For nearly eight years, the Sun City Historians Club was very busy discussing and learning about the world’s best-known historical events. Earlier this year, they discovered that they needed to give more attention to their own history.
An acute leadership crisis developed in the club after the group’s first president, Herm Faubl, resigned for personal reasons in May after serving for the first seven years of the eight-year-old club’s existence. No one volunteered to take on the role of president. An interim president was appointed, but soon the group found itself in trouble with association rules that say every charter club must have a president.
“We knew there was a probability of us going under if we didn’t take some action about our leadership,” said John Banasek, N.27. “Our first president was very dedicated and productive for us, but we didn’t develop a leadership-succession activity, and when there was an unanticipated vacancy in the president’s position, we had no one to turn to.”
The fact that the president’s main job is to work to find and invite historians and experts to speak at the group’s meetings didn’t help.
Two months ago, Banasek sat down to dinner with Fred Leznek, a close friend and active member of the group. At that meeting, the two decided they needed to develop a new approach for their organization. Banasek may not have planned it this way, but he came out of that meeting as the club’s new president.
“We agreed we didn’t want to simply try and recruit one man to do a lot of work; we decided we needed to build a new organization,” Banasek said. “We needed to build future officers and leaders, to create a stream of leadership for the future.”
The Historians new leadership team is Banasek as president, Leznek as vice president, Mary Grzeskowiak as treasurer, and Marita Komp as secretary. Two additional resource researchers, as Banasek calls them, are Lynn McCarthy and Carol Cederberg. Carl Hupert, the group’s interim president since May, has agreed to be available as an advisor.
“I see myself as a CEO and oversight leader, delegating and spreading the workload around in this group,” Banasek said. “Lynn and Carol are helping us develop a systematic program of researching guest speaker data and speaker’s bureaus from places like Argonne Labs, where I have a contact, McHenry County and Elgin Community Colleges, Harper College, Judson College, and other places in the area. We now have guest speakers lined up for programs through next June.
“We also know people in the Polish Roman Catholic Union and at the Elgin Symphony, and we hope to mine those resources for speakers and participants at our events in the future. Maybe the symphony can help us develop some presentations about composers like Chopin, Mozart, or Beethoven,” he added.
The group also hopes to host presentations coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg from the Civil War next summer. They are also planning presentations on anniversaries of the Columbian Exposition and events from World War II.
Hupert also has begun polling club members to determine their historical interests.
“We are open to suggestions from anyone, inside and outside our membership,” Banasek said. “We want to make our programs as interesting and timely as possible.”
The group has about 90 dues-paying members and averages about 60-70 people in attendance at its monthly sessions, which are held on the third Friday of each month at 1 p.m. in the Oak-Elm Room in Meadow View Lodge.
“We are a different group now,” Banasek said. “We have set up different ways to communicate with each other, and we believe we are genuinely revitalized and headed in a good direction.”
A retired businessman with extensive experience in the financial banking and trust field, Banasek operates in the club much the same way he did during his career.
“My wife and I spend four months in Florida each year, but that doesn’t mean I drop all Historians activity during that time,” he said. “From long range, I send emails to our members and communicate regularly with my fellow officers.”
Banasek also is taking full advantage of Sun City’s many activity opportunities. He is active in the Current Events, Symposium, and Computer Clubs in addition to the Historians.
“I got involved in the Historians because I have a special interest in World War II,” he said. “I make sure we include that period in our planning, but we are interested in all periods of history and historical subjects.”
