The plunge
The shivers and goose bumps will get started just after noon on Tuesday, January 1 at the Beer Garden Restaurant on the Chapala malecon.
Brave Polar Bears will plunge into the freezing (well, cool, anyway) waters of Lake Chapala sponsored by those who have pledged money to the freeze-cats for their bravado.
The funds will be passed on to Chapala Cruz Roja. It won’t be all cold water, though. The Beer Garden will have food and drink available and dancing to DJ Howard.
Look for Polar Bear raffle sales around town or at “the swim” from noon to 2 p.m. The drawing will be at 2 p.m. and lucky winners will take home 30,000 pesos, 15,000 pesos or 5,000 pesos.
The Polar Bears and Lake Chapala Kayak Club volunteers are soliciting donations for Cruz Roja Chapala Delegacion ambulance and clinic services. For more information, support a “Bear” or kayaker. To buy raffle tickets contact Charlie and Ann Klestadt at (cel.) 331-695-4094 or Margy Kassier at 766-4337.
Canadian Club
Well-known conductor Leonardo Gasparini, the newly appointed artistic director of the Palacio de la Cultura y la Comunicacion in Guadalajara, will speak to the Canadian Club of Lake Chapala at their meeting on Wednesday, January 9 at Hotel La Nueva Posada (Donato Guerra 9, Ajijic.)
The Italian-born former interim director of the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra will share his musical experiences as a conductor and musician.
Gasaprini is scheduled to conduct the Soctiabank Northern Lights Music Festival Orchestra in February.
The Canadian Club’s January 9 social hour begins at 3 p.m. with the program commencing at 4 p.m. The yearly club membership fee is 180 pesos and that includes four 25-peso drink tickets. There is a 50-peso charge for guests. Everyone is welcome.
(The Palacio de la Cultura y la Comunicacion is a state-of-the-art 1,900-seat auditorium currently under construction on the northern outskirts of Guadalajara. It is expected to open in June 2013.)
Date change
Steve Cross and Fernando Gomez, owners and operators of Casa Flores B&B in Ajijic, treated the kids from Villa Infantil to breakfast last week.
They will treat all 100 children and their teachers from the Lakeside School of the Deaf and Children with Special Needs to a movie at the Plaza Interlago Movie Space on Tuesday, January 8 (not January 7 as reported in last week’s edition). The guys would really appreciate any donations of small, simple toys (coloring books and crayons are good, too) wrapped with gender and age designation on the outside to help celebrate Three Kings Day. The children at the school range in age from 5 to 15 and have varying degrees of disabilities.
Presents can be dropped off at the Casa las Flores B&B at (West) Zaragoza 38 or can be taken to the movie theater at noon on January 8. The phone number at the B&B is 766-5493.
Cross and Gomez have renewed their pledge of last year to donate 5,000 pesos a month to Villa Infantil and have added the Lakeside School for the Deaf for a similar pledge for 2013.
Bus trip
The next Lake Chapala Society (LCS) bus trip is set for Wednesday, January 9 to Guadalajara’s Galerias Mall.
This large, three-tier indoor mall has Liverpool, Sears and Best Buy stores, a food hall and plenty of restaurants. Adjoining the mall are Walmart, Sam’s, Costco and Mega.
The bus leaves promptly at 9 a.m. from the sculpture in La Floresta. It returns from the Costco area at 3:30 p.m. Sign up at the LCS table Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Shrine dine
The next Dine with the Shrine event will be on Thursday, January 17 at Hotel La Nueva Posada (Donato Guerra 9, Ajijic).
Special lunches and dinners will be served from noon to 8 p.m. Hosts Michael and Maria Eager have planned two great entrees at a cost of only 125 pesos. The first is grilled chicken breast topped with coriander and manchego cheese served on a bed of rice with mixed vegetables. The second choice is sea bass with Veracruz sauce served with rice and vegetables. Tips, drinks, salad and dessert are not included.
The restaurant will donate 100 percent of the special lunch and dinner sales to the Lake Chapala Shrine Club to benefit the club’s activities, most importantly helping Lakeside kids with their medical needs.
Reservations may be made by calling (376) 766-1444 or by stopping at the restaurant. Please indicate that you will be coming for the special Shriner dinner. Get a group together and come and have a look at the brand new Las Cupulas dining room at La Nueva Posada.
Community support has made it possible for the Shrine Club to help nearly 500 children in the last six years at a cost of more than 1.2 million pesos. Your continuing support of the Dine with the Shrine program is greatly appreciated and the Shriners are looking forward to seeing you all on January 17.
Robbie Burns
Get set to celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s beloved bard, Robbie Burns, on Friday, January 25, 5 p.m. at Salon Eucaliptos at Hotel Real de Chapala.
This year there will be a piper, a delicious turkey dinner complete with haggis, a wee dram of scotch and shortbread. Phyl Gaskell will lead everyone in a “Grand March” and Scottish country dancing. There will be a toast to the lassies and the lassies’ response and a rendition of the throat lumping classic “Auld Lang Syne.”
Tickets are 325 pesos each. Tables of eight and tickets can be reserved by contacting Kari Higgins at 766-3651, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Phy6l Gaskell at 766-2722 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tickets will also be available at Charter Club Tours in Plaza Montana.
All proceeds from the event will go to the children in the Niños Incapacitados program.
Unitarians
The Lake Chapala Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is happy to announce the arrival at Lakeside of the Fellowship’s first visiting ministers from the UUA International Headquarters in the United States. Sunday, December 30, the Reverend Eric Cherry, Director of International Resources from the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston, Massachusetts will be in Ajijic to speak to the local congregation. He will speak on “Reflections and Remembrances – a look back at the UUA past and forward to the future.
During his one-week stay in Ajijic, Reverend Cherry will also host a meeting with other Mexican UU church leaders who will travel here from Mexico City, Guadalajara, San Miguel de Allende and Puerto Vallarta for this special occasion. After the service on December 30, coffee will be served and the congregation will have an informal question and answer time with Cherry.
The Lake Chapala Unitarian Universalist Fellowship meets each Sunday, 10:30 a.m. at Sta. Margarita 113 in Riberas del Pilar. For more information call 766-1119 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is a welcoming congregation.
Christ Church Anglican
Christ Church Anglican Fellowship will celebrate the First Sunday after Christmas on December 30 with the Holy Eucharist Rite I at the Little Chapel by the Lake at 9:30 a.m. The theme of Father Danny Borkowski’s sermon is “Power to Become Children of God,” based on John 1:1-18. There will be a time of joint fellowship for the congregation of Christ Church and the Little Chapel by the Lake after the 9:30 a.m. service.
St. Andrew’s Anglican
Worship at St. Andrew’s returns to its normal schedule of two services, one at 9 a.m. and the other at 11 a.m. on the final Sunday of 2012. The two services always have a time of refreshment, welcome and fellowship in the garden between the services. On this First Sunday after Christmas Day, the Rector, Father Winston Welty, will celebrate the Eucharist at both services while Priest Associate Father Leo Theriault will deliver the sermon. Father Leo was first ordained a Roman Catholic priest more than 54 years ago and was subsequently accepted into the priesthood of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the United States. Prior to retirement his ministry was in the field of clinical psychology, working primarily with troubled adolescents. St. Andrew’s is located at Calle San Lucas 19, just a block south of the Carretera in Riberas del Pilar.
Presbyterians
Pastor Ross Arnold of Lakeside Presbyterian Church will preach on “Boys Will be Boys” with Luke 2:41-52 as the text on Sunday, December 30. The weekly interactive Bible study begins in the book of James on January 4. The church is located on the mountain side of the highway just west of S&S Auto and Bubba’s Restaurant.