AARP

AARP Chapter No. 2564 meets at 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 8, at First Bank, 205 SW Broad Street, Southern Pines.

The program will be presented by Olona Sloan, representing the Department of Aging's adult service division.

AARP usually meets at the bank the third Tuesday of each month, with the exception of June, July, August, and December.

AAUW

The Sandhills/Southern Pines Branch of the American Association of University Women will hold a Bring a Friend Summer Potluck Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, at the Foxfire Pavilion. The program will feature a panel discussion of national, state and branch AAUW activities.

Guests are invited to attend by calling Eleanor Chajkowski at 255-6027, or Lois McCarthy at 295-2871.

Membership in AAUW is open to anyone holding an associate or baccalaureate degree from an accredited university or college.

Browns Backers

The Cleveland Browns Backers of the Sandhills, a club made up of loyal Cleveland Browns football fans living in the Sandhills area, meet every time the Browns play a game.

The local chapter meets at Easy's Sports Bar and Grill (215-0346), at 211 A. Central Park Drive, Olmsted Village shopping center next to Nina's restaurant.

The first game is at 4:15 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7, when the Browns take on the Dallas Cowboys.

For further information, call Fred at 295-6480 or visit www.brownsbackersofthesandhills.com.

Seven Lakes Kiwanis

Senior Life Solutions of FirstHealth was the topic of the Aug. 19 meeting of the Seven Lakes Kiwanis Club. Deborah Dover, behavioral health services marketing, introduced Polly King, therapist with Senior Life Solutions, who spoke about what her organization does in Moore County.

Senior Health Solutions has been part of FirstHealth for nearly two years and serves the senior population in Moore County that suffers with emotional distress, especially depression and the associated problems that go with depression.

SLS provides group therapy in small groups of 3 to 12 people, depending on the problems. The clients must be 50 years old or older.

Getting out of the house is important for those who are lonely or depressed, so one important part of the therapy is to serve that brings people together in a social environment. A registered psychiatrist is also available to call on people in their homes. SLS is Medicare-supported and available to all who need help if they are 50 or older.

Seven Lakes Kiwanis meets every Tuesday at noon at the Seven Lakes CC.

Chess Group Forming

Any chess players in the area who would like to meet periodically with other chess players, or those who do not play chess but would like to learn, can call Joe McDonald at 281-5271 or 281-5272.

Preliminary planning for meetings is under way.

Kiwanis

Chuck Frock, administrator of FirstHealth of the Carolinas, presented the members of the Kiwanis Club of the Sandhills with information about future plans for the hospital, its commitment to acquiring cutting edge technology, and issues facing the health care industry.

FirstHealth's new Heart Institute will be a four-story state-of-the-art cardiac center with a proposed opening in 2011.

For more information on the Kiwanis Club and its informative programs, contact President George Hillard at (910) 949-5551.

College Club

The College Club starts its 2008-2009 year Tuesday, Sept. 9, with a luncheon at Country Club of Whispering Pines at 11:30 a.m.

The luncheon will feature the popular and entertaining speaker/writer, James Dodson, who is The Pilot's writer-in-residence and editor of Pinestraw magazine. Dodson's talk will be "Creativity: How It Can Transform the World."

The College Club has been in operation for 20 years. The requirement for membership is a degree from a four-year institution. The College Club members expand their knowledge through various speakers, programs, and interest groups, as well as providing two scholarships at the end of the year. These two scholarships will go to either an academically proficient female high-school graduate entering a four-year accredited college or university for the first time, or to a deserving woman who is seeking to further her education at a four-year institution.

The club has six yearly luncheons with speakers or entertainment included. The dates and times of the luncheon meetings, as well as the location and price of the luncheons are published at least two weeks prior to each event.

For further information, contact Katharine Bozarth, vice president/membership chairman at (910) 255-6286.

Computer Club

The Computer Club of the Sandhills meets at 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8, in the lower level of the Village Hall of Whispering Pines. The meeting will be a question-and-answer panel discussion that will focus on members' computer problems.

The computer club meets the second Monday of each month at 4 p.m. in the lower level of the Village Hall of Whispering Pines. The purpose of the club is to bring users of personal computers together for the exchange of ideas, knowledge, skills and technical information.

Membership is open to computer users with all levels of expertise.

For more information contact Art Reetz at 949-3733 or George McNally at 949-2294.

Men's Fellowship

The Sandhills Men's Fellowship will begin its breakfast speaker series with the following speakers for September:

n Tuesday, Sept. 9, golf professional Dick Hill, a nationally recognized short game and putting instructor, will speak. Hill has taught over 10,000 students, including many PGA tour professionals, as lead instructor for the Dave Pelz Short Game Schools. He is currently providing private lessons to Sandhills area golfers.

n John Derr will be the guest speaker Tuesday, Sept. 23. Derr is a legendary golf reporter who covered almost every Masters golf tournament in various capacities beginning in 1935, the second year of the contest, until 2001. As the director for the CBS television and radio sports departments, he had the unique opportunity to cover some of the most exciting venues in sports from the Olympics to World Series to U.S. Open Tennis. His "rolodex" of personal friends ranges from heads of state to major celebrities of his era. Derr is among the inaugural recipients of the Masters Major Achievement Award.

Fellowship begins at 7:40 a.m. at the Pinehurst Member's Club. Breakfast will follow at 8 a.m.

For more information, call Tom Stewart at 295-9775.

NARFE

The National Active & Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) Sandhills Chapter No. 1895 will not hold its normally scheduled monthly meeting in September due to the chapter officers' attendance at the National Convention.

The monthly meetings will resume at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Oct. 13, at the Community Congregational Church, 141 N. Bennett Street, Southern Pines.

Chapter 1895 welcomes all Federal (including U.S. Postal Service) active employees, retirees, spouses and surviving spouses to monthly meetings. Additional information about NARFE is available by contacting Vilma Geisert at (910) 215-5898 or George Sandoval at (910) 246-9881.

Seven Lakes Lions

Terri Prots, director of Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, will be the guest speaker at the Seven Lakes Lions Club meeting Thursday, Sept. 4.

The social time begins at 6 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 p.m. at West Side Community Center. Prots will enlighten the club on services available to all Moore County residents.

"Please make your reservations with Roger at 673-0845 or Tina at 673-3037," says a spokesman.

For information on the Lions Club, call Keith at 673-2611.

Women of Weymouth

Women of Weymouth holds its first meeting of the season Monday, Sept. 15. The morning begins with a 9:30 a.m. coffee time and the 10 a.m. business meeting followed by the program.

Deirdre Newton will present the program on Antarctica. Newton will speak on the 10-day trip she took with her husband in 2002. This trip, aboard a Baltic-built Russian spy ship holding 100 passengers, was arranged by Peregrine Adventures. They boarded the ship in Ushuaia, the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego. The town is on the Beagle Channel, which leads out into Drake Passage, the body of water between South American and Antarctica.

The Newtons sailed around the islands of the Antarctic Peninsula and took in the views of the vast landscapes of ice. During the program she will be relating her experiences on the trip and showing some pictures of the area taken by her husband, who is well known for his photography.

Newton has recently completed two years as president of Friends of Weymouth and prior to that served as vice president and membership chairman. She has also been a member of the Arts and Humanities committee.

Newton was born in the Cotswold in England. Her father was a British Naval officer who met and married her Minnesota-born mother after their meeting in Riga, where she was acting as hostess for her uncle who had been assigned as the American Foreign Minister to the Baltic States.

While Newton's father was at sea, the family lived in Scotland for a time, and then from 1946 to 1956 the family lived mostly in Southern Pines. Newton finished high school in Southern Pines and after she graduated from Duke University she went back to England where she worked at various jobs in London for two and a half years. She returned to the United States and married and raised a family.

"The Women of Weymouth have a wonderful schedule of programs planned for the 2008-2009 year and Newton's September presentation is a delightful way to start," says Kathy Evans, president. "I am looking forward to seeing our returning members as well as many new ones and guests."

WOW is sponsoring the annual popular Supper on the Grounds Thursday, Sept. 18.

For information on space availability and/or annual membership forms, call the office at 692-6261.