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March 10, 2006
Mistaken volunteer vixens
Sorry ladies, the visiting JCC Maccabi athletes are only teenagers.
WYLIE K. LEE
Still five months away from the start of the JCC Maccabi Games
in Vancouver and organizers have found themselves with a major disaster
on their hands.
Plans had been running smoothly as dozens of committees and even
more sub-committees have been working diligently since November.
The organizational structure, however, took a significant blow in
recent weeks when many of the 300 volunteers already signed up discovered
that the athletes at the games would be teenagers, not adults.
"I should have seen the red flags when the majority of the
registered host families were unmarried women in their 30s,"
said Alan Slater, the games' operations director.
Many who are helping to clean up the mess blame Dr. Michael Horowitz,
who is known throughout the community for organizing popular Jewish
singles events.
"Dr. Michael sent out a mass e-mail in January looking for
volunteers for the games," said a potential volunteer, who
wished to remain anonymous. "But he called the event The JewCy-C
Maccabi Games.
"He emphasized the 1,500 athletes and I believe he also made
mention of the many singles events that would be taking place in
a bowling alley and a swimming pool. I guess people just assumed
that was where the parties would take place."
Local self-proclaimed relationship expert Alex Kliner, who has maintained
a meaningful marriage with his wife Elaine by mentioning
her in his newspaper columns as often as possible, suggested that
the misunderstood call-out for the JCC Maccabi Games volunteers
likely led to the sudden end of many mediocre relationships.
"I think that when people heard about 1,500 Jewish athletes
coming to Vancouver, they thought long and hard about whether they
really wanted to be attached to someone else when the games were
on," Kliner said. "Now that they have realized the athletes
might be a bit too young, I expect local flower and chocolate shops
to get a ton of business.
"Elaine," he added, "is my wife."
The JCC Maccabi Games is an annual summer event in which four North
American cities host approximately 1,500 teens for a wide variety
of team and individual sports.
Slater, who has attended many games over the past several years,
said he is pretty certain that Vancouver isn't the first host city
to have such a volunteer misunderstanding.
"When we arrived in New Jersey one summer, they had a long
row of tables set up for a speed dating meet-and-greet right in
the airport," he said. "I believe I bumped into Alex Kliner
there, but he covered his face and ran away so fast, I couldn't
be sure."
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