Our 24th Annual Meeting took place on Saturday, March 12, 2022 at the Sasse’s Restaurant in Fort Myers.
President Joe Huber opened the meeting at 5:30pm by welcoming 41 members and 4 guests. One of them, Monika Olzinger, decided spontaneously to become a member of the Club. Thank you, Monika, for joining us and welcome to the Club! He also welcomed three former Presidents, Rosmarie Strother, Maria von Atzigen and Peter Moser.
The board had decided to change the format of this year’s meeting a little bit. It was supported by a PowerPoint presentation which could be seen on a screen. All the board members presented their reports themselves. The president started off with his annual report. After that, Gemma Huber’s gave us some insight on our financial situation. The main point was that we had a minor operating loss in 2021 mainly due to the fact that we did not collect any membership fees last year. This was followed by the Audit report and discharge of the Treasurer. The membership report revealed that 8 members left the Club last year, but 24 new ones joined, so we had a net/net increase of 16 new members, an outstanding result. The main contributor to this success was definitely the revamping of our website and being on Facebook. Lily Kraft reviewed the 2021 events, which showed that the 1st of August and the Chlaushock were the two events with the highest attendance. Urs Brunner then presented some very interesting slides about our Web & Social Media Presence which revealed that we have a worldwide following and high engagement with many posts. Hans Wenger presented the changes to the by-laws, as recommended by the board. All of them (one with a minor change to be made) were unanimously accepted by the membership. Lily went through the events planned so far for 2022, the next one being a visit of the Naples Zoo on April 12. She also reminded the audience to share with us any ideas of events that may come to their mind.
Peter Moser, one of the founding members and former President complimented the entire board for all it does. Peter, rest assured that we highly appreciate your comments.
In his closing remarks, the president thanked Josef Zimmermann, chef/owner of the Restaurant Sasse’s and his crew for hosting. Joe reminded the members that we always welcome anyone who volunteers for projects or a board membership. He presented a nice flower arrangement to Maria von Atzigen, in appreciation of her hard work and dedication as President and honoring her appointment to Honorary member.
In closing he thanked all members for attending and adjourned the meeting at 6:30pm.
After the meeting we enjoyed a typical and traditional Swiss dish: Züri-Geschnetzeltes with Spätzli, especially prepared for us by the Chef.
We all enjoyed the evening and we look forward to seeing you again soon at one of the upcoming events.

Text by Joe Huber | Pictures by Urs Brunner