... december holiday party ...

As always the holiday party was an exciting event – a nice combo event held to usher in the holidays, to celebrate some of our member’s birthdays (apparently we have about 10 members who were born in December) and to welcome the new NSBE graduates to the alumni chapter. We won our soccer game the night before … 11-5. Straight bullying!

Thanks to Jessica for cooking the main course, two turkeys frozen over a whole month (Thanks Guidant!), Diego for hosting, Tiffany for the decorations and everyone else for their help in making the event a success. As always there were the usual memorable moments … talk of sibling rivalry/ love and car (read as violence) from waaay back in the day, Tari and his lovely teddy white elephant gift, Renee and the 10 year old zip drive, Seitu and the Panasonic batteries (not even energizer). Good times. Fun times.

... gooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaal ...

Unfortunately I didn’t study journalism in school and as such I cannot describe the first win by the Black Stars (there is actually history behind the choice of the team name) with as much color and emotion as a sports writer would say when Michael Jordan hit the game winning shot, when Peyton Manning obliterated defenses with a record number of touchdowns, … you get the picture. The moment was as epic as any other when the final buzzer sounded and the black stars prevailed 8-2. There was no confetti … I think we were robbed on that. Now that we finally have a win this would be a good time to share the results from the past couple of games we have played.



Nov 10, 10:25PM - Black Stars 1 vs Relentless 8
Nov 17, 10:25PM - SVSE 10 vs Black Stars 4
Dec 1, 8:45PM - Black Stars 2 vs Smack! LE 9
Dec 8, 7:55PM - Black Stars 8 vs AC Milan 2
Dec 15, 8:45PM - Black Stars vs Benchwarmers
Dec 22, 8:45PM - Black Stars vs Relentless
Jan 12, 7:55PM - Sports Basement SV vs Black Stars
Jan 19, 6:15PM - Black Stars vs Smack! LE
Jan 26, 7:05PM - Black Stars vs AC Milan
Feb 2, 7:05PM - Black Stars vs Benchwarmers



All games are held at the MVP arena on Friday nights. You should come out and check it out. Be sure to bring your pom-poms. Team spirit was well alive during this magical night, Tari on the sidelines doing the ESPN play by play announcements, Chris screaming “Go show off” all the way from the goalie and I believe that all goals were actually scored by the girls. Part of the feminist agenda “ … score all the goals in Coed soccer leagues”



Needless to say, the ambiance at the dinner table was fabulous. Applebees – we ate good in the neighborhood all the way till the restaurant closed. Quite the way to close out a winning night. Next up – The bullying of the Bench Warmers, December 15th @ 8:45. No feel good movie comeback by the benchwarmers this time around – just straight ballyragging!

... Golden Harvest Food Sort #2 ...

The food sort activity this Wednesday was definitely much cleaner than last time. Renee was a little bit disappointed that it wasn’t as challenging as it was the first time around; damn overachiever! Diego actually pulled his act together, showed up on time and spent a record 0 minutes on the phone. Now if that doesn’t define success I don’t know what does. Dinner afterwards at Olive Garden was spectacular. I guess they really do make you feel like family there. I wont get into details but talk of beef medallions, the four ladies from sex in the city and waterfront properties had a lot of people cracking up ... some a little bit more than others ... being easily amused isn't exactly the worst thing that could happen to somebody.

This time around I thought I would present some statistics just to show what effect such an event has on our community. After all, any event held in the name of NSBE should be geared towards fulfilling the mission statement … the relevant part here being “… and to positively impact the community” Now the definition of “community” will vary from person to person … I’ll let you pick your own definition.

A lesson in demographics …

Ethnic breakdown of people receiving aid from Second Harvest
40% are Non-Hispanic White
38% are Non-Hispanic Black
17% are Latino or Hispanic
6% are American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

Breakdown of the US population by race
60% are Non-Hispanic White
12% are Non-Hispanic Black
14% are Latino or Hispanic
14% are classified as other

From this, we can see clearly that the black population is much much more reliant on food donations than any other racial group within the US. Gone are the days when we sit down and rely on African American public figures to help drive a positive socio-economic within our community– the Martin Luther Kings have been replaced by the Flavor Flavs, the Mohamed Alis have been replaced by the Mike Tysons and so on and so forth. NSBE IS trying to mass produce the new age MLK’s; are YOU on the bandwagon?