Congratulations, Nick!

Nick Colón celebrated achieving his Competent Communicator AND his 30th birthday at tonight's meeting! This was a personal goal Nick set when he first joined Afterburners, and one he can now check off his to-do list. In my opinion, tonight's speech was the best he's ever presented (no pressure for the future, Nick!) and I look forward to many more Advanced Communicator projects from him. Way to go, Nick!

If I may, I'd like to offer a word of caution. We had a guest tonight and sadly, none of us walked her to the proper exit. Poor Holly became trapped between the inner and outer doors on the first floor and couldn't leave the building! Thankfully, we have club officer phone numbers on the agenda, and Holly called Rodney King. Rodney called Tammy Bailey, who called Holly back & stayed on the line with her while Brenda Daniels and Patricia Quick maintained visual contact with her through the first floor windows. The angel of the evening turned out to be Pat, the maintenance man who chases birds out of trees in the parking lot. He heard Patricia & Holly calling to each other through the door and came to the rescue, escorting Holly to the second floor parking lot entrance. She shared a hug with all of us and was extremely happy to be set free! If she was intimidated by public speaking before, who knows what opinion she'll have now, but my guess is she's much more brave than she knew she could be! In the future, let's be sure someone walks with our first-time guests to make sure they get safely to the exit and don't have to wander through the basement catacombs!