Chris Fokas is one of the owners of Martha's Exchange, where we hold many of our meetings. He has always been very helpful when it came to getting GNHLUG a place to meet. In 2001, he was in a serious accident, and the group put together a "Get Well Soon" package for him.

The following is Paul Lussier's message about the result.

Pictures of the "plushware" are online as well: EventTuxForChrisFokasPics

From pll@mclinux.com Sun Jun  1 21:57:56 2003
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 11:26:37 -0400
From: Paul Lussier <pll@mclinux.com>
To: gnhlug@zk3.dec.com
Subject: Thank You...


Hi all,

This is an update on Chris Fokas, one of the owners of Martha's 
Exchange.

As many of you may (or may not know) Chris was in a very serious 
accident about 6 weeks ago in which he broke is neck.

Those of you who attended the June, 2001 MELBA meeting will remember 
that I passed a hat and you were all quite generous in donating 
towards a gift to send Chris.  Thank you all for your support.
(I saw Chris last week at the July meeting, and he was incredibly 
grateful, to the point of almost being speechless :)

We sent Chris a bouquet of flowers, shortly followed by a 3' stuffed 
Tux (codenamed "The Plushware" :) with a card (mostly to explain
who the heck was sending him this ridiculous gift :)


The card choice was tough, it was a toss up between two:

One said:   (outside)   We heard you weren't feeling well and
            couldn't decide which you would prefer,
            a bouquet of flowers or chicken soup, 
            so we compromised...

      (inside)   we got you a bouquet of chickens!
            (picture of a bouquet of chickens)

The other (which I opted for):

      (outside)   From all your friends at work[1]

            When we heard you weren't feeling well,
            we convened a staff meeting, analyzed the
            situation, offered various opinions, kicked
            some ideas around, and finally came to a decision.

      (inside)   We don't like it.
            Hope you're better soon.[2]

[1] I crossed out "at work" and wrote in "in GNHLUG".

[2] I added to the inside:
   Chris,
     We've send the Linux mascot "Tux" to watch over and 
     supervise your recovery.  Hope you and your family
     get along with him okay.

     Get well soon, we expect you see you back behind the bar
     pouring our pints a.s.a.p.!

         Best wishes,
         Paul Lussier, Rob Lembree, Jerry Kubeck, maddog,[3]
         and all your friends in 
         The Greater N.H. Linux User's Group.


[3]  I signed these 4 names because to my knowledge, we are the only 
     4 people Chris actually knows by name and associates with GNHLUG.
     To this point, we have never even been known to him as GNHLUG, 
     rather, at least in the function room schedule book, we were 
     written in as the  "Lennox meeting" :)


Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from Chris and his wife 
thanking us for our thoughtfulness, consideration, and support.  The 
letter reads:

Dear Paul, Rob, Maddog,

   Thank you so much for the beautifulflowers and adorable 
mascot.  Your thoughtfulness really meant a great deal to us.  This 
has been a difficult time for all of us, but the cards, flowers, and 
concern from our friends has really touched us.  Things happen for a 
reason and this is no exception.  We have learned so much from this 
experience and we are grateful to have had the opportunity to do so.  
Thanks so muchh for thinking of us and for the beautiful and silly 
gifts.  They helped to cheer us up!  We are healing nicely and should 
be back in the swing of things in no time.

               Sincerely,
                  Peg and Chris

When I last spoke to Chris, he mentioned that Tux has been has been officially
adopted and given a good home by his 4 year old daughter :)

Well, that's all.  I just wanted to let you all know that Chris is 
doing quite well, and that we really did send him the gifts we spoke 
about.  Thanks all of you for contributing, and for helping out 
someone who has helped us out so much over the years.

Seeya,
Paul

P.S.   I have pictures of The Plushware prior to sending him to his
   new home.  These will hopefully be up on the GNHLUG website 
   soon for all to see.