DANK National Blog » Blog Update

Student Exchanges with AFS

Bill Fuchs — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:29:03 +0000

I am sure that many of you heard about AFS International, the organization that arranges Student Exchanges between the US and other foreign countries. Many of the high school exchange students that I knew were hosted through AFS. Last month at German Fest in Milwaukee I had the pleasure to meet Beth Groble from AFS, who asked me if we can post the information of some of the students that are on the exchange list looking for host families. Renae Pappas the Regional Hosting Coordinator for AFS-USA sent me the following posting via PDF. If anyone is interested in hosting any of the 5 students from Germany in this posting please contact Renae Pappas directly at:

Renae Pappas
Regional Hosting Coordinator
AFS-USA
2356 University Ave. West, Suite 424
St. Paul, MN 55114
rpappas@afs.org
ph: (651) 328-2908
toll free: (800) 876-2377 ext. 2908
fax: (651) 305-3753

Click on the link below to find the PDF file of the List of
German Exchange Students

Where Are All the Posts?

Stephen Fuchs — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:34:35 +0000

You may have noticed that the number of blog posts have been low recently, but that should change shortly. A lot of time has been spent in the recent weeks on completing the new update to the entire DANK.org site and as a result I have not been able to keep all of you entertained with new blog posts. The redesign is proving to be more work then expected and right now the plan is to definitly have it up and running before the end of this year. We are getting closer every week so hang in there…you won’t be disappointed.

In the coming days, I will be making a blog post with some details about some opportunities for anyone that wants to become a part of our blogging team, so stay tuned for the news.

Again, sorry for the lack of posts recently.

More Convention Coverage Coming Soon

Stephen Fuchs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:02:48 +0000

Some of you may be wondering where the convention coverage is for the remainder of the convention. Things got really busy but they will be coming soon, so look for coverage on the Gala event and an inside look at the official convention pajama party. There are a lot of Read more »

The New DANK National Blog

Stephen Fuchs — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:17:36 +0000

Back in February, we launched this blog as the “President’s Blog” and featured the many travels of our National President, Bill Fuchs. We found that it was difficult to provide constant updates with just one writer on the blog and have decided to make a few changes. The “President’s Blog” is now the new “DANK National Blog”, but those of you that have enjoyed Bill’s travel adventures need not worry…they’re still going to be a part of this blog!

What’s New…

Frequent Updates

Since the launch of the blog back in February, there just weren’t enough updates to keep our readers coming back. That will hopefully change with this new format as we are going to have multiple contributers that can add new content. The goal is to have multiple blog posts a week. So check back frequently for the latest news or take advantage of our RSS Feed if you prefer that method of staying up to date.

More Contributers

As stated previously, in order to keep the blog active, we need more people contributing. DANK National President, Bill Fuchs, will still be contributing and will continue detailing his worldly adventures as a new feature called “Captain Bill’s Travels.”

Some other postings will include updates on DANK’s presence on the web, news on what is happening with DANK National and it’s chapters, articles that didn’t make it in the ‘German-American Journal’, and more fun bits of information to brighten up your day.

Forum Integration

Due to similarities between posts that may appear both on the blog and our discussion forum, we will provide links to the corresponding topic on the forum. You can leave comments on this blog but some topics spark more discussion/interaction which our forum is better suited for.

A Fresh New Look

You may have noticed that the look of this blog received a major overhaul. It now has a cleaner layout and interface that allows us to provide more media and features into our posts. Also, for those of you that are into social networking (Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc) there are icons at the end of each post that allow you to share our blog topics. Plus, you can see the latest Twitter activity from DANK on the sidebar of the blog.

These are just a few of the changes that are happening to this blog and even more are on their way. Check back soon as we will be introducing our new contributers to the blog.

It’s about time for an Update

Bill Fuchs — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:35:14 +0000

Wow, does time ever fly. I have had some trouble adding things to the blog on my trips due to slow internet access and time constraints. I am on vacation now, but not getting any rest. My wife and I were supposed to be in Germany visiting relative right now but that got cancelled due to her father suddenly needing gall bladder surgery. He is a lucky guy though. Had the gall bladder removed and diagnosed with cancer. The surgeon also checked a liver sample and the surrounding ducts and found no other cancer. He was told that he is one of 5 persons of around 5,000 cases of this very rare and aggressive cancer in the US that has a good chance of survival. Right now they are waiting on doctor’s consultation with the Mayo clinic and University of Chicago on what else needs to be done.

I’ve been real busy working on projects for DANK just about every day. Right now we are getting ready for German Fest in Milwaukee from July 23 to July 26. I will be in the DANK Sponsorship and PR tent most of the time. We will be promoting membership and our DANK Credit card with currently 4 beautiful designs on all four days. To entice sign up for both the credit card and membership we are giving away a beautiful DANK t-shirt with an artistic graphic of the top of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin.

Free T-shirt at the Festival

So if you visit German Fest, come pay us a visit. We will be just south of the main entrance. DANK will also be represented at the cultural tent area, manned by our Milwaukee, Wisconsin chapter. After German Fest, the EAA Air-venture in Oshkosh will be going on and I plan to visit that also. The Airbus A-380 will be coming in on Tuesday, July 29 and perform some fly-bys. I would expect some interesting maneuvers from the French, so it should be exciting.

I’ll be back on the blog soon so don’t forget to check from time to time.

Best Wishes,
Captain Bill
P.S. After watching the latest Star Trek movie, I don’t know why I did not name this blog: Captain’s Blog.

Greetings from President Bill

Bill Fuchs — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Captain Bill

I am very excited about this new feature of our website. Besides being DANK’s National President I am also an Airline Pilot and get to travel around the world a bit. I will be adding dialogue about my travels and interesting tidbits, that might interest our German American Community, while on my job and on duty with DANK. Please continue to look for new additions as I try to update this blog on a weekly basis.

Captain Bill's Travel Machine

As I continue my travels I will show you pictures and video/sound clips of some cool places that I get to visit.
Just this morning I got to see this beautiful view of Mt. Fuji on the way to Tokyo from Beijing. It’s real nice here today in Japan with temps in the mid 50′s F, almost spring like. Stay tuned! Captain Bill.

Mount Fuji Feb 6 2009

By the way, check out our Forum pages on dank.org. There are many topics of interest that will intrigue you. I look forward to participating in the many Karneval activities in our German-American Community in Chicago soon. Almost like being in Germany! Our DANK chapters throughout the country, along with the many associate organizations will be joining us in the celebrations. So join the fun and check out what’s happening on dank.org.