The Lakewood Ranch Medical Center is going to conduct a doctor meet and greet for our members in September. It will likely consist of a 15 minute Pediatrician talk/interactive presentation followed by a tour of the pediatric unit. Once finished with this, we will have a social hour with refreshments, lunch, dinner or just heavy hors d’oeuvres, depending on the time of day we decided to have this event. Children are welcome to be a part of this event, but must be closely supervised when touring the facilities.

I would also appreciate it if you could fill out the one question survey to let us know what time frames work best for you. We’d like to make sure we select the best time to get as many of you able to attend the event as we can!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QL7RMLJ

Hello everyone!

We had a great meeting yesterday, so I wanted to recap it for those of you were not able to attend.

FELT was represented last night with two of their volunteers to help explain what it is they do and how we are able to help. It sounds like our fundraising efforts will go to a great local charity and will really make an impact on the health and well-being of local children. They are having a golf tournament in October, and it would be great if we could sponsor a hole. The consensus at the meeting was that this was something we should be able to pull off. We would just need to raise $150.00 in order to do this. The event sounds like it will be enjoyable for children too. They mentioned there will be a golf ball drop from a hot air balloon and a rubber ducky race. Julie Ruffing will be working on figuring out a way for us to begin collecting money for the sponsorship for this event. In the meantime you can use this button to donate now!

Lisa Kirkland from the Lakewood Ranch Medical Center stopped in to discuss our Doctor Meet and Greet event next month. After having a conversation with us, it became clear that a lot of us are unaware of what the pediatric facilities are like at the hospital. A tour of the relatively new pediatric unit and visits with the pediatric doctors that work with the LWRMC will be the focus of our night. Keep an eye out for a survey to help us select a date for this event!

Jenn Otterness has been busily working on building our new website and it was revealed last night! It is absolutely amazing and Jenn deserves tons of praise for her efforts of bringing us up to date technology-wise. Take a look around at our site, www.lwrmomsgroup.com and register as a member, so you’ll be able to access the members only side. Our PayPal account is up and running, and we’ll begin taking payments for our events this way. No more stamps, no more need to drop off envelopes at people’s homes! She isn’t done with the project. Soon you’ll see our email newsfeeds and other great features begin to appear. The calendar is up and running! Here are new instructions on Syncing Your Calendar to your phone!

We also brought up the idea of a charity/benefit concert, and it seems like we are likely going to move forward with this event. We have been in talks with a Grammy winning children’s band, The Okee Dokee Brothers, who are able to come and perform in town for us on January 18^th. I know it is a holiday weekend, but I think this will be a great family friendly event where we will be able to raise some funds to donate to FELT. The concert will include a chance for the kids to meet the artists as well as at least one song where some children will be invited up on stage to play instruments with the band. Check them out at http://www.okeedokee.org/ to see what they are all about. I’m sure you’ll become a fan!

Next month, we are hoping that our monthly meeting will include a safety talk for our children from the Sheriff’s department. This meeting will, of course, be kid friendly. We look forward to seeing you then!

The new website is underway.  The calendar has been updated to make it even easier sync with your personal phones and family calendars.

Syncing Your Calendar

Thanks to all of you for being so quick to volunteer! I love how supportive you are of our group’s efforts!
We are manning a booth at the Splash Bash at the YMCA on Saturday August 23rd (10-1PM) and need volunteers to help run the station for 1 hour at a time which should allow you to still enjoy the event with your family: 
10AM – Heather Jones, Victoria Vainieri Cobb, Julie Maughan Ruffing
11AM-12PM – Crystal Rothhaar, Ishani Kulatilaka and Gina DeLong
12-1PM – Sarah Zabel, Chanda O’Brien and Julie Hendrix
Our table is a decorating backpacks table where the kids can use fabric paint and stick on decorations (letters, gems, etc.) to decorate backpacks

If you are interested in becoming a contributor to the pinterest page, let’s do it this way instead:
1. click on the following link to our page:
http://www.pinterest.com/lwrmomsgroup/

2. Log onto Pinterest with your own account and “follow” our board. 

3. I’ll add you as someone who can start pinning away on our boards!