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Rockford Cosmo Club - Zoom Luncheon - 1/21/2021
Virtual Zoom MeetingJan 21, 2021
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM -
Postponed - Crusader Health - New Building Event
Crusader HealthJan 28, 2021
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM -
Cosmo Lunch w/ Speaker
Prairie Street Brewing Co.Feb 04, 2021
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM -
Cosmo Lunch w/ Speaker
Prairie Street Brewing Co.Feb 11, 2021
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
| Tom Graceffa, Club President | Francesco Collura, Immediate Past Pres. |
Brian Thor , Vice President
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Chris Zion, President Elect
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Bill Redig, Treasurer | Eric Magnuson, Secretary |
| TBD, Sergeant at Arms | Kevin Kjellstrom, Charities Board Rep. | TBD, At Large Board Member |
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Tom Gustafson, At Large Board Member
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Dayton Smith, Accountant | Joshua Sherman, At Large Board Member |
My Fellow Cosmos – Thank you for all that you do! What our club accomplishes on an annual basis is amazing. Each year, and with the significant contributions of those who support our fundraising events, we continue our fight against diabetes while also supporting many local non-profit organizations through our annual grant program. In the 2019-2020 season, our club raised over $90,000! I hope you find your membership rewarding and value the power of our club. I encourage you to stay active, reach out to your Cosmos when in need, and help our club continue to make a difference in the lives of others.
To Prospective Members – What are you waiting for? The camaraderie of our club is second to none! Not only do we raise a significant amount of funds each year to fight diabetes and support local organizations in need, we also have a great amount of fun along the way! Although this year may be a bit different, some of our renowned events are: The Chili Shootout, Boat Trip to Chain of Lakes, Cubs Bus Trip, Steak Fry, Ice Hogs Family Night, Rivets Family Night, Rockford’s Premier Golf Outing, March Madness Raffle, Poinsettia Season, The Polar Plunge, and more! We believe the success of our club is tied directly to the bond our members share in coming together for a great cause. If you love to help your community, and events like these sound fun to you, we hope you consider joining The Rockford Cosmopolitan Club. Inquiries may be sent to our Membership Liaison, Brent Versendaal here.
To Our Beneficiaries – we thank you for your passion, good deeds, and ongoing efforts towards helping others. We recognize the many challenges you face in annual funding needs critical to your mission and goals. We are proud to help so many of you annually and encourage you to explore and apply for our Grant Program.
Tom Graceffa
President 2020-2021
Good afternoon Fellow Cosmos,
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club for your support of the 32nd Annual Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition. See the picture below:
Although we once again had to deal with warm temperatures, the sculptors did a tremendous job in dealing with these challenging conditions and creating spectacular works of art. Unfortunately, the sculptures were gone far too soon but heavy traffic on Friday and Saturday helped us reach the impressive number of over 22,000 spectators. And we had a very good year in regard to community support with over $7,000 from our 19 block sponsors and an $8,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. This was in addition to the $21,000 in donated products and services we received from our many in-kind donors and supporters.We were so impressed with the sculptures this year, especially those created by our high school teams. Visit our Facebook page and Rockford Park District photos page for pictures:
We continue to increasingly utilize social media to promote this event and it certainly gets a lot of attention. One video posted on Facebook received over 2,100 views. On Instagram, we had 624 Likes over 14 Posts. And for the first time, we created a Snapchat Filter that had 9,628 Views. I'm not exactly sure what all of this means but our marketing people say it's pretty good.
The Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition is sanctioned by the US National Snow Sculpting Competition and the winner of our event goes on to represent our state in the National Competition in Lake Geneva where they compete against other state winners. This year, Cave People from Space, comprised of Capt. Brian Hierstein, Joe Goral and Kelly Madison took first place in the Illinois Competition with their sculpture “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. They will represent Illinois next February in Lake Geneva.
The Rockford Park District is honored to be able to provide this event to our community each year and we are grateful for the many partners like you that help us. Without your help, there would be no way that we could continue offering this unique event to the City of Rockford.
Thanks again and best wishes throughout the rest of this year.
John Beck (fellow Cosmo)
Events and Recreation Projects Manager
Rockford Park District
For the second year in a row, our Team Cosmo participated in the Polar Plunge, which is a fundraiser specifically for Special Olympics. Our team led the local fundraiser for donations raised. We are super proud of our Cosmo Team! Thank you to Chris Zion for helping organize this event for interested Cosmos. See the video below:
Rockford Cosmopolitan Club
2020 Grant Recipients - $58,425!
• Barbara Olson Center of Hope $850
• Boys & Girls Club of Rockford $2,500
• Boy Scouts of America, Blackhawk Area Council $6,000
• Center for Sight & Hearing $2,000
• Crusader Community Health $20,000
• Gigi’s Playhouse of Rockford $1,500
• Ken-Rock Community Center $3,000
• Midway Village $1,000
• Northern Illinois Food Bank $3,500
• Northwest Community Center $2,000
• Patriots Gateway Community Center $3,300
• Paws Saving Lives $5,000
• Rock House Kids $1,500
• Rockford Rescue Mission $1,300
• Shelter Care Ministries $1,800
• The 17th Circuit Therapy Dog Volunteers $1,000
• The Literacy Council $1,000
• Walter Lawson Children’s Home $1,175
For the second year in a row, our Team Cosmo participated in the Polar Plunge, which is a fundraiser specifically for Special Olympics. Our team led the local fundraiser for donations raised. We are super proud of our Cosmo Team! Thank you to Chris Zion for helping organize this event for interested Cosmos. See the video below:
We had the pleasure of hosting our lunch on 2/8/18 with Major General John Borling as your headlining speaker. We had an awesome turnout and it was indeed a great time to hear him speak to our club once again. Here is the audio of his presentation:
Good afternoon Fellow Cosmos,
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club for your support of the 32nd Annual Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition. See the picture below:
Although we once again had to deal with warm temperatures, the sculptors did a tremendous job in dealing with these challenging conditions and creating spectacular works of art. Unfortunately, the sculptures were gone far too soon but heavy traffic on Friday and Saturday helped us reach the impressive number of over 22,000 spectators. And we had a very good year in regard to community support with over $7,000 from our 19 block sponsors and an $8,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. This was in addition to the $21,000 in donated products and services we received from our many in-kind donors and supporters.We were so impressed with the sculptures this year, especially those created by our high school teams. Visit our Facebook page and Rockford Park District photos page for pictures:
We continue to increasingly utilize social media to promote this event and it certainly gets a lot of attention. One video posted on Facebook received over 2,100 views. On Instagram, we had 624 Likes over 14 Posts. And for the first time, we created a Snapchat Filter that had 9,628 Views. I'm not exactly sure what all of this means but our marketing people say it's pretty good.
The Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition is sanctioned by the US National Snow Sculpting Competition and the winner of our event goes on to represent our state in the National Competition in Lake Geneva where they compete against other state winners. This year, Cave People from Space, comprised of Capt. Brian Hierstein, Joe Goral and Kelly Madison took first place in the Illinois Competition with their sculpture “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. They will represent Illinois next February in Lake Geneva.
The Rockford Park District is honored to be able to provide this event to our community each year and we are grateful for the many partners like you that help us. Without your help, there would be no way that we could continue offering this unique event to the City of Rockford.
Thanks again and best wishes throughout the rest of this year.
John Beck (fellow Cosmo)
Events and Recreation Projects Manager
Rockford Park District
On Thursday, January 25th, Mark Doudlah of www.DoudlahFarms.com headlined our Cosmo lunch. He impacted everyone in attendance! This was not your average health food presentation. Mark is a 4th generation farmer and has become a national authority for assisting traditional farmers to converting to organic methods. Here is his presentation in its entirety:
Click Here to Download his Powerpoint Presentation.
FBI Special Agent, Christopher Remillard, delivered a great presentation to approximately 50 of our members on 10/5/17! Within the presentation, he explained the inner workings of how the local FBI office was constructed, as well as how the International entity works on a daily basis.
The Question/Answer session also allowed our members to ask those burning questions that everyone wants to ask, such as the Equifax hack and how the FBI generally proceeds with their investigation of such an issue. Thank you Special Agent Remillard for your time for this presentation!
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Some presidents in the past have chosen to "theme" their presidency. The theme for John LiCausi for 2017/2018 is to "run the Cosmopolitan Club like a business."
With the significant revenue that our club generates with our 200 members (and growing), it is critical that we apply business sense to every decision that we make as an organization.
In the spirit of this theme, Gary Kieper, CEPA, CFBA spoke at our first luncheon on Thursday 9/28/17 at Forest Hills Country Club. He also joined our club as a new member after he finished!
The title of his presentation was "Selling YOU ... Ready, Set, Go!"
If you missed the lunch, then no worries. Here is his entire presentation in HD video:
Click Here to Download his Presentation Slides in PDF format.
The signage for the first Cosmopolitan Club naming opportunity in the new Crusader Clinic location on Alpine Road was meant to be the Patient Education Room, however, it got turned into an exam room (at the time of the Ribbon Cutting). So now the Cosmopolitan Club has two naming rooms, that includes the exam room and the second one being the original intention of the Patient Education Room.
40 Cosmos and 3 guests attended our lunch featuring Dave Syverson. It was a great time hearing him speak about local and national politics. Here is the event video:
Thanks to the coordination of Tom Grimes and the 9 Cosmos that volunteered to manage the cash and chips, the club netted $1,750 during the 9/7/16 poker event at the Hoffman House! This means that the time of our volunteers was worth almost $50/ per hour! That is awesome! Keep up the great work...
Today we revealed the new website concept for Cosmopolitan International as well as the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club. We went into depth regarding the science of how we laid out the new website to improve membership and fundraising. It will also now be 100% fully mobile responsive. If you missed it, then you can watch the video below.
For easy understanding and branding purposes, the "Smooch a Pooch" program is now known as the "Paws Saving Lives" program. This program is being led by our own Rick Swansboro.
See the Download Files section to the left for the Powerpoint Presentation that explains the program.
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Date of Event: 9/29/16
Did you miss our first lunch of the 2016/2017 season? If so, then you missed a great one! Dr. Alex Stagnaro-Green educated attendees about the different types of diabetes and the science behind them. However, no worries if you were not there, because you can view the entire presentation right here in HD: