Author Archives: Joni

2017 Barbecue

Hello friends! It’s barbecue time again!

June 24th from 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM or until we run out of food!

Last year was an amazing success! By 1:00 PM we were running out of brisket and by the end of the day we had sold out of meat entirely so if you wanna enjoy some of the best barbecue around, come early!

Brisket, chicken and sausage will be available along with homemade beans, potato salad, barbecue sauce, pickles, onions, bread and dessert!

Pricing is as follows:

3 Meat Plate: $16
2 Meat Plate: $14
1 Meat Plate: $12
Child’s Plate: $6
Dessert: $1

All prices include tea or a soft drink.

Cash, Check, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover Card accepted.

We still need volunteers to help in the serving line, clear tables, work in the kitchen, and ferry food in from the pits outside so if you’re interested in helping or have a kiddo that needs volunteer hours please send me an email (macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com)!

We’re also accepting tablecloth donations. If you’ve got a tablecloth in good condition, that you’d like to see put to good use please let us know!

I look forward to seeing everyone on the 24th!

-Joni

2017 Barbecue Committee and Volunteers

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Hello Friends!

It’s time, once again, for us to begin planning our annual barbecue. Last year’s event was a huge success. We have a lot of good experience to build off of but I think we have a lot more that can be done. Like last year, we will be forming a committee to plan the event consisting of the board (myself, Bruce, Bruce Jr. Ed and Megan) and any additional volunteers who wish to be more involved with the logistical planning of the barbecue.

We will discuss everything from cost saving measures, serving line and kitchen logistics, volunteers and volunteer recruitment, food preparation, event marketing and event promotion.

We plan on have 1-2 meetings, preferably one the first week of April and another in May around the time of the annual meeting. Last year, the committee’s involvement was instrumental to the success of the event. Help us make this year even better!

Also, you may have noticed last year that we were very short on event volunteers. The wait for food was nearly 30 minutes at one point all because we simply didn’t have enough hands. If you plan on coming to the event and have a little extra time please volunteer! We will have 1.5 hour shifts so please consider helping if you can! As the event nears I will be sending out more information about exactly which volunteer positions need filling and descriptions of each position so you know exactly what you’re getting y

As always, please feel free to contact me via email (macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com) if you’d like more information regarding serving on the committee, volunteering at the barbecue or just to say “hi!”

I can’t wait to see all of you in the coming months!

Joni Buck
President, Macedonia Cemetery Association

Holiday Greetings

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Happy Holidays!

I hope you are all enjoying the unseasonably warm December we’ve had so far! It’s hard to believe it’s nearly Christmas. It’s been a slow year for us at the cemetery but I wanted to take the opportunity to update you on the year.

The Barbecue

First, thank you to everyone who came out to the barbecue and an extra special thanks to everyone who volunteered! We spent a lot of time last spring planning the event and that extra effort paid off! We raised $5,583 in plate sales and donations! Our best year by far! We actually ran out of food! Amazing! I am determined to continue on with this in 2017. Like last year we will be forming a barbecue committee to help plan the event. If you are interested or you have kids and/or grand kids who you’d like to see involved on the committee please let me know. There will be two or three meetings, typically held on the weekend and last no more than a couple of hours.

If you can’t commit to serving on the committee please consider helping the day of the event. The wait for food was nearly a half hour and it was due entirely to a lack of volunteers. This is your opportunity to serve the cemetery and your community! Volunteer positions for servers, runners and kitchen helpers are broken up into easy 1 ½ hour shifts. Please consider donating some of your time to help us make this important day a success!

Fall Work Day

The work day was held on October 8. A small group of us met at the cemetery around 9 AM and spent about three hours trimming trees and bushes on the property. The next work day is April 29. I’ll send our more information as the day gets closer but for now save the date and hope for good weather!

Financials

This year the cemetery association has received $7,670.84 and has dispersed $3,861.82.

Our 2017 Annual Meeting will be held on May13 at 2 p.m. I encourage you to attend; I know your time on the weekends is at a premium but the annual meeting is when all the business decisions regarding the cemetery get made and it’s imperative that we have your input. We will vote on a maintenance contract, set a budget for next fiscal year and elect officers. Please mark your calendars and plan on attending. If you don’t live nearby or cannot attend please feel free to send your comments and suggestions to the board via email or US mail prior to the meeting.

Important Dates:
April 29 – Spring Work Day
May 13 – Annual Business Meeting
June 24 – Barbecue

If you didn’t get a chance to make it to the barbecue this year and you’d like to make a donation, please do! Checks can be made out to Macedonia Cemetery Association and can be mailed to P.O. Box 22, Hockley, TX, 77447. We can also accept donations via PayPal and all major credit cards (click Donate, from there click on the Paypal logo and PayPal will walk you through the rest).

Thank you all for your continued support of our beautiful cemetery. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!

Sincerely,

Joni Buck
President, Macedonia Cemetery Association

2016 Barbecue Results

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We’ve had a few weeks to crunch the numbers and the results from the barbecue are in! We raised a whopping $5580, making this our most successful barbecue ever!

After a disappointing year last year, the barbecue committee focused our efforts on marketing prior to the event and improving the experience at the event itself and all this work paid off in spades! Starting with moving the serving time to 11:30 to ads in local papers and community calendars to adding banners and signage along the road all our planning was worth it.

Serving started at 11:30 and by noon the line stretched to the door (not an uncommon occurance for the beginning of the barbecue) but by 12:30 when my husband arrived, he couldn’t find a parking place and the line had began to wrap around the fellowship hall, a full half hour wait. At 1:00 we began to run out of food! Potato salad went first, followed by barbecue sauce and sausage. At some point we also ran out of take out containers and plastic utensils!

At 3:00, a half hour after our planned end time, we finally served our last plate and started to pack up. When it was all said and done we only had a half a brisket left over and 6 whole chickens. For three and a half hours I sat at the cashier’s table in shock as the line to the door never disappeared.

We saw a lot of familiar faces but a lot of new ones, as well. We saw people who were familiar but we hadn’t seen in a while. We saw police officers. We saw young, old and everything in between.

I had a lot emotionally invested in the barbecue this year. After much worry and disappointment last year I knew the cemetery NEEDED this to go well. By the time I got home at 7 PM and sat down to eat my own (very cold) plate of barbecue I was exhausted and nearly in tears. What a wonderfully fantastic day!

So THANK YOU to everyone who came out to eat with us! THANK YOU to the handful of volunteers that spent part (or all!) of the your Saturday helping us! THANK YOU to everyone who brought homemade sides and desserts! And an extra special THANK YOU to the people who served on the barbecue committee!

Our next event is the fall workday to be held on October 8, 2016 at 9 AM. I hope to see some of you there!

The Barbecue is Here!

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After months of planning the barbecue is finally here! We will start serving at 11:30 AM and go until 2:30 PM or until we run out of food.

Plate prices are as follows:

1 Meat – $10
2 Meat – $12
3 Meat – $14
Child’s Plate – $5
Dessert – $1
Sodas – $1

Bulk Meats are also available:

1 lb Brisket – $15
Whole Chicken – $12
1/2 Chicken – $6
Sides – $1.50

Take out containers will be available.

For the first time EVER we will be accepting credit cards! Cash, Check, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express are accepted forms of payment.

Macedonia United Methodist Church
23391 Macedonia Road
Hockley, TX 77447

I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s smiling faces tomorrow!

Barbecue Planning

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Hello friends!

With our annual barbecue just two weeks (!) away we still need some help. As usual we need volunteers to work the event. For the barbecue this year, we have broken up volunteer positions into 1.5 hour shifts, so instead of being obligated to work the entire day you can volunteer and still have some time to fellowship and eat your barbecue. If you can, please volunteer to serve, work in the kitchen or volunteer to be a floater.

If you have a child or grandchild who is available to help please let me know and I can add them to the list. I started serving at the barbecue when I was a kid. We appreciate volunteers of any age!

We are also in need of desserts. To avoid the dessert oversupply that we had last year I have made a list of desserts that should supply our needs nicely.

To keep our desserts and volunteers organized, I am using a website called Volunteer Sign-Up. It’s free for us to use and will make volunteering easy. The sign up sheets for both volunteer positions and desserts are below. Click on the appropriate link below and look for a position that is open. Click on the arrow to the right and fill out the form.

Volunteer Sign-Up

Dessert Sign-Up

Table Cloth Donations

As discussed at the annual meeting we will be starting a new tradition. We will be using table cloths collected from the membership to cover the dining tables at the barbecue. Table cloths will be embroidered with the name of the family who donated it and the year it was donated. After every barbecue they will be washed and stored for use the following year.

Table cloths do not have to be new or any specific size (we can fold them to fit the round tables in the fellowship hall) but please make sure they are in good condition. If you have a table cloth you’d like to donate please contact Joni (macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com).

Flyer

Below you’ll find a link to our flyer. Please print out as many as you like and distribute to all the places you frequent (doctor’s office, dentist, grocery store, gym, etc)!

Barbecue Flyer

I am excited about seeing everyone in a couple of weeks! I hope everyone is staying dry!

-Joni

Volunteers Needed!

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Spring is a busy season for us. Our first spring work day is quickly approaching and as always our one and only fundraiser, the barbecue, is on my mind. I need volunteers for both events!

Work Day

Our first spring work day will be held on April 30 from 10 am – 4 pm. We will be up at the cemetery cleaning tombstones, trimming bushes/trees, pulling weeds, picking up limbs and raking leaves. If you like spending time outside, this is a great opportunity to get some vitamin D! Wear your grubby clothes, bring your gardening/lawn implements, a chair, some lunch and prepare to get dirty. Can’t commit for the entire day? You don’t need to stay the whole time, please come and go as needed. Any help is appreciated!

Annual Barbecue

The 2016 barbecue is June 25 at Macedonia United Methodist Church. I need volunteers both the evening before (Friday, June 24) and the day of the event.

The chart below show which volunteer positions are available.
(Please note that though there is only space for 4 volunteers for set up and clean up, unlimited positions are available!)

*names in bold denote position coordinators

For detailed descriptions of volunteer positions, click here.

Running our cemetery wouldn’t be possible without the help of all our faithful volunteers. If you would like to volunteer for the barbecue please send me an email at macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com to have your name added to the chart!

I look forward to seeing everyone on April 30 at the work day!

-Joni Buck

Spring at the Cemetery

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I went by the cemetery this afternoon, as I often do on Friday afternoons to check up on things and noticed that with the wildflowers blooming looks particularly pretty right now. I thought I’d share some pictures. If you were planning on making a trip over, I highly encourage doing it in the next couple of weeks before it gets mowed again!

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Happy Spring!

-Joni Buck

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas, friends!

The holiday season is mid-year for us so it’s a great chance to update you on what’s happened at the cemetery so far this year.

The Barbecue

Thank you to everyone who came out to the barbecue and an extra special thanks to everyone who volunteered! We raised $3543.50. Though everyone enjoyed the food and the overabundance of desserts, it fell short of what we anticipated. This leaves me determined to make sure 2016 is better! The barbecue is our primary source of revenue and we need the event to succeed. I am forming a committee to help plan the 2016 event and have already heard from several people who are interested in volunteering. If you are interested in serving on the committee or you have kids and/or grandkids who you’d like to see involved please let me know.

Fall Work Day

The work day was held on October 10. A small group of us met at the cemetery around 10 AM and spent about four hours working hard and eating some delicious brownies, thanks to Kaye Ferdon. We trimmed numerous trees and bushes on the property, dug up the yaupons and other saplings on the west side of the Dinkin’s plots and began cleaning some of the dirtier tombstones with the biological cleaner, as we discussed at the annual meeting. It was a beautiful day to work outside! We will continue to work on cleaning the tombstones at our next work day on April 30. That’s right! We will have a spring work day! Please mark your calendars.

Financials

This year the cemetery association has received $5,882.94 and has dispersed $3.882.31. Click here for our most recent financial summary. This is a condensed version of our treasurer’s report. If you’d like to see the complete report please email me (macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com).

Our 2016 Annual Meeting will be held on May 21 at 2 p.m. I encourage you to attend; I know your time on the weekends is at a premium but the annual meeting is when all the business decisions regarding the cemetery get made and it’s imperative that we have your input. We will vote on a maintenance contract, set a budget for next fiscal year and elect officers. Please mark your calendars and plan on attending. If you don’t live nearby or cannot attend please feel free to send your comments and suggestions to the board via email or US mail prior to the meeting.

Important Dates:
April 30 – Spring Work Day
May 21 – Annual Business Meeting
June 25 – Barbecue

If you didn’t get a chance to make it to the barbecue this year and you’d like to make a donation, please do! Checks can be made out to Macedonia Cemetery Association and can be mailed to P.O. Box 22, Hockley, TX, 77447. We can also accept donations via PayPal and all major credit cards on our website. Go to www.macedoniacemetery.com and click Donate, from there click on the Paypal logo and PayPal will walk you through the rest.

Thank you all for your continued support of our beautiful cemetery. I hope your family is doing well and I wish you all a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!

Sincerely,

Joni Buck
President, Macedonia Cemetery Association

Barbecue Committee

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Happy Thursday, Friends!

This week my husband and I dug the last of our delicious smoked chicken out of the freezer…which means it’s time to start planning another barbecue!

I think we’re all well aware that the barbecue is barely holding us together. Financially, we’re treading water. The funds we raised last year (from the barbecue and other donations throughout the year) covered our operating expenses by less than $100. $100!

That’s a little too close for comfort.

With the seemingly endless increasing cost of maintenance – this trajectory that doesn’t bode well for us long term. We all have a stake in the cemetery being cared for well into the future and as it stands now the future is limited.

The first, and easiest, thing to do is to improve our existing fundraiser, the annual barbecue, to maximizing it’s fundraising potential.

I am looking for volunteers interested in serving on a committee to help plan the 2016 barbecue.

We will be covering the following topics:
-volunteer recruitment/management
-day of protein preparation/timing
-preparation and management of sides/desserts
-marketing to the surrounding community
-secondary income streams

I would expect at least two meetings of the committee. One in January/February and another one in April. If needed, we will have a third one in May (after the annual meeting).

I will be heading the committee; meeting times and dates will be determined after the committee is in place to best suit everyone’s schedules. Ideally, we’d have 5-7 people not including myself.

If you are interested in serving on the committee please send me an email me at macedonia_cemetery@hotmail.com

If you cannot serve on the committee but have observations/feedback from the barbecue you’d like the committee to consider, please let me know. I will bring all feedback to the attention of the committee and we will work to improve the barbecue in every way we can!

2016 will be a great year!

Joni