Hi all,

I am starting the thread early because I wanted to post the things that we are doing with our club this year. I met with the leader tonight and we have figured everything out. I wanted to share it with you to give you some ideas for your group. She had some great ideas. We did talk and I found out why they don't like me. They are afraid I will start a new chapter and wipe them out. Imagine that. I always said I didn't want to do that.

Here is what we are doing this year:

We are putting this up for a vote. To change the time to earlier for people and to hold a year long fundraiser.

The way the fundraiser will work is like this: You put in .25 every week. Every member. If you lose weight one week then you enter your name in for the drawing at the end of the year. Everytime you lose weight you get an entry for the drawing. At the end of the year we draw one name and that person gets 1/2 the money and the other 1/2 goes to the treasury. That is an easy way to make money and it benefits the chapter and the members. Especially if you win you could end up with $400.00 - $500.00 take home.

We are having a Tops Member of the Month also. This person will be the person that has struggled the most for the past month. We will honor them with a ceremony of a carnation (which might be donated from the flower shop), a certificate that we will make on the computer, and a pass for no fines for a month. That way they won't have to pay any fines for 1 month.
Hopefully this will encourage them to lose weight since we will all be noticing them.

We have 1 hotel stay now and we have a member that is only 10 lbs from kops. We are saving that for her. She doesn't know it.

The other if I get it we will use for the member who loses the most from jan to oct this year.

We are proposing to have 1 meeting a month for exercise or a walk for the meeting. We figured one month we could exercise and the next we could walk through town. We should all get tee shirts that match though and wear them while walking. That way any that don't want to participate can leave after weigh in.

If a member does a program during the month they will get 1 month free dues.

If a member signs up another member then they get 1 month free dues. Maybe this will encourage people to bring in new members.

Also we will have 3 bins one for each prize. There will be 2 bins for a cruise. We received 4 cruise tickets and we will use 2 for this and a carriage ride for 2 for 30 min.
What we will do is we assigned different tasks they must do to get a ticket.

Stay for meeting
Keep a foodchart
Have a loss or turtle
Exercise at least 3 days
Drink at least 64 oz of water daily for the week
Not eat the unwise food choice of the week

For each thing they accomplish they get one ticket. They fill it out and drop it in the box for the prize they want. At the end of the time we will draw one name from each box and that person will win that prize.

For the foodchart prizes we are going to use:

The bowling passes
The carwash passes
The salon Retail Product
Video Passes

For all other prizes that we have the big prizes we will put on a bulletin board. Then when we have contests the winner will be able to choose her prize. This way they know what they are working towards.

Well that is it. What do you all think of that? I am excited now that I know what we are going to do.

Also we are going to play the dice game. For each thing you accomplish like the above listed things you get 1 die for each task accomplished. Then you roll the dice and whatever number you roll when added together is your score. At the end of 4 weeks then you add up your score. The highest score wins a prize.

I am going to have a lot to keep track of but it will be worth it. I will keep everyones score sheet for them and have them roll the dice right after they weigh in. That way we don't have to take up time during the meeting to do it. It will be fun. I can't wait.

Have a great day everyone. Let me know what you think about what we have come up with for our group.

As I get in other gift certificates then they will be added to the board to choose from. We are only putting up the big prizes. That should be motivating for sure.

Sherri

Great Idea's. I'm emailing my leader now. I'm changing the program free month. We don't have many members so, I'm using 4 programs get a month free. Don't have to be in same month.

Also, how did you get the free cruise tickets. Awesome work going on here.

I'm also sending my leader a list of business to see about getting free stuff. Haven't been working on the calls with Brandon being sick, and everything else going on.
Our meeting is starting 30mins. early with exercise or walk each week. Couldn't do it last week, myself, cuz back to the doctor with Brandon.

Keep up the great work.

Good morning. Iam new to this forum, and really enjoyed reading the letter from lady06498. There are so many things on this page that I do not understand, I mean the page I am typing on. I suppose I will learn them little by little. This whole concept of being able to comminicate with other TOPS members is so exciting I want to talk with all of you all at once! My club is very small. It started in November of 2000 with 6 members, and now has only 4 active members, only one of which is of the original starters. We are desperate for new members, but just don't seem to be able to grow. We get along well, and are enthusiastic about TOPS, but have not had great success in losing weight! Member 1 had a gain for last year, Member 2 lost 3 pounds, member 3 has lost 22 and near her KOPS status and i have lost only 18. I had a great problem getting motivated, but now feel I have finally realized I CAN do this, and I WILL do this. I started at 316 pounds, lost 14 with WW., then joined TOPS. I am now 284 and am really working on losing, have finally started writing down everything I eat. My primary motivater is a friend I took to TOPS when she came to visit. She liked the meeting, and joined a local TOPS when she returned home. In the year since, she has lost 65 pounds!
FLgal: thank you for your reply. And your suggestion. I think this site will be a big help to me to keep me on track. I hope you have a good week. I went to the TOPS retreat at Myrtle Beach last month and met several women from Florida. You weren't there were you?
Talk with y'all tomorrow.
Mary ann

Good Morning Ladies
Hope everyone is doing ok. Kinda cold here today. Suppose to be a high of 25 for today. Windy and snow flurries. Not gonna walk outside today. Will ride my bike for 20 minutes to get my mile in. So far so good with the walk. Have done 1 mile everyday so far this week.

Sherri Sounds as if you and the new leader have come up some great ideas. Maybe you can win that cruise. Wont that be wonderful.

Shortstack Hope Brandon and KC are doing better. We have a 10 month old pup. She is losing her hair. She has a spot on her left shoulder blade. The groomer found it a couple of weeks ago. Took her to the vet. They are not sure what it is. It has gotten a little bit bigger. There is a bump on there also. The vet stuck a needle in the bump but nothing came out. Now it is red. Gave me some cream to put on it. But its not helping. Then since it got bigger they scraped her skin in the bald area. But nothing showed up either. Thought she might have mites. But don't. Said to watch her for a couple of weeks. If it doesn't get better or gets worse. They may want to do surgrey and take out the bump and have it biopsy it. I bet it was cute to see Brandon and KC sleeping together. They are comforting each other.

To everyone else. Hope you have a good day.
Need to get off here. Need to do the laundry and get in my bike riding.
A TOPS PAL

Hi Everyone,

Today was weigh in for me. I lost .50 lbs, but my TOPS Buddy had a gain. I will have to be in touch with her more often next week.

Mary Ann...I didn't go to the retreat in Myrtle Beach. Would have liked to, but a lot has been going on around here. I hope that the next time they have one in Orlando, I can go.
18 pounds is a good loss. Just think, that is almost 2 ten bags of potatoes. You are doing good.

One of the things that our chapter does ( I didn't know until today that some of the women there came up with it years ago. I thought all tops chapters did it) We have a sack of poker chips and everyone who has a loss gets to draw a chip. The white chips are worth .25 cents, the blue are worth 50 cents and the red are 75 cents. Of course, we have twice as many white as others and more blue than red. We have one silver colored chip that is worth a $1. Also, you have to stay for the all of the meeting. It is drawn at the close of the meeting. Our treasurer told me that it had been her idea. She felt everyone should be rewarded for a weight loss, no matter how small the loss is. I agree with her. I thought some of you might like this idea also.

Wendy, I'm glad that Brandon and KC are better. And Penny, its good to have you back again.

Has anyone heard from Summer? Has Lara had her baby yet?

Guess What!! I'm going to be a gramma again. YEAH!!!

I hope you all have a good losing weekend.

Thought for today:
It doesn't matter where you start, it is where you finish that counts.

Nita

Just stopped by for a quick hello. I am tired and ready for bed.
I am doing good. I go to a TOPS workshop tomorrow. I have the revised by-laws finished.
I think of you all every day. Sorry this is so short

Eleni,

I am glad you are doing good. Have fun at the workshop tomorrow. I talked to the area captain and she said we could do the free dues for the month. But she is checking to see if we vote for the no fines for the month if we can do it. She will let one of the girls no tomorrow at the workshop. Yes our workshop is tomorrow and we just found out this week. So I had plans to take megan to a easter party with the sitter and her kids and I am taking megan's best friend so I couldn't cancel that. I really wanted to go this year also. But I will miss it.

Penny,

Glad to have you back on the boards again. I was hoping you would show up again. You are doing great. Keep up the great work.

Nita,

Congratulations on the loss that is great. I loved your idea to reward everyone not just the loser of the week. But unfortunately our chapter is cheap and they don't like to spend money. So I know they wouldn't go for giving money to everyone every week even if it is just a little. Too bad because it is a great idea.
Keep up the great work.

CoCo,

You are doing great with the exercise. How are you doing with the munchies? Have they gone away yet? I hope so for your sake. I am off plan today and I will be back on tomorrow. Drinking only water this week with my meals. No supplement drinks for meals. Real food this week and doing it right. Thanks for all your help. Keep up the great work.

Mary Ann,

Wow 32 lbs gone forever. That is great. Welcome to the boards. I hope to see more of you. Maybe this will be the year your club will grow. Do you advertise your meetings? Most newspapers will let non profit groups advertise for free. If you don't advertise you might want to check out that option. It will get the word out. When do you meet? We joined TOPS about the same time. That is neat. I joined the week before thanksgiving 2000. Are you still doing the WW points at home?
Post often and you can give support and receive as much support as you need here.

Wendy,

I got the cruise passes from calling and asking if they would donate them to us. They did. I expected one when he said he would send them. He sent 4 of them. I was shocked and excited. How is brandon and KC doing. I said another prayer for you all today.
I talked to our area captain tonight. We have about 15-18 members. She said there is a special charm you can get for doing programs. I am going to look into it. Then at the end of the year we can award everyone that did a program with the charm.
Also I called about some ribbons today. I can get some plain ribbons with cardboard on the back that we can write on them what it is for. I thought we could use them (different colored for the different amounts) for different milestones of weightloss. Like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 lbs losses. I can get them for .25 a pc. For 50 of them it will only be $12.50. I wrote the leader about the idea and told her if she liked it I would buy them myself so I wouldn't have to ask the chapter for the money.

The reason the people don't care for me and don't want me to be leader is because they think I am going to start my own chapter and take their money. That is ridiculous. I never have wanted to start my own chapter. I know others here have said I should do that but I don't want to. I don't know why they think that of me. I have never asked for any money from them. I have always paid for things for the chapter out of my own pocket. It doesn't make sense. But that is what the leader told me for the first election that I ran for back last year. And she is still pressing that issue and making people believe that I would do such a thing. It makes me mad because I have NEVER given them the impression that I would do that to them. Yet they think that of me. But they will see this year that I am there to stay and changes will be made.

Does anyone have a KOPS recognition night? I just heard about this tonight from the captain. It is supposed to be the 3rd week in september for all KOPS. What they do is send the KOPS cards throughout the week. Then the night of the meeting everyone brings in a small gift for the KOPS. See they are not allowed to win the loser basket so this is a way of appreciating them and letting them know that they are special. I think it is a good idea. We only have one KOP. She is the one that is saying this about me. But overall there will be another kops soon. She only has 10 more lbs to go. I do think it is a great idea to honor them. It takes a lot to keep your status and I think they should be recognized. We honor the tops all the time with awards and such but we don't do anything for the kops. At least we don't. Anyone else out there do anything special for your kops in your chapter? I would like to know what other chapters do for their kops.

Wendy,

Did your chapter just start the walking thing? How do you all like that? Do you all wear your tops tee shirts?
Another idea is maybe for everyone that reaches a 20 lb loss the chapter will buy you a tee shirt. How much are they anyway?

Have a great night everyone. Back on track tomorrow for a loss this week. I plan on drinking 1 gal of water a day. That is double what I normally drink.

Sherri

HI EVERYONE!
Keep up the great work! Everyone seems to be doing great!CONGRATS CONGRATS! I am so glad I came back on . I real need this support more than ever I love it here!~ Will be back tomorrow :P Penny