Norwegian House President’s Report

Hello every­one!

Here we are feel­ing the win­ter weather, and the Olympics fast approach-ing, unbe­liev­able how fast the year goes by. We had an amaz­ingly suc­cess­ful year. In the sum­mer, the Seniors Salmon Bbq had a great turnout and Euro­pean fes­ti­val attracted a record attendance.

The Mid­sum­mer fes­ti­val fig­ures were up in nearly all areas. The biggest hit this year was the Wife Car­ry­ing con­test spon­sored by Carls­berg, the prize being the wife’s weight in beer. Two of our NHS mem­bers, Mar­ian Toft and Solvi Stokholm. con­vinced hus­bands David and Hugh to enter, they didn’t win but it was close. Nor­we­gian vol­un­teers were every­where, in the Nor­we­gian Vil­lage tent, man­ning the hugely suc­cess­ful waf­fle booth, help­ing cook up huge racks of salmon at the Bbq pit, and on duty at the Father’s Day Pan­cake break­fast. Once again the Mid­sum­mer Fes­ti­val was chaired by Per Gjerde, past NHS pres­i­dent. Per has been over­see­ing the fes­ti­val for the last 14 years and is now step­ping down. Thank-you to all the fan­tas­tic NHS vol­un­teers, and a very spe­cial thanks to Per, for years of orga­niz­ing this grow-ing event. It has really put the Scan­di­na­vian Cen­tre on the map.

The “Movie Mati­nee” in Octo­ber was very pop­u­lar with 90 peo­ple com­ing out to watch “Max Manus”, the story of one of Norway’s most revered resis­tance fight­ers. After the movie, the new English-language Library was open­ing with a wine & cheese party. Pia Chris­tensen and Debra Jones, the vol­un­teer librar­i­ans have done a great job. The new book-shelves made by Per Gjerde really add to the Scan­di­na­vian look of the room and there are two comfy chairs to sit in while you decide which books to bor­row. Do come and check it out, there are lots of chil­drens’ books, ref­er­ence books and lots of cur­rent fic­tion and non-fiction of Nordic authors in Eng­lish trans­la­tion. It makes me very proud to be a part of such a ded­i­cated group and to see our mem­bers work­ing so hard to make all the events spe­cial. Vol­un­teer­ing at the events is a great way to meet other mem­bers and con­nect with our her­itage, we would love to see you.

Regards, Eliz­a­beth