march/april 2010

Aprilmeeting

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 6:00pm

Southeastern Railway Museum

Randy Pirkle3595 Buford HighwayDuluth, GA 30096 Phone: (770) 476-2013

Accomplishing together whatno one could do alone

Year 21 - Issue 3

The Southeastern Railway Museum has been in operation since 1970 and is “Georgia’s Official Transportation History Museum.” The museum has over 80 other pieces of retired railway rolling stock including vintage steam and diesel locomotives, passenger coaches, private business cars, a World War II army troop kitchen, wooden freight cars, a railway post office car and maintenance-of-way equipment. Transit history is represented with a cross-section of buses and trolleys from the early 1900’s through the mid 1980’s. The museum is also home to MARTA’s

historic bus fleet which includes buses from many of the predecessor systems to MARTA. Many other items from Georgia’s transportation history are also presented on the museum’s 35-acre site.

The museum is open on its restricted winter schedule, open ONLY on Saturday, 10am – 5pm, each week through March 27. The museum will resume expanded hours April 1.

The museum is located at 3595 Buford Hwy in Duluth. Directions: From I-85 northbound, exit at Pleasant Hill Road. Turn left (west), pass Gwinnett Place Mall, and continue approximately 3 miles to Buford Highway (US 23/GA13). Turn right (north) on Buford Highway. Travel approximately ¼ mile to Peachtree Road, turn left, cross the railroad tracks, and turn right into the entrance.

For maps or more information please visit the museum’s website...

www.southeasternrailwaymuseum.org.

2010 OFFICERSPresident Glenn Sarver

Vice President Sunny Ramsay

Secretary Al Brown

Treasurer John Monk

Past President Harold Stamey

Board of DirectorsAl Brown (770) 495-8900

Dave Cook (770) 476-5080

Richard Daluga (770) 366-4561

James Johnson (404) 626-6245

Chris McGahee (678) 999-9999

Albert Marquez (770) 330-5469

John Monk (770) 495-8900

Sunny Ramsay (678) 312-6857

Glenn Sarver (770) 265-2448

Vally Sharpe (770) 289-5248

Harold Stamey (770) 476-1943

Don Weir (678) 987-2606

The Gab-RRR is a monthly publication of the Duluth Merchants Association. Back issues

are available at www.DuluthMerchants.com

Editor/PublisherVally Sharpe

Courtesy ofRainbow Village, Inc.

www.RainbowVillage.org(770) 497-1888 Ext 13

[email protected]

From the PresidentWow! What a great meeting we had at Street Smarts back in February! A packed gathering! March’s weather wasn’t quite as hospitable to our scheduled speaker because of an unseasonable snow, but All Events Rental came through,

as did Steverino’s in supplying pizzas for the evening. Even so, the turnout was good and the company even finer.

The April 6nd meeting will be at the Southeastern Railway Museum on Buford Hwy. Read about our speaker on the facing page. Bring your ears, your questions – and a guest or two. It’ll be inspiring.

Your DMA Board of Directors is working very hard to make the Duluth Merchants Association the best it has ever been. Please continue to offer your suggestions and invite – invite – invite – guests and turn them into members! Speaking of members, if you haven’t yet paid your dues, please send as soon as possible.

The Spring Benefit Dinner and Auction is fast approaching on March 27th, our beneficiaries Rainbow Village and Hands of Christ — a Duluth Co-op. Please contact Sunny Ramsay for last minute volunteering opportunities for this annual fundraiser at the Duluth Outpatient Center Glass Atrium (part of Gwinnett Medical Center - Duluth — entrance is from Pleasant Hill Road).

If you have seen my personal library you know that I have to mention books: For personal life: Reaching Your Full Potential by Richard Furman, MD; for family life: anything from Robert Rohm or The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman; for business life: The E Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber; for leadership: ANYTHING by John Maxwell

Books are a great way to share our wisdom, but relationships are better…the DMA is a great way to encourage others and to pass it on —

Glenn Sarver

DMA-GAB-RRR March/April 20103

Making Waves: How to be anything but average.

Average means everyday, regular, run-of-the mill, or ordinary. If those words describe your goal for the business or a career that you want, then do not come to the April 6th meeting of the Duluth Merchants Association. Stephanie Wolfe, author, consultant, and trainer will be presenting. She goes beyond mediocre motivational speaking and will challenge your cur-rent status as a worker, business owner, manager, or entrepreneur.

Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger…You only fall off a bicycle when you stop peddling…Life can give you lemons, make lemonade…Some of us learn from the mistakes of others, and some of us are the others.

These phrases mean more to Stephanie Wolfe than to most of us. Preg-nant at 15 years old, she married the 17-year-old father to “make it right.” She endured seven years of separations and a painful divorce to become a single parent of two boys at 22. Eight months later, she remarried the same man after a powerful restoration of their wedding vows during a Sunday morning church service.

Now married over 32 years, she and Jack are proud parents of two mar-ried sons and two grandchildren. She and Jack are also fine with being the “others” whose mistakes many learn from these days. Jack entered the ministry in 1985, and in 1987 they came to Atlanta, Georgia and planted a church. A two-time cancer survivor, Stephanie is anything but average.

Stephanie WolfeEPIC FAITH

April Guest Speaker


March Events in Duluth

Rainbow Village, Inc.Breaking the Cycles of Homelessness,Poverty and Domestic Violence

The mission of Rainbow Village is to provide families in domestic or economic crisis a healing environment to rebuild their lives through a community based transition-al housing program that promotes self-sufficiency.

Each family that comes to Rainbow Village receives a furnished home for a one-to-two year period and en-ters into a covenant based on accountability, initiative, and the achievement of mutually agreed upon goals. By becoming a part of a supportive community families not only stay together but find hope and promise for the future. By forming new habits and lifestyles, acquiring better job skills, and learning to live as healthy members of our community, all are served.

Begun in 1991 as an outreach ministry of Christ Episcopal Church in Norcross, Rain-bow Village came to Duluth in 1998. www.RainbowVillage.org

Hands of ChristA Duluth Cooperative Ministry

The Duluth Cooperative Ministry is an ecumenical Christian, non-profit 501c(3), non-political organization providing aid for people in our community with urgent physical, economic, social and spiritual needs. A cooperative effort prevents duplication of

services and provides a more efficient use of our resources. www.DuluthCo-Op.org

TIME’S SHORT TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

DMA Spring Benefit“A Taste for Charity”GLASS GALLERY, GMC-DULUTH

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 2010, 6:00 PMTICKETS: $75 EACHReserve your seats at

www.duluthmerchants.comEVENING BENEFITS:


April Events in Duluth

MORE FROM THE SOUTHEASTERN RAILWAY MUSEUM

The Southeastern Railway Museum is happy to announce its new Second Thursday Preschool Program arriving April 8th, 2010. The museum will be presenting a different transportation-themed program the second Thursday of each month from 10:30am – 12:00 noon. The program will be tailored to children ages one to four and will include a circle time, activity, and craft. Parents and other caregivers will enjoy exploring trains, trucks, tractors, and other transportation themes with their children. The program is $7 per child with one adult free per family. You do not need to sign-up for the program. To attend, check-in at the ticket counter by 10:00 AM on the second Thursday of any month. We can’t wait to see you there. If you have any questions please contact the museum’s Education Coordinator, Beth Kovach, at 770-495-0253 extension 2, or [email protected].

The Southeastern Railway Museum announces Caboose Days celebrating cabooses, the folks who lived and worked there and the return of three-day weeks at the museum. This year’s event will be Saturday & Sunday, April 10th & 11th. Hours are 10am - 5pm.

Activities included free with admission are: Cookies & Juice on the Caboose, Caboose themed arts & crafts, temporary caboose tattoos, a caboose hunt, caboose fun facts and a caboose slide show. Please visit the museum’s website for photos.

And…as part of its ongoing photo competition and exhibit, the Southeastern Railway Museum has announced an additional category and winner — Shayne Smith’s entry “Knobby” has been designated the 2010 “Stump the Staff” winner for originality and causing the staff to have to research the most to identify which piece of equipment was featured in the photograph. (You’ll have to visit to see it.)

The exhibit continues on Saturdays through March 27. A ballot for the people’s choice award is included with each adult admission to the museum.

Awards will be presented during an awards ceremony on Sunday, April 11 at 2:30pm in the museum’s exhibit hall. Awards will include first place & runner ups as well as a people’s choice award. A reception will follow. See you there!


Notes from DMA Members

Healthy DMA Growth

Earlier in the year, I read an absolutely fascinating article in USA TODAY entitled “Echoes from the 1930s.” The article compares our current state (of the economy, the nation’s mood, politics, etc) with that of 1939. The article’s author uses an article from the June 5, 1939 LIFE MAGAZINE entitled “America’s Future” by Walter Lippmann as the basis for comparison.

Recall that by 1939 the nation had been through ten very difficult years of depression and a world war was looming. To most people’s disbelief, Lippmen talked of his conviction that America had a bright future. But at the same time he took the American people to task. He said, “In the long run, it cannot be true that a nation grows rich by not producing, by not working, by not saving, by not investing, by not being enterprising, by seeking only security and stability and protection from risks, by trying to be small and unimportant.” I would encourage you to do an internet search to find these articles — they are hopeful.

But what does this have to do with DMA and healthy growth of our membership? Given the difficult times we are enduring, this is our call to action, to work hard to grow our membership, take some risks — go out and invite people, invest time to make new friends and above all, provide strong leadership in our communtiy. By adding new and quality members — becoming large and important again. We can do that. Together.

Might I suggest that this minute — right now — that you call and invite someone to our upcoming meeting at the railway museum on April 6? If I can help in any way let me know.

Dave Cook770-476-5080

Ditto to Dave

What’s the motto of the Duluth Merchants Association? Take a look at the front cover — top right. What does it say? Accomplishing together what no one could do alone.

We can start by buying tickets to the spring benefit (see page 4) and coming together on March 27 at 6:00 pm at Gwinnett Medical Center - Duluth, having fun together while supporting two agencies who take care of those who have fallen every day. $75 invested in propping families up and putting them back together.

That word keeps cropping up. Together. In cooperation; with united action; conjointly with mutual action; reciprocally. Working, saving, investing in each other, joining hands instead of shrinking back, giving each other a hand up. Let’s do it.

Vally SharpeRainbow Village


News from the City of Duluth

LUNCH AND LOGIN

Join us for our second City webcast on Thursday, March 25th from Noon-1:00 pm. Grab a bite to eat and log on to www.stickam.com/cityofduluthga. Mayor Nancy Harris will continue talking about “What makes a healthy city?” and our exciting upcoming events.

2010 CENSUS ASSISTANCE

In an effort to assist the US federal government with the 2010 Census, the City of Duluth will be providing space at City Hall for a “Census Question-naire Assistance Center” beginning in March. A representative from the Census Bureau will be on site each weekday (1pm to 4pm) from March 19th to April 19th to answer any questions residents may have about the 2010 Census. Census forms and promotional materials will be available, many in foreign languages such as Spanish and Korean. For more information on the Census Questionnaire Assistance Center, please contact Tim Lawrence at 770-497-5297 or via email: [email protected].

DULUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY SPRING PLANT SALE

Mark your calendars for April 17, 10am to 4pm, and a plant sale on the grounds of the Historic Strickland House. Azaleas, flowering and orna-mental shrubs, trees, roses, vegetables, and everyone’s favorite- pass-a-long plants. A master gardener will be available for your Q&A, and soil bags from the Cooperative Extension Service with instructions. ALL proceeds go to the Historical Society to benefit your museum.

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