At the annual meeting on January 20th, four officers were elected. Lori Robinson was elected as president, Joel Wachs was elected as vice president, Nancy Harvey was re-elected as treasurer, and Lenore Defliese was re-elected as secretary.
The entire membership would like to extend their thanks to John Gray who served as vice president of the group for the past few years.
The new officers will serve until the next annual meeting on January 19, 2012.
At the Annual Meeting on January 20, 2011, the membership approved the schedule for its meetings in 2011. All of these meetings will be held at 3:15 p.m. in the large meeting room at the Mercer Island Public Library except as noted:
All members are welcome to attend the meetings. If you have any questions about the schedule or the meetings, please contact the Friends of the Library at info (at) milibraryfriends.org.
Ted Rand, best known to Islanders for his children’s book illustrations, will be honored October 23rd at 1:00 PM at the Mercer Island Library when a framed watercolor for the book Salt Hands is unveiled by the Friends of the Mercer Island Library.
“The Friends have been looking for a way to acknowledge Ted’s contributions to his craft and his community for a couple of years,” said Suzanne Sanderson, Friends member who was responsible for finding the painting. And it was a bit of a search. “We had been told that there was no original artwork available, but were fortunate to discover this one when it came on the market.”
A professional graphic designer who took up children’s book illustrating at a time in his life when most people are planning retirement travel, Rand had 80 books to his credit before he died in 2005 at age 89. Among them were the popular Salty Dog series, Home for Spooky and The Baby in the Basket, all of which were done in partnership with his wife, Gloria, herself an accomplished author of at least 15 children’s books, all of them full of Rand’s watercolors, many of which will be on display the day of the dedication. Several of their books will be on display the day of the dedication.
Rand distinguished himself as a graphics artist with work that appeared in The New Yorker, Life, Encyclopedia Britannica, but he also was commissioned for portraits of Washington notables such as John Spellman, Dorothy Bullitt and Charles Odegaard. He taught graphic illustration at the University of Washington for 22 years.
The Friends chose to honor Rand not only for his contributions to children’s literature, but also for his giving-back ethic. He cast a wide net over many Island organizations, giving freely of his graphic expertise. He juried shows for the Mercer Island Visual Arts League, provided promotional materials for the City’s Mercerversary celebration in 1976 and designed logos for several Island organizations.
Our September meeting has been changed to Thursday, September 9th at 3:15pm in the large meeting room at the library, The reason for the change is that no meeting room will be available to us between September 12th and mid-October as Library staff will need both meeting rooms full time until the new catalogue system is fully installed.
At the meeting, we will be making plans for the fall book sale.
We hope to see you there.
Save the Dates! Mercer Island Friends of the Library Annual Silent Auction and Book Sale are just around the corner.
Silent Auction:
October 1st through October 20th, Featuring 100 special books.
Bid winners can pick up their items Oct 22th-Oct 24th.
Fall Book Sale :
Thursday, October 21, 5-9pm Members Only (you can join at the door)
Friday, October 22, 10am-6pm
Saturday, October 23, 10am-5pm
Sunday, October 24, 1pm-5pm
• Over 8,000 books of all genres plus media- most priced 50¢ to $2
• New Items will be added daily.
• Paperbacks will be sold in the lobby as early as Wednesday, October 20.
There will be a Boxing Party on Friday, July 30th from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Friends have been very lucky to have received so many donations of books during the past few weeks that the book closet is now full.
All those interested in helping should contact Sherri Stanley (sherri.stanley1 (at) gmail.com).
Saturday, July 22, 2010
3:00 PM
Large Meeting Room at the Library, 4400 88th Ave. S.E., Mercer Island
The May meeting of the Mercer Island Friends will take place on Thursday, May 20th at 3pm, in the large meeting room of the library.
Friday, March 19, 2 p.m.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Friends of the Library will take place on Friday, March 19th at 2pm in the large meeting room of the Mercer Island Library. All active members are invited to attend. On the agenda will be the Friends of the Library plans for upcoming events such as Leap for Green and Summer Celebration as well as discussions about book sales, the Ted Rand Memorial Artwork, and various committee reports.