KOTO Concert Cancelled for now

A US-Japan Friendship Concert was scheduled for the same day and time as our concert and we just recently found out about it.  The MC Perry choir and band will play alongside the Japanese students.  We are sure that many of our community members would like to attend this concert and we did not want to cause a conflict. 

We will try and reschedule the concert for a later date after February 15th.  We will keep you updated via e-mail. 

Mrs. Fujimoto and other players were in agreement with the decision to reschedule.

Thanks!

Upcoming Koto Concert - Sunday January 30th

The Officers' Spouses' Club has a great tradition of hosting a Japanese Music Concert each year.  It is free to the community and is a wonderful opportunity for you to experience beautiful Japanese music and culture! It is open to all base personnel, SOFA status as well as our Japanese counterparts. 

 

The main instrument, hence the name of the event, is the stringed Koto, which is the national instrument of Japan. There are Taiko drums, which is a bit redundant name....since Taiko means drum in Japanese.  ☺ There are also bamboo flute players and guitarists.  

The actual concert on Sunday, January 30th, starts at 3:00

The detailed Schedule of Events is as follows:

1:15 pm:  

Escort KOTO, FLUTE AND GUITAR players (9 players) to chapel.  

1:30-2:45 pm Koto players set up and rehearsal

2:30 pm  

Escort TAIKO DRUM players to chapel (5 players)

3:00 pm  

CONCERT STARTS (ALL HANDS)

1st Performance

Sakura 21 by Toshhito Mizno (koto, bamboo flute )

2nd Performance

Seselaginofu by Seiko Kikushige (koto and bamboo flute)

3rd Performance

Besame Mucho (bamboo flute and guitar)

INTERMISSION (10-15 Minutes)

~ 4:00 PM  

4th Performance

Kosamenoyoru by Katsuko Tchikushi (Koto solo and guitar)

5th Performance

Yumeno meikyu by Toshihiko Mizno (koto and flute)

6th Performance

Napolitana by Sato Yoshishisha (Koto and guitar)

7th Performance

Taiko Drums - Marifu Boom Boom Group

 

And finally....

A Special Time: opportunity for audience to practice koto and Taiko drums on stage!

~5 pm  

END OF CONCERT

5-5:30 pm

Help players put instruments in cars and clean up chapel

5:30 to 6:30  

RECEPTION for players and MEMBERS to thank the players for coming to MCAS. 

Capadeno Hall.

VOLUNTEERS are NEEDED

1 ESCORT @ 1:15 
AT THE MAIN GATE to PROVIDE HELP

1 ESCORT AT 2:30 
AT MAIN GATE to PROVIDE HELP

2 HELPERS AT 5 PM
TO CARRY INSTRUMENTS TO CARS IF NEEDED BY PLAYERS

RECEPTION

It is VERY important for the players to feel appreciated. 
Please consider staying after the concert to thank the players individually.

We also need members to bring salads, meat and pasta dishes OR drinks (tea or juice). 
Please drop your dish before the concert in Capadeno Hall, next to the chapel.

There will be 14 players so we need as many dishes as the number of members attending.

If you can help, 

please contact Valerie Saunders 

by e-mail at thesaunders@mac.com or 

by phone at 253.2152. 

 

Basketball Camp

Stacey Taylor, the Commanding Officer's wife of MWSS-171 shared with us at our OSC Board Meeting that there will be a basketball camp for the kids during Winter Break.  She wanted to make sure you all knew about it.  Here is the flyer.  

The Basketball Camp for will be December 28-30, 2010. The camp will run from 0800-1100 each day.  If you're interested please sign up at IronWorks Gym.

Thanks Stacey and MWSS-171 

for offering this for our kids!!!!!

MCAS Iwakuni Quarters One Holiday Party

It is a wonderful tradition that the Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni invites the members of the Officers' Spouses' Club as well as members of the JMSDF Officer spouses to a holiday party in December.  

Colonel Stewart is a geo-bachelor, so there were several members of the OSC Club who stepped up to get Quarters One decorated.  The end result was absolutely beautiful! Thank you to Nicci Aikey, Tish Petersen, Meeghan Ertwine, Trang Baseel and Chantelle Lang for all of your fabulous hard work!  WOW!!

Very festive, using the Stewarts' gorgeous antiques. 

Many, many more pictures here.

It is normally catered, but it was decided that we could do it nicer job in a less expensive way, in these economic times.  So all of the members looked through their recipe boxes and made this delicious spread!

Appetizers, main dishes, desserts...all so scrumptious!

Then we had a Christmas present exchange.  We sat in two groups and Valerie read the "Left Right Night Before Christmas" story.  It was SUPER FUN!!!!

Each time Valerie said "left" we passed the package in front of us to the left and each time she said "right" we passed the package in front of us to the right.  Very fun and entertaining!!!!

Here's the story if you want to do it with your group or family!  ☺

We are so privileged to have Harumi Redden as a member of our Officer Spouses' Club's Board as the Commanding Officer's wife of MALS-12.  She is a Japanese native (from Hiroshima) and served as our translator.  She did a fantastic job.  Thank you Harumi!!!!!!!

We all were laughing here because Valerie went on a little long and Harumi teased her that she wasn't sure if she could remember all that she said!  ☺

I was in the kitchen when Harumi and Colonel Stewart were talking about their closing remarks and he asked Harumi, "How do you say 'Merry Christmas' in Japanese?"  The answer is....Merry Christmas!  ☺

Thank you so much to Colonel Stewart for opening his home to all of us for a very festive afternoon!

Trim the Trees with OSC!

The First Annual "Trim the Trees with OSC" was held on Friday, December 3rd and it was an absolutely fabulously fun time! 

Each unit or group (civilians, thanks for contributing!) were invited to donate a decorated tree, in any theme, which were to be voted on by the attendees of the December Command Roll-Off at the Officers' Club as well as auctioned off, through a Silent Auction.  

This event was the brainchild of Erin Ramey, a 242 Bat Wife.  :)  She mentioned to Tish Petersen, Commanding Officer's Wife of VMFA(AW)-242 that she noticed that the Officers' Club didn't have a lot of Christmas spirit and wouldn't a tree decorating contest be fun?  :)  Tish ran with it, creating a new fundraiser for the OSC's Scholarship Fund as well!  (AND we had a lot of fun to boot!)  Hooray!!!!!

Tish is dressed as "Claire" from "The Breakfast Club!"  That will be explained in just a bit!  ☺

 The trees ran the gamut.  

The Bat Ladies of 242 had the most participation that night and fully supported their "Movie Night" tree by dressing up like one of the characters from the DVD that they donated for the tree.  

It was a red carpet event! 

24 DVD's were on the tree along with popcorn and candy garland.  It was not only a valuable tree, but a very pretty one as well!

The ladies of MWSS-171 had the UDP officers in mind when they drank, I mean, created their tree!

Grolsch beer bottles were drank at a pre-trim-the-tree party at the Taylors and made into this fabulous tree!

Shockingly, a Mom of four daughters, not one of the geo-bachelors, was the high bidder on this tree! (Hmmm....who could that be?)

The ladies of the MAG had a party in mind as well when they designed their tree!!!!!!

Mini liquor bottles, a finely strung (and very uniquely pretty!) wine cork garland and even an (empty) Advil bottle adorned this very fun tree!  In addition, there were regular size bottles of liquor that were "presents" under it that went to the highest bidder! 

The ladies of H&HS wanted their tree to ring in the New Year in a gaudy way!

And I think gaudy was achieved!

Sorry....I didn't gather the H&HS ladies since our COW, Megan Coletta, was home sick, but had my hubby, Mick, the Christmas Mouse, pose with me.  ☺

The civilians tree was very beautiful and was the only live tree of the evening. 

The tree had poinsettias around the base.  It was very elegant!

Nice job Scarlett!  ☺

The Medical and Dental OSC Members spirited in and out without me able to get a picture of them with their tree.  It was titled "The Reason for the Season."

It came with this Nativity set!

Sorry I missed you Dental!

And smallest, but not least, was the MALS-12 Snowflake tree!

A very elegant tree that will be able to be displayed in any size home!

The winner of the First Annual "Trim the Trees with OSC" event was Grolsch Tree by the ladies of MWSS-171!!!!!!!  WAY TO GO!  Their unit will be on this plaque which will be displayed in the Officers' Club. 

Money was raised in two ways.  Voting tickets were purchased for $.50 cents each.  That's how MWSS-171 won with a total of 404 votes!  VMFA(AW)-242 came in second place with 268 votes and MAG-12 came in third with 165 votes.

In addition, money was raised by the auctioning of the trees.  The MAG tree grossed the most with it going for $160!  The 242 tree was second with the highest bid of $115 and the 171 (voting winner) tree was third with the winning bid of $55.

Altogether, over $1,000 was raised!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Special thanks to the Bat Ladies of VMFA(AW)-242 for an awesome new event!  Fun, festive and philanthropic!  WOW!!!!!  What a combination!  ☺

The rest of the pictures can be viewed on our Facebook page by clicking this link.

Ho!Ho!Ho!  Merry Christmas!!!!!

Ikebana Class

The week before Thanksgiving, we were lucky enough to have thirty-seven years of collective expertise come to us for an Ikebana class!

Thank you! Thank you for coming!!!!

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging.  We had a beautiful assortment of flowers to use to make a very elegant Thanksgiving centerpiece.

There were apples and pomegranates too!

 First was the demonstration along with some helpful "how-to's"!  :)

When you cut fresh flowers, do so under water, and snip them three times.

We were all very attentive listeners!!!!!

 Then we were "cut" loose to create our Ikebana arrangement!

With some expert help along the way!

All of our arrangements were quite beautiful!  

To see all of the pictures and many more arrangments, please visit our Facebook page for this album by clicking this link.

Wonderful class!!!!!!

Mystery Cocktail Night

Each month, apparently, the Officers' Club requires a club or unit to "sponsor" a night at the O Club.  It was our turn in October.  We talked about it at our first OSC Board meeting and of course when you think October, you think Halloween, but the Nitzschke's have (from what I've heard) a really fabulous Halloween "Howl" party where people come in costumes, so we didn't want to be redundant.

Megan Coletta, the CO's Wife for H&HS (that's COW of H&HS to you!) came up with the idea for a "Mystery Cocktail Night" at the Board meeting.  OSC has the same deal as the O Club, where each unit or group sponsors a monthly activity for the OSC.  Megan and H&HS can either look at it as "no good idea goes unpunished" or ""Hooray! H&HS gets it out of the way!"  but a few days after the meeting....Megan/H&HS were crowned the leaders of the Mystery Cocktail Night!  ☺

Carrie Brittain, the XO's wife (XOW?) is quite talented in the art department and made the H&HS poster.  

So here's what the event entailed.  Each unit or group (Way to go Teachers!) dreamt up a drink recipe, gave it a catchy name, submitted the recipe to the Club's bartenders who had gallons of each drink made up before go-time and then created a fantastic poster "advertising" their drink.  Each drink was $4.50 for a full drink or $1 for a shooter if you wanted to sample many.

That's a lot of shooters!!!!!!!!!  ☺
 

Here's what the all of the drinks were from left to right (I think....don't hold me to the order!)  Most of the names of the drinks come from the Unit's nicknames (The Bats of 242, the Marauders (Another name for Pirates) of MALS-12), the unit's job (MWSS-171 refuels the jets) or the symbols (H&HS's symbol is the Torii):

The Teachers' had a "Hot for Teacher" shot which was Goldschlagger and Cinnamon Schnapps!

MAG-12's Trick or Treat Wicked Cocktail (Amaretto, Vodka, Triple Sec and a splash of Vampire Blood.  If no vampire blood is available, orange juice will do!)

MALS-12's was the Marauder's Typhoon (Sake, rum, pineapple and orange juice with a splash of grenadine) ARGH!!!

MWSS-171's was JP-8 (Jet Fuel for you non-military types) (Jamaican Rum and Pineapple Juice) Don't be a fool! Drink the Fuel!

VMFA(AW)-242's Bat Guano (Midori, vodka, blue curacao, orange juice and sprite)

H&HS's Tiki Torii (Malibu Rum, pineapple juice, sprite, splash of grenadine) 

The bartenders kept track of how many $4.50 drinks were sold and at the end of the night, the top two were Tiki Torii  and Bat Guano.   It was a photo finish!!!!  But the Tiki Torii nudged out the Bat Guano by a nose and is now going to be a semi-permanent (not sure how long) "Club Favorite" drink!


There's lots and lots more pictures posted on our Facebook account that you can access here.

It was a ton of a fun and really set the stage for all of the awesome events we have in store for our members this year!  Please join us!!!!

Welcome Luau

In September, our main event was the Welcome Luau 

at the Officers' Club. 

There are so many fun events this year!  We hope you will join us!!!

There was a great turnout at the Luau.  It was a great idea to combine it with the Officers' Club monthly "Command Roll-off". 

Several Board members took turns manning the Welcome table.  Thanks ladies!

So many pretty Hawaiian dresses, leis and flowers in hair were worn.  It felt very festive.  Aloha!!!!

There are a few more dates set in stone now, but this was our list of fabulous events that we had planned at the time of the Luau.  More details to come as we get things ironed out!

If you would like to see all of the pictures from the fun event, please check out our photo album on Facebook.  Either "friend" us facebook.com/mcasiwakuniosc or just check out our album at Welcome Luau Facebook Photo Album.  Tag yourself if you see a picture of yourself! 

Aloha and Mahalo!!!!!!

Hello and Welcome to the "Newsletter"

Hello!  My name is Susan Wagoner and I'm the Newsletter chair for the MCAS Iwakuni Officers' Spouses' Club for 2010-2011.  I wanted to try something new (and it might have something to do with that I don't know Microsoft Publisher.....shhhh!) and have the newsletter online in a few different forms.

I made a Facebook page where I'm planning on posting all of the events as status updates as well as making picture albums from our events.  You can find it (and friend it!) at http://www.facebook.com/mcasiwakuniosc. 

I wanted to let you know that the Facebook privacy settings are set to only allow "Friends" to see pictures so your pictures are fairly safe.  That being said, if you get "tagged" and don't want to be "tagged" (because then your friends would be able to see the picture) then please untag yourself.  And if there is a picture that you do not want posted to the web, after the fact, then please just e-mail me and I will take it down. 

I am hoping to blog fairly regularly so if there are any command reps who would like to post something, please send it to me and I'll post it as an entry!

Each time that I post an entry, I will post it to the Facebook page.

I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions and hopefully not many complaints, but always let me know if something is on your mind!

We're off to a great start to our year with lots of things planned!  I look forward to growing this online "newsletter" along with you!!!!!