Message from the WRAD CEO, Bruce Gross

From: Dhhreport (WRAD) - Jan 30, 2006

Hello Friends!

Just a nice message to say that we are excited about our upcoming events and activities this year. We also need your feedback and inputs about the direction of WRAD for this year and beyond as we accept suggestions and ideas from the community. You are important to us too.

Most important of all, , we announced to the community a while ago that we have an election for the three top positions in WRAD. They are the CEO, Secretary and the Treasurer positions. Please feel free to think about applying if you have the qualifications because we need new blood and faces in the leadership. We also welcome many of you as volunteers as we need your input and involvement to plan events in the community. Please do not expect a few of us to plan everything for you because it takes good teamwork and community participation to get involved in the organization. Our organization, WRAD, Inc. is now over 20 years old and we have many people who served in different positions on the Board or on committees so we encourage you to apply for the top positions in WRAD. We also hope to see you in our committees if you want to plan an activity or two like maybe a trip to a National Park, or beach activities in the summer, or whatever you have in mind to include your friends and community members. We were very active in the past and we hope our future would be as exciting with more fun activities for the community.

Please visit our website, www.wrad.org to look at the election information and the qualifications of the officers. Feel free to contact WRAD anytime if you have any questions. Deadline to apply is January 31st but we can let you apply a few days after.

Hats off to Rey Llarena who is the WRAD 1st Vice President and the Webmaster as he worked very hard to make our website very lively as we received over 1,000 visits per month now from the community wishing to get more information about us or to pick up information about our events. Did you visit the WRAD website yet? Go there and see for yourself at www.wrad.org.

Yes, we stopped going to the Grove at Farmer's Market in Los Angeles on the first Friday of the month because many of you complained about parking fees and it was hard to find ample parking spaces there especially in the Farmers Market area. Linda Kerstein approached us with a suggestion to move to Westfield's Century City Mall as they have a new food court on the 2nd floor of the Mall, next to the brand new AMC movie theatre. You can park your vehicle there for FREE for 3 hours with only $3 for 2 additional hours with a validation from the movie theatre. We went there last month and enjoyed the place. We will have it again this coming Friday, February 3rd between the hours 6pm and 10pm and hope to see you there. There are over 20 different food venues in the food court and it is really huge. We can sit either inside the food court or at the large patio area outdoors, depending on the weather. Do not miss it and hope to see you this Friday. Thanks to Linda Kerstein to tell us about the new dining terrace at the Westfield Shopping Center.

Last week we announced about having a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Night at the Royal Theatre to see " Fateless", an Hungarian film about a Jewish teen in Hungary that got caught in the concentration camp in 1944. We had about 30 members of the deaf and hard of hearing community coming to see that film even though we announced the movie plan at the last minute because we didnt know about it until we read the reviews in the newspaper that the film was good and was going to be shown this week . In the future we plan to have more Deaf and Hard of Hearing Nights at the movies if they are good and have either captions or English subtitles. We also informed the community about seeing "King Kong" after it was just released at the Van Nuys Mann Theatre showing DTS-ACCESS captioned format which was superior in technology and the quality very good. About 200 people in the deaf community came to see that film.

We continue to have pizza nights in the community and just added a new one at Baja Fresh, a Mexican eating place in Palmdale on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Please check the calendar of our events at www.wrad.org and click the calendar so you will see what we are doing in the community for all of you. We also have plans to go to a great and reasonable-priced restaurant called Monte Carlo Deli and Pinocchio Restaurant in Burbank on Tuesday night February 28th. We have a private dining room there for our group so hope to see you there.

The other week we went to Pancho's in Manhattan Beach and about 20 of us were there. The food was very good and we had an enjoyable dining experience. The restaurant also donated some money to us as it was a fundraiser on our behalf.

Do not forget about our Valentine event on February 11th at the Holly Street Bar and Grill in Pasadena as it is a very beautiful place that looks like an European restaurant with a beautiful courtyard. We are very fortunate to invite CJ Jones to be our Master of Ceremonies. You can get more information about the luncheon at our WRAD website at www.wrad.org and hope to see you there, especially many of you who became lovers or got married through participating in WRAD activities in the last 20 plus years.Valentine's Day is a time for all of us to share our love with each other including those who met each other through participation in the past WRAD events. We will have grilled chicken and a vegetarian pasta plate if you do not want chicken. Cost is only $25 per person for the Valentine luncheon or $22 if you have SSI with vertification . We want to invite all of you so we hope to see many of you there in our " A Celebration of Love" event . We plan to have an exciting program there for you on Feb 11th including inviting DJ Joe Mc Roberts, himself deaf, and Dr. Patrick Seamans, the Past President of WRAD, Inc. who grew up in France, to talk about the Valentine holiday. We also plan to have a Dating Game and other activities that day with prizes from Mann Theatres, Pasadena Playhouse, and others. Thanks to Sorenson Communications, Inc. as a major sponsor of this event.

Do you like football? Let's get together and support either Pittsburgh Steelers or the Seattle Seahawks this Sunday Feb 5th at our Super Bowl party at the new El Guapo Mexican Cantina , 7250 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, from 1pm until the conclusion of the game. Cover charge is only $8 but you will have a table inside the restaurant. There are many TV screens for you to enjoy watching the football game. Come even if you are not a football fan. Contact WRAD if you need more information about the event.

We had a great time at the Halloween Costume Ball last October with over 120 people that came to share their Halloween fun. We already have a few people on our committee who agreed to host the next Halloween Ball this October. More details forthcoming.

Enough for now but hope to hear from you and see you in our activities. Feel free to contact us in writing at wradceo@aol.com or FAX 661-943-8879 or Videophone 661-943-8879. You can also write to us at WRAD, Inc, PO Box 3211, Quartz Hill, CA 93586.

We hope you will join us and plan events for the community. We no longer require you to be a member of WRAD to plan activities as everyone is welcome to get involved with us.

Thank you for your time to read this message.

WRADly yours,
Bruce Gross
WRAD, Inc. President/CEO