-
Soup Kitchen- Sun., August 8th Volunteers Filled!
Rockford Rescue MissionAug 08, 2021
11:00 AM – 1:30 PM -
Rockford Cosmos Charity Golf Classic
Forest Hills CC and MNTS CCAug 13, 2021
11:00 AM – 7:00 PM -
Cosmo Steak Fry-Keystone Insurance Sponsor
Forest Hills Country ClubSep 16, 2021
6:00 PM – 10:00 PM -
Soup Kitchen- Sunday, Oct. 3rd VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Rockford Rescue MissionOct 03, 2021
11:00 AM – 1:30 PM
|
Chris Zion, Club President
|
Tom Graceffa, Immediate Past Pres. |
TBD, Vice President
|
|
Brian Thor, President Elect
|
Bill Redig, Treasurer | Larry Lazzerini, Secretary |
| Joshua Sherman, Sergeant at Arms | Francesco Collura, Charities Board Pres.. | Dayton Smith, Accountant |
|
Tom Gustafson, At Large Board Member
|
Tom Grimes, At Large Board Member | TBD, At Large Board Member |
I wanted to reach out to our members, as well as those who serve on our board, and say Thank You for the opportunity as well as the faith you have in me to be nominated as President. I joined the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club in 2010 after having attended several events over the years. I was inspired by the people involved and the overall attitude of giving back to the community in their fundraising efforts. I still feel that same pride and I am still inspired, in fact even more so today, by a select number of individuals who continually contribute countless hours over the year to make us successful. To them I say Thank You as well. There is simply no doubt in my mind that we have become a recognizable charity club in the Rockford region. In fact, I will say the best charity organization in Rockford, especially when you consider the $600,000 we have granted to Crusader Health over the last 20 years, the endowment that we have with the Northern Illinois Community Foundation, and the fundraising that on average raises $100,000 plus for our community and local non profits. We are truly a force to be reckoned with and I am honored to be your President for the next year. I am sure we all agree that our local entities truly need financial support after 2020.
To be a President of the club, most individuals spend a number of years working their way through the chairs and running/ assisting fundraising events. You get to see the club from the inside and what makes us successful. This leads me to my ask of our members, we need your help. To continue to grow and support our wonderful causes, I am asking you to get involved. Make time to attend lunches, support our charitable causes, attend a social event or two or, and here is the most important ask, think of joining the board or running a charitable event. We need your help and don’t be surprised if I walk up to you and ask you to be more involved. Maybe you’ll surprise me with a request to do so. I would love to have that happen. We have some open board positions that I’m hopeful others will ask to fill and I have intentionally done so with that expectation. Maybe you are that next person who has been thinking of it and we didn’t know you were the one. You, to be the future President of the best group of charitable minded individuals in the Rockford area. Thank you for being a member and I look forward to representing the club this year; not only at the International Convention, but throughout the year at all of our events.
Here is to our 2021-2022 year and all of its successes!
Chris Zion
President 2021-2022
Good afternoon Fellow Cosmos,
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club for your support of the 32nd Annual Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition. See the picture below:
Although we once again had to deal with warm temperatures, the sculptors did a tremendous job in dealing with these challenging conditions and creating spectacular works of art. Unfortunately, the sculptures were gone far too soon but heavy traffic on Friday and Saturday helped us reach the impressive number of over 22,000 spectators. And we had a very good year in regard to community support with over $7,000 from our 19 block sponsors and an $8,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. This was in addition to the $21,000 in donated products and services we received from our many in-kind donors and supporters.We were so impressed with the sculptures this year, especially those created by our high school teams. Visit our Facebook page and Rockford Park District photos page for pictures:
We continue to increasingly utilize social media to promote this event and it certainly gets a lot of attention. One video posted on Facebook received over 2,100 views. On Instagram, we had 624 Likes over 14 Posts. And for the first time, we created a Snapchat Filter that had 9,628 Views. I'm not exactly sure what all of this means but our marketing people say it's pretty good.
The Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition is sanctioned by the US National Snow Sculpting Competition and the winner of our event goes on to represent our state in the National Competition in Lake Geneva where they compete against other state winners. This year, Cave People from Space, comprised of Capt. Brian Hierstein, Joe Goral and Kelly Madison took first place in the Illinois Competition with their sculpture “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. They will represent Illinois next February in Lake Geneva.
The Rockford Park District is honored to be able to provide this event to our community each year and we are grateful for the many partners like you that help us. Without your help, there would be no way that we could continue offering this unique event to the City of Rockford.
Thanks again and best wishes throughout the rest of this year.
John Beck (fellow Cosmo)
Events and Recreation Projects Manager
Rockford Park District
For the second year in a row, our Team Cosmo participated in the Polar Plunge, which is a fundraiser specifically for Special Olympics. Our team led the local fundraiser for donations raised. We are super proud of our Cosmo Team! Thank you to Chris Zion for helping organize this event for interested Cosmos. See the video below:
Rockford Cosmopolitan Club
2020 Grant Recipients - $58,425!
• Barbara Olson Center of Hope $850
• Boys & Girls Club of Rockford $2,500
• Boy Scouts of America, Blackhawk Area Council $6,000
• Center for Sight & Hearing $2,000
• Crusader Community Health $20,000
• Gigi’s Playhouse of Rockford $1,500
• Ken-Rock Community Center $3,000
• Midway Village $1,000
• Northern Illinois Food Bank $3,500
• Northwest Community Center $2,000
• Patriots Gateway Community Center $3,300
• Paws Saving Lives $5,000
• Rock House Kids $1,500
• Rockford Rescue Mission $1,300
• Shelter Care Ministries $1,800
• The 17th Circuit Therapy Dog Volunteers $1,000
• The Literacy Council $1,000
• Walter Lawson Children’s Home $1,175
For the second year in a row, our Team Cosmo participated in the Polar Plunge, which is a fundraiser specifically for Special Olympics. Our team led the local fundraiser for donations raised. We are super proud of our Cosmo Team! Thank you to Chris Zion for helping organize this event for interested Cosmos. See the video below:
We had the pleasure of hosting our lunch on 2/8/18 with Major General John Borling as your headlining speaker. We had an awesome turnout and it was indeed a great time to hear him speak to our club once again. Here is the audio of his presentation:
Good afternoon Fellow Cosmos,
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club for your support of the 32nd Annual Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition. See the picture below:
Although we once again had to deal with warm temperatures, the sculptors did a tremendous job in dealing with these challenging conditions and creating spectacular works of art. Unfortunately, the sculptures were gone far too soon but heavy traffic on Friday and Saturday helped us reach the impressive number of over 22,000 spectators. And we had a very good year in regard to community support with over $7,000 from our 19 block sponsors and an $8,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. This was in addition to the $21,000 in donated products and services we received from our many in-kind donors and supporters.We were so impressed with the sculptures this year, especially those created by our high school teams. Visit our Facebook page and Rockford Park District photos page for pictures:
We continue to increasingly utilize social media to promote this event and it certainly gets a lot of attention. One video posted on Facebook received over 2,100 views. On Instagram, we had 624 Likes over 14 Posts. And for the first time, we created a Snapchat Filter that had 9,628 Views. I'm not exactly sure what all of this means but our marketing people say it's pretty good.
The Illinois Snow Sculpting Competition is sanctioned by the US National Snow Sculpting Competition and the winner of our event goes on to represent our state in the National Competition in Lake Geneva where they compete against other state winners. This year, Cave People from Space, comprised of Capt. Brian Hierstein, Joe Goral and Kelly Madison took first place in the Illinois Competition with their sculpture “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. They will represent Illinois next February in Lake Geneva.
The Rockford Park District is honored to be able to provide this event to our community each year and we are grateful for the many partners like you that help us. Without your help, there would be no way that we could continue offering this unique event to the City of Rockford.
Thanks again and best wishes throughout the rest of this year.
John Beck (fellow Cosmo)
Events and Recreation Projects Manager
Rockford Park District
On Thursday, January 25th, Mark Doudlah of www.DoudlahFarms.com headlined our Cosmo lunch. He impacted everyone in attendance! This was not your average health food presentation. Mark is a 4th generation farmer and has become a national authority for assisting traditional farmers to converting to organic methods. Here is his presentation in its entirety:
Click Here to Download his Powerpoint Presentation.
FBI Special Agent, Christopher Remillard, delivered a great presentation to approximately 50 of our members on 10/5/17! Within the presentation, he explained the inner workings of how the local FBI office was constructed, as well as how the International entity works on a daily basis.
The Question/Answer session also allowed our members to ask those burning questions that everyone wants to ask, such as the Equifax hack and how the FBI generally proceeds with their investigation of such an issue. Thank you Special Agent Remillard for your time for this presentation!
 |  |
Some presidents in the past have chosen to "theme" their presidency. The theme for John LiCausi for 2017/2018 is to "run the Cosmopolitan Club like a business."
With the significant revenue that our club generates with our 200 members (and growing), it is critical that we apply business sense to every decision that we make as an organization.
In the spirit of this theme, Gary Kieper, CEPA, CFBA spoke at our first luncheon on Thursday 9/28/17 at Forest Hills Country Club. He also joined our club as a new member after he finished!
The title of his presentation was "Selling YOU ... Ready, Set, Go!"
If you missed the lunch, then no worries. Here is his entire presentation in HD video:
Click Here to Download his Presentation Slides in PDF format.
The signage for the first Cosmopolitan Club naming opportunity in the new Crusader Clinic location on Alpine Road was meant to be the Patient Education Room, however, it got turned into an exam room (at the time of the Ribbon Cutting). So now the Cosmopolitan Club has two naming rooms, that includes the exam room and the second one being the original intention of the Patient Education Room.
40 Cosmos and 3 guests attended our lunch featuring Dave Syverson. It was a great time hearing him speak about local and national politics. Here is the event video:
Thanks to the coordination of Tom Grimes and the 9 Cosmos that volunteered to manage the cash and chips, the club netted $1,750 during the 9/7/16 poker event at the Hoffman House! This means that the time of our volunteers was worth almost $50/ per hour! That is awesome! Keep up the great work...
Today we revealed the new website concept for Cosmopolitan International as well as the Rockford Cosmopolitan Club. We went into depth regarding the science of how we laid out the new website to improve membership and fundraising. It will also now be 100% fully mobile responsive. If you missed it, then you can watch the video below.
For easy understanding and branding purposes, the "Smooch a Pooch" program is now known as the "Paws Saving Lives" program. This program is being led by our own Rick Swansboro.
See the Download Files section to the left for the Powerpoint Presentation that explains the program.
.jpg)
Date of Event: 9/29/16
Did you miss our first lunch of the 2016/2017 season? If so, then you missed a great one! Dr. Alex Stagnaro-Green educated attendees about the different types of diabetes and the science behind them. However, no worries if you were not there, because you can view the entire presentation right here in HD: