THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of March 1, 2002
Acting President Bert Liebelt opened the business meeting at 10:00 on a brisk and cloudless morning with 128 members present. Total membership is 500, with 45 waiting.
Membership Concerns: Joe Sweet reported no accidents or illnesses among SMCers.
Activities: Bowling today, and Bert offered word from the American Medical Journal that it increased sexual prowess. Walt Hoffman countered that bridge was more effective yet, and after some further badinage order was restored to the meeting. 4F's on the 22nd, our last day at the "Y" for a while. Moylan's golf team is thinking about an April warmup. Paddle goes on, but missing a few snowbirds. Tennis is ready to go, except that the courts have been dismantled and locked. Racquetball has courts but no people. And Trailblazers will hike the path of the old Berkshire RR on March 13th, Huntington State Park the 27th, and the Brooklyn Bridge on May 1st.
Couth: The bus leaves at 7:30 AM on the 5th for the Philadelphia Flower Show, with "coffee and" compliments of Stew Leonard. No April trip, but the Bronx Zoo is on for May 14th, Four vacancies remain for the Washington trip in April.
Announcements: Rod Geist of the "Y" thanked us for help from the chair repair team and asked for four volunteers to scoop ice cream for a couple of hours. Don Hudson wants some folks to read aloud at school reading day the week of March lOth. Our fearless civic leader Dick Bond warned of an impending water shortage and suggested that those who bad to answer the call during the night postpone flushing until the morning. This was certainly pithy advice.
Resident Humorist Pro Tem: Lorry Koch described an accident involving a rope through an elevated pulley, with a man at one end and a barrel, with and then without bricks, at the other.
Speaker: VP Rod Seger introduced Stew Leonard, Jr., CEO of the dairy and market colossus of the same name. He described the early days of his father's family dairy, which in the 1960's was displaced by Rte 7. This led to a change of location and focus; a retail store was added to the new dairy in Norwalk, following the lead of Cumberland Farms. Stew grew up working in the store and dairy, as the family struggled to reach $1 million in sales. By the time he became president in 1982, annual sales reached $40 million, and Stew now presides over 3 stores with revenues of $300 million. The stores have 2,000 non-union employees; spend much time and effort on employee training and education; promote from within when possible; and are ranked 22nd on Fortune's list of the l00 top companies to work for in America. Typical store area is somewhat over 100,00 square feet, 1/3 retail and 2/3 production. The stores receive in total 15 million customer visits a year. There is now a wine store in Norwalk. It is separate because the state won't allow wine in markets, a policy which is unlikely to change.
Stew talked freely about the problems which accompany success. A humorous failure was his decision to purchase replicas of the famous motivational "rock", only to find that he could only sell them to Japanese in tour buses. He also mentioned the tragic death of his son, which led to creating a foundation to promote water safety, and revisited the pain of his father's entanglement in tax evasion and of being denied permission to build a store in Orange. As regards planning for the future, Stew's advisory board tells him to keep doing it if he loves it, and it was obvious from his ebullient presentation that he loves every minute of his working life.
Peter Schurman -Assistant Secretary