Highlights from Colonial Williamsbufg

Our mini-vacation in Colonial Williamsburg is over, and summer is coming to a close for the schoolchildren. If you were lucky enough to join us on our trip, you know how much we all enjoyed each other’s company while we explored our history as a British Colony. About 100 Arcadians gathered in Virginia to enjoy just a bit of summer with each other. The weather was pretty good — it rained one morning, but most of the trip was bright sunshine.
The Royal Arcanum always strives to find a family friendly, reasonably priced location for our mini vacations, and this year was an excellent choice. Our hotel was just steps from the Williamsburg Visitor Center, where a bus ride (complementary for our guests) provided easy access to the shops, restaurants, and reenactments in Colonial Williamsburg. The same bus also provided transportation to the modern-day town of Williamsburg and their wonderful selection of stores and restaurants, as well as the museums and antique sections of town.
Back at the hotel, we gathered for a welcoming registration, first night dinner; a short program presentation by me, your Supreme Regent, during our rainy morning, which was mostly presentations of awards and drawings for prizes; game night; a morning baby shower breakfast; and ending with our final evening dinner.
A highlight, as always, was our local charity guests. This year we invited Catholic Charities, who collected our members’ generous donations for needy mothers in the Eastern Virginia area. We also held a split the pot raffle with two winners, collecting funds for Don Ferry, Jr.’s participation in the Jimmy Walk Fund that raises money to find a cure for cancer.

We introduced our new mascot, Roy Al Arcanum, a traveling bear who is already making his way across the continent spreading the news of our great organization (and with overseas plans in the works). We’re asking all jurisdictions to share Roy with their members as they travel, and post the pictures online or with the Home Office. On Facebook, post the pictures to our wall or your own page, and tag him with the hashtag #WhereIsRoyNow. Roy also has his own email address at WhereIsRoyNow@gmail.com: email pictures of him there if you don’t have a Facebook account. We’ll be selecting winners for the favorite pictures throughout the year.
We have a contest now: Visit our Facebook page and browse the pictures in the Roy in Williamsburg album. Like all your favorite pictures, and we’ll give out prizes to the photographers of the chosen favorite pictures.
If you missed the mini-vacation, you missed a lot! We’ll try to keep you up to date here, and hope to see you at our next gathering.