State of the Chicago Hash Address
Monday, January 28, 2008
AP Newswire – Chicago, Illinois
By CH3 GM Chicken Stiffer
This year hashing in the Chicago Hash has been filled with fun and numerous new hashers. The Chicago Hash has experienced 55 hashes this year with 1,675 hashers running or an average of 30.5 hashers showing up per hash. I guess Mouthful of Meat showed up a lot to count for that half-hasher? Data for hash attendance and counts can be found in the yahoo group file section and I’m sure Its Too Soft will work it into the CH3 website. Peterbilt said back in December that he believed this is the largest he has seen the Chicago Hash in years, so I will take his word for it. Many thanks goes out to those that came out to hash and more thanks go out to all of those that laid trail and hared. Remember no trail, but 40 hashers equals no fun and no hash so please take the opportunity to e-mail Batteries and Mouthful of Meat and tell them you want to hare and they will hook you up with a date!!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Mismanagement team Calvin Klein-RA, Batteries Not Included & Mouthful of Meat-Hare Razrs, Its Too Soft- Web Dude, Mount Schwiiinga- Haberdashery, and Peterbilt- Phone dude. Without your help and dedication the hash would not run as smoothly as it does. I hope to see some new hashers this year begin to take steps in leadership positions so the future will look bright for the CH3.
Currently the Chicago hash has about $800 in Hash cash plus $400 in Haberdashery. This past summer the CH3 suspended collecting the $1 per hasher hash tax. Receipts from haberdashery sales seem to be taking the place of collecting the hash tax each hash. This means more beer and in the past several months I have been using some of our cash reserves to pay for extra beer or food at hashes. We will schedule a mismanagement meeting in February to discuss the CH3 budget this year.
Last year the hash, as always, started of slow in January 2007 with a heartbreaking Bears loss. We rebounded nicely with the Chinese New Year Hash in February led by Ballsalotpus and some new Sin City visitors that stole the Smell This dragonhead. March saw our annual Hash Ball with the re-election of me as your GM. Spring saw an unusually higher number of people hashing in the CH3, which foreshadowed the hashes of summer. May saw our traditional Polish Constitution Day Hash run by 69-cent man and the Virgin Banger, Renta Virgin, Calvin, Peterbilt and Smell This Memorial Day hash with over 70 Hashers in attendance. This kicked off our summer well and it seems that many hashers really like these themed hashes so if anyone else has an idea for a themed hash we will support you.
This Summer Chicago experienced its 1500 Hash and 104 people came out to run from Buckingham Fountain to Weeds. Much fun was had and beer was drunk, but Boner didnn’t get laid? Four lady hashers cornered me at the 1500, unlike Boner, and they informed me that they were going to run POP (Power of the Pussy) hash in mid-October. Likes it on the Bottom, Packher Ass, Salty Gash, Mount Schwiiinga, and Ass up for grabs kept the POP tradition running with 65 hashers showing up for their event in October. Halloween saw the costume hash that Bloody Thighs has set for years and oh my God! we saw two Horn-es this day? The year in hashing ended with a great weekend called the Anthrax Hash, which had 114 hashers (new record) participate. Again many thanks go out to those that hashed and helped out running these hashes.
This past year the goal of the Chicago Hash was to get hashers to visit more kennels both locally and across the country. Twenty hashers went down to St. Louis for Green Dress and another ten went to Indy Prom Dress. The Cubs and the Chicago Hash invaded Sin City over the summer. Numerous Chicago Hashers went to Inter-hash in Mexico where Boner was almost arrested, are we getting a theme here? We also visited places like Waukesha, Madison, and DC this year. It will be a goal of this GM to continue these good relations with our neighboring hashes and if any Chicago Hasher will be in INDY, Madison, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Waukesha or Grand Rapids please let me know so I can help you connect with the GM of the respective hash so you can hash!! Even if you cannot get out of town there are plenty of other hashes in the city of Chicago other than the Chicago Hash that you can try. Some specialize in shiggy hashing and others run on certain days of month but all are worthy of running once or twice.
This year we have many things to look forward to in our 30th year of hashing Feb. 10th is the Chinese New Year Hash, Hash Ball is March 1st, May 5th is Polish Day, and The Memorial Day Hash will be May 25. Early in the year Green Dress in St. Louis will hit us on March 15th and INDY prom dress will be May 17th these two events were a blast to visit last year. Sometime in May Waukesha will have their Red dress run as well. We will look forward to the POP running on July 12th or 19th and I have already told numerous hashes I have visited to save these two dates to experience hashing in Chicago during the summer. Will we see the return of the 10-innings of baseball pub-crawl before POP? We will try to make good use of the Its Too Soft’s roof deck once again, and sometime in Oct/Nov Chicago will have its 1569th hash hared by whom? Maybe we can manipulate the calendar to have this hash on Halloween weekend and let Bloody Thighs run it? Finally it looks like Anthrax weekend is on Dec. 20th of this year.
If anyone has a suggestion for a Chicago Hash event please bring your idea to the Chicago GM so it can be discussed at the Chicago Mismanagement Meeting held four times a year. One issue we have is due to the growing size of the Chicago Hash our hares cost have increased to $15-$20 each when there are two hares for our average hashes. We will have to discuss this problem at the next mismanagement meeting because some people do not wish to hare due to the high cost. We also have some new ideas to increase the CH3 membership and will discuss those at our next meeting. Hopefully we will see you at the Hash Ball on March 1st to celebrate the excellent year the Chicago Hash has just experienced. Rotten Whore seems to have hash ball in hand and I looking forward to Milk My Yak’s home brewed beer he is currently making for us.
Chicken Stiffer
CH3- GM