E-mail:  susanaustin@qwest.net

The IFC Home Tours will begin on November 20th this year and continue each Wednesday and Thursday to May 1, 2003.  As we have for the last several years, we will meet on those mornings between 10:00 - 10:30 a.m. at the Hotel Molino de Agua.  There, volunteers Leon Rolnick will be selling tickets and Esther Johnson will be helping with nametags and other necessary information.  Also, John Hamlin has graciously agreed to be my partner obtaining the houses and arranging the tours.  Bob Lilley and John Lockington will be in charge of our wonderful tour guides who go on the buses to lead the tours.

Thanks to all the volunteers last season, we had a record breaking year, both in number of tourists and amount of donations.  In order to do even better this year, we need more houses.  This is because so many of our guests have already seen most of those presently in our group of approximately 50 donated houses and they naturally want to see something different.  I am always looking for more places to tour, so if you have any ideas, please give me a call at 223-2794.

Our guests tell us that they come back not only to see the houses but because of our guides; they really enjoy meeting, listening to and being with our volunteers.  We ask that the guides give us only one morning a week and it is the most fun volunteer job in Vallarta.  If you like to meet new people and feel this is something you want to do, please call Bob Lilley at 223-0155, ext. 514, John Lockington at 222-6797 or you may sign up at the clubhouse.

The new posters will be available at the November 12th IFC meeting.  I hope all members will take several to post at places that they know will be appropriate and will not be removed.  These posters are our best advertisements so this is very important.  There will also be fliers, which some members might care to distribute to hotels, restaurants and other places that will not put up a poster.  I want to thank Vallarta Lifestyles for placing our ads, free of charge, in the magazine and map, as well as on their website.  Also, the Guadalajara Reporter and Vallarta Today deserve our appreciation for giving us so much good publicity.  Our printer, San Jorge, does a wonderful, almost free job and all of the art galleries promote us.  It is truly amazing how much support we receive from the Puerto Vallarta community.

As Tom Wichie has returned to the United States, I have been asked to assume the role of Acting Education Committee Chairman. If any of the members have an interest in assuming the Chairmanship, please contact Al or Yvonne Ward. You must have a working knowledge of Spanish and be in Vallarta at least six months of the year.

I wish to express our appreciation to Tom Guerts, a high school Spanish teacher in Wisconsin, USA. Tom has for several years mailed, carried and coerced his friends to bring down a ton of school supplies. This year, we delivered his supplies to kindergartens Clemente Orozco and Rio de Canta, two schools in “temporary” quarters. The donations to the schools were received with unbounded appreciation

This month, Sharon Brown of Michigan, USA delivered some 150 dolls to the Club. They are now in the grateful hands of the new orphanage, the Special Education School 21 and in a rather poor kindergarten. Sharon purchased the dolls and carried them down. It was a wonderful gift that uplifted the spirits of every child that received one. Sharon, thank you.

Over the course of the next few months we will be evaluating a few construction/renovation projects in the older schools.

If you have space and want to help, please bring down some kindergarten supplies. It will help many dedicated, poorly paid teachers.