Miss Warren County Pageant in April and the Snow Princess Pageants in February,

as well as several other fundraising projects in order to raise money to support all the service that we do for Warren County!

We'll be updating this blog pretty regularly so we hope you check back often to see what's going on with our club.

If you have any questions about Junior Auxiliary of McMinnville and our projects, would like to to learn ways that you can help out our organization, or would like to know about our membership requirements; feel free to contact our public relations chair, Ashley Gillentine at ashleys_attic_mcminnville@yahoo.com or talk to any J.A. of McMinnville member that you know.