Hello lovely members!

Last night was our first informal meeting.  We met at King's Hardware in Ballard.  The place was very retro logger hip. The bar has a doorway into Rudy's Barbershop which is very handy for those drunken spur of the moment haircuts, heaven knows we have all had a few of those, right? ;-)  

We were able to grab a row of tables with a loooong bench.  We swapped seats a few times so hopefully everyone got a chance to chat. Someone said it was like speed dating - funny!  I think there were over 20 of us in attendance.  Our budget bought the perfect amount of beer and snacks. I got to meet a few new people and chat with a few more that I had only met in passing before. 

A few of my favorite things were Per's Norwegian sweater, the fact that Loren recognized our waiter from other venues, and Joel's vintage cufflinks.  Barry will bring his camera next time so we can share photos.

If you attended please add comments/suggestions to this post so we can improve future events.  We got a rush of new members registered today and I am hoping it is because you all told your co-workers about how much fun you had last night!

I asked several members to recommend other places to meet and mostly heard that they liked where we were, just fine.  I did get recommendations for 2 places to try for breakfast. Barry and I do want to have an informal meeting in south Seattle so we can lure our pals from Green River CC to come, Judy-Dan-Mike we miss you guys!!  If you know of a good spot in the south or on the eastside, let me know.

Barry has a sponsor lined up and is working on the agenda for our Feb. meeting.  Keep the morning open on Feb. 11th.  I will see if I can get "the cream puffs" from Beard Papa's that early in the morning - or would they keep overnight?

Hope to see you all on the 11th!

Suzanne