The June Breakfast Committee has kicked off planning for the 2019 breakfast at Riverside Park, to be held from 7am-11am on Sunday, June 2nd. All SILGers are reminded that this is a full-club fundraising activity (like Festival of Trees) and all members participate, so please get the date onto your calendars!  This year will be extra special, as the LHS Tiger Marching Band will be unveiling their new uniforms at 10:30am with a live, on-site performance in the park in honor of SILG’s support!

Each member sells Breakfast tickets (10) and those will be made available soon – they “go like hotcakes” and members often need more to fulfill the demand. Ticket envelopes will be handed out at meetings and/or mailed/delivered to members so watch your email for details. To fulfill the participation requirement, members may join the planning committee or work a shift/s at the event. There are many jobs – and many hands make light work – plus it’s a fun day to to meet and mingle with the community that supports our educational mission. If you are not able to work a shift, you can even sweet-talk a friend or family member into doing this for you!

If you’d like to find out more about June Breakfast, contact Chair Jacque (see the SILG Directory for her contact info) or attend the next committee meeting on April 8th at 12noon, Denny’s Banquet Room.

Current Member Profile: Shayla Rollins (Joined 2016)

My hometown is… La Grande OR, born and raised. I left for a short time to see the world, well, Portland and California, but I was 18 and on my own so it felt like the world. I came back to La Grande a few years later to raise my kids and be close to family.

What do you want other members to know MOST about who you are? I care a lot about people, I think everyone is equal although not all are given the same opportunities. I believe everyone has good in them, some just make bad choices. My kids are the most important thing to me, my goal in life is to make sure they are happy, healthy, and grow up to be respectable, honest people.

#1 reason you joined Soroptimist? I want to be able to help people that haven’t had the same opportunities I have. I have been so blessed in life and want to help others achieve their goals.

Snack you always have in your desk or purse? Are you kidding, I have kids, we have pretzels, gold fish crackers, fruit snacks, yoo-hoo’s, granola bars, and gum.

What did you want to be when you were growing up and why? Future life goals? I wanted to be an Interior Designer, who knew I’d be an exterior designer without the glam. I love to decorate and make things pretty, organizing is relaxing to me. I never dreamed or knew about my current career but I do love it and hope to for many more years.

What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning? Life! I truly love life, I have a nice home, great job, good health, a big family and kids. What’s not to be excited about? Although I complain about stupid little things as do we all, the big picture is amazing.

Best vacation yet? Future dream vacation? What defines a vacation? The Oregon Coast is my favorite place only because I haven’t seen much. The first time I saw the ocean I was 18 and thought it was the most amazing place so vast and peaceful. I dream of blue water and white sand with a warm breeze blowing the tiny umbrella on my colorful beverage, this will happen one day!

Anything else exciting, interesting, or unusual about you or your life? Nope, I’m a small town girl with small stories. I don’t consider anything in my life unusual or exciting but it’s mine and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

We love having Shayla in SILG!

Shayla with daughter Felicity at FOT 2018

Meet New SILG Member…Tayde McAndie

My hometown is… La Grande, Oregon

What do you want other members to know most about you? I am a woman of God who loves her family, her community and seeks to be the best version of herself (although I am still learning to do that 🙂 ). I love the mission of Soroptimist International – to help women improve their lives, situations and opportunities.

#1 reason you joined SILG: I believe in the Soroptimist mission and believe it is a great opportunity to serve others, meet wonderful women and have the opportunity to network.

Snack you always have in your desk/purse: Gluten-free protein bar!

What did you want to be when you were growing up? A novelist.

Future life goals? Having a family and providing a quality life for them in which they have fulfillment, opportunities, good health, and most of all, good faith and character. Shared career goals with my husband include being owners of at least one business and earning to live out a quality lifestyle. Personal goals includes becoming a Creative Designer and growing/expanding my musical success.

Best vacation yet? Future dream vacation? I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit through my childhood and even in college I have embarked on foreign tours with two different choirs: the first was with Oregon Ambassadors of Music, touring seven European countries. The second was with the EOU Chamber Choir in which I got to tour around the country of China.

I have several dream vacations, one which includes finally going to New York City – I still have never been! My husband and I also want to do a road trip around the United States. I also would like to go back to Europe.

Anything else exciting, interesting or unusual to add? I like to dance. I have two puppies. Jazz music is my favorite.

Welcome to SILG, Tayde!

At least that’s what the calendar says – hopefully the snow will be gone by March 21, the night of our SILG evening social at Kristi’s house! (Check your email for details on Kristi’s address in Cove, and directions, as well as potential car pool arrangements).

The theme of the evening will be “Garden Party Hat” creation for Region Conference – our own President Di Lyn will be wearing our concoction! Members will mix up into teams of three or four to create a garden party hat and get creative juices flowing! Bring any decorative items you may have – to get ideas, look online for Garden Party or Kentucky Derby Hats.  We’ll provide hats and beverages, feel free to bring an appetizer to share.

Planning will begin for the June Breakfast on Monday, March 18th, 12noon at Denny’s, Banquet Room. All members – ESPECIALLY NEW MEMBERS – are welcome and encouraged to attend. The June Breakfast is an historical event for our club, going back to days when breakfast conditions were rather primitive along the Grande Ronde River at Riverside Park! The conditions have dramatically improved and SILGers are still showing up every June to facilitate a great breakfast fundraiser for our community and promote education for women. It’s a fun event and all club members are asked to participate one way or another – so come get involved early and have a say! LOL See you on the 18th! #pancakes #sausage #coffee #roaringfire

In the past, an employee’s relationship with their direct supervisor was found to be one of the most influential factors on whether or not the employee enjoyed their job. But we quickly learned that to focus solely on managers and supervisors was too narrow and was not all that was needed. Although most employees like to receive positive messages from their supervisor, hearing encouragement and support from their coworkers has become increasingly important. Receiving a compliment or having a colleague report to others how valuable your contribution was to the success of a project is extremely meaningful to more and more employees.

Moreover, colleagues are the individuals who often seem to be most excited to learn how to support their peers. Team members repeatedly tell us that they want to learn how to encourage and support their colleagues. In fact, we are finding that the work groups that are most successful in creating a positive work environment are the ones where the manager understands and works to implement the principle of mutual appreciation and encouragement among team members.

The biggest change to the workplace in the last decade has been the influx of millions of younger employees and the exodus of older generations. This shift has had a dynamic effect on the look, feel, and structure of workplace culture. Younger employees, as a group, tend to desire more collaboration in completing tasks. And as the proportion of employees and leaders from younger generations increases, the supervisor-employee relationship has declined in importance.

In past decades, it was common to hear people say things like, “people don’t leave a job, they leave a supervisor.” However, recent employee engagement surveys have found that employee happiness is more closely correlated to the connections they share with their coworkers rather than those they shared with their direct supervisor.

Recent experiences make it clear that expanding the focus from expecting managers and supervisors to the sole “appreciators” to include peer appreciation creates numerous positive results for teams:

• Lightens the load (and perceived load) on managers and supervisors to provide all of the relational support within a team.
• Supports the focus of younger employees on peer relationships in the workplace.
• Allows for appreciation to be applied and communicated even if a manager/ supervisor isn’t interested or involved.
• Keeps team members engaged and empowers them to make a difference in their work culture.

Just to clarify, we’re not proposing that managers give up their efforts to show recognition and communicate appreciation to team members. But when employees and supervisors consistently and effectively communicate appreciation to their colleagues, positive results occur more quickly and are more dramatic in their intensity, and the “staying power” of their effect is longer lasting.

Authentic appreciation communicated from both leaders and coworkers leads to a positive, supportive work environment that others will envy. The result? Positive communication and improved morale to a level we never imagined!

(Submitted by Shayla H. For the full article: appreciationatwork.com)

March 7 – Board Meeting, All Members Welcome, Denny’s, 12noon

March 14 – Business Meeting, All Members, Denny’s, 12noon

March 21 – 6pm Program Social At Kristi’s – watch email for details!

Congratulations to SILGers on their membership anniverseries!

Shaneen Bergette – January 1983

Julie Hickerson – January 1986

Susan Lemon – January 2009

Melinda Wells – January 2012

Yvonne Roberts – January 2014

Sandra Ghormley – February 2014

Today I realized that for a number of months I’ve neglected to post the Soroptimist Anniversaries for SILG. At first, I thought “someone” had forgotten, and then I realized that the “someone” was in fact, ME. I felt terrible, because I personally enjoy seeing the commitment of our members, and the years they have been dedicated to service through our club, and celebrating that with each month’s blog post! Feeling guilty, I set out to rectify my wrong and in doing so came upon this “DailyOM” called “Releasing Guilt” by Madisyn Taylor. I thought it was worthy of a post! And now, I’ll start celebrating Soroptimist Anniversaries again, in my very next post, so stay tuned!

Tressa 

Learning to accept the things that we perceive as wrong can be a difficult task for many of us. Often we have been brought up to accept that it is normal to feel guilty about our actions and that by doing so we will make everything seem alright within ourselves. Even though we might feel that we have a reason to make up for the choices we have made, it is much more important for us to learn how to deal with them in a healthy and positive way, such as through forgiveness and understanding.

When we can look back at our past and really assess what has happened, we begin to realize that there are many dimensions to our actions. While feeling guilty might assuage our feelings at first, it is really only a short-term solution. It is all too ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out. If we truly are able to gaze upon our lives through the lens of compassion, however, we will be able to see that there is much more to what we do and have done than we realize. Perhaps we were simply trying to protect ourselves or others and did the best we could at the time, or maybe we thought we had no other recourse and chose a solution in the heat of the moment. Once we can understand that dwelling in our negative feelings will only make us feel worse, we will come to recognize that it is really only through forgiving ourselves that we can transform our feelings and truly heal any resentment we have about our past.

Giving ourselves permission to feel at peace with our past actions is one of the most positive steps we can take toward living a life free from regrets, disappointments, and guilt. The more we are able to remind ourselves that the true path to a peaceful mind and heart is through acceptance of every part of our lives and actions, the more harmony and inner joy we will experience in all aspects of our lives.