President's Message

Dear Members and Friends:

I hope you have all had a good start to the year. I am on the mend from an injury which kept me recuperating for much of January. It introduced me to the experience of working from home. Now I feel much better and it’s been good to return to work in the club. I am proud of our club owning our centre, we are in a unique situation to have control over our building, however it does mean there is always something to look after!

At the start of the year, the club lost a long-time member and former President, Herwig (“Vic”) Lavicka, and I personally lost a very good friend. I first met Vic in the mid 1950s and he was one of our club’s founding members. His mark on the Austrian-Canadian community cannot be understated. From co-founding the Night in Vienna Ball, role in our choir, radio program and tireless support for arts and culture as demonstrated by his Mozart Scholarship made him, what I would sometimes call, our “culture minister.” We recently celebrated Vic’s life at the club and the number of speeches, tributes and people in attendance demonstrated Vic’s contributions to our culture but also the significance of his friendship. I want to thank Helmut Schoderbock, Glenn Norman and Andy Hofman for organizing the event as well as our staff and all those who attended. Let us remember and celebrate Vic by taking part in what brought him the most joy: people and music.

On March 4th we will host the Hunter’s Dance at the club, a return for an event we held for many, many years. I thank Mike Rogi for organizing this event.

Best regards, Frank Meixner, President