Welcome to the Tigers' Den

September President's Message

Scott Free, and giving away the kitchen Sink too!

If you believe working the names of candidates into your blurbs is a task for the Young and not the Meek, then you'll do this one  ustice by giving it a read.  Why the talk of giving things away?  Because I'm happy to announce the Club has given away its first free membership.  As you know, last year, under the leadership of past president Dr. Darryl Paulson, our board adopted a membership recruitment incentive.  This incentive includes the "big prize" of a free membership for any Member who brings six new Members to the Club.  Long-time member and current board member Martha Lenderman has won this prize, having brought six new members to our Club this year.  Way to go Martha!  Its not that hard, and several other Members are on their way to gaining their own Tiger stimulus package.  We offer one of the best products membership can buy:  access to and the ability to freely question some of the top leaders of our region, state and nation (and good sticky buns).

While part one of this message deals with giving something away, I want to discuss something our Club recently chose to keep:  its integrity and principles.  Several times recently our program committee and Executive Director have been presented with terms and conditions from potential speakers seeking to have us bend our program model.  However, your directors, coming as they do from all political backgrounds, have stood in unity to oppose such requests.  We will not modify our start and end times so as to short our Members of a full program.  We will not agree to avoid throwing jabs during introductions.  We will not require all questions to be submitted in writing or in advance.  And we will most certainly not agree to limit our most coveted question time to 3 questions!  We will pass on the speaker first before doing so.  Getting top candidates to agree to our program model gets harder each year as candidates try hard to "stick to the script" and avoid challenging events.  I wanted to convey this to you, our Members, so you can appreciate even more the tough task our program committee has in bringing you your regular red meat!

Final note:  In a recent column by a good friend of our Club, it was observed that Members failed to lay a paw on a speaker.  I cannot say I disagreed.  If we are to maintain our historic reputation as polite but fierce questioners, we need to put thought and effort into this important task!

See you in the Den! 

Rob Eschenfelder

President

What’s all this about a “Fang & Claw?”

Perhaps the most appealing benefit of membership is the ability to participate in Question & Answer sessions with our speakers. The coveted "Fang & Claw Award" is presented to the member at each meeting who "slashes through pretension and prevarication" with the toughest question of the day.

Tiger Bay Member Terry Bryant took home another Tiger at the August 18th luncheon held at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club for asking gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott if he would follow the lead of Gates and Buffet and give half of his fortune to charity.