LeTip of Denville meeting March 15, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Dan Gehrig – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Michelle Clevenger – Membership Chair
Marianne Jones
Jeff Jones
John Tully
Rudy Riveron
Joe Nugent
Martha Paravati
Justin Marcus Smith
Dan Linkletter
Joe Bellistri
Janet Navarro
Andy Krauser

Absent:
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
Frank Berman

Guest:
Lee DeCarolis – Registered Architect

We had a very good turnout for our meeting including a guest of Dan Gehrig’s, Lee DeCarolis a local registered architect. We hope that Lee will consider joining the chapter.

Greg confirmed that there will be some changes on the chapter board – Michelle will be taking over Membership duties from Marianne and Dan Gehrig will be taking over the VP position from Janet.

Our speaker for today was Jeff Jones of AmeriSource Realty. Jeff, amongst other talents, is an avid golfer and has already played a couple of times this year including once with Marianne. Prospective opponents should however be aware that Jeff cheats at golf whenever possible!

Jeff Jones - AmeriSource Realty

Jeff Jones - AmeriSource Realty addressing the group

Jeff gave an overview of his career particularly in light of the number of new members that have joined the group since the last time he spoke.

Jeff has been in the commercial real estate world for 28 years although he actually started his working life as a teacher and was in fact the 1st male kindergarten teacher in the State of NJ. He worked as a teacher for 5 years in Irvington NJ and loved it. (He loves teaching even now and teaches real estate classes for the State of NJ).

LeTip of Denville chapter members

LeTip of Denville chapter members listening to Jeff Jones

As a summer job he started work for Marianne’s dad who owned a real estate company in Parsippany and discovered that a) he liked it and b) was good at it and ended up working for the Vuolo Agency for 18 years, all the time as a commissioned salesman. After 18 years he went to work for another couple of companies selling real estate and managing real estate portfolios before at the age of 46 decided to start his own business.

At that point he started networking for himself and embraced the jump from teacher to entrepreneur.

AmeriSource is probably one of the smallest commercial real estate companies in NJ but has been very successful even in a down market. Although his main expertise is in office space his business has expanded to include retail and warehouse space – being flexible and marketing himself has enabled him to stay ahead of his competition. Jeff maintains that working harder and by using the resources available to him from the LeTip group has fueled his success.

Jeff finished his talk with some questions from the group including his thoughts on the saturated real estate market and the possibility that a “shadow” inventory of empty space will hit the market in the next 6 months.

The meeting wrapped up with our commercials and the passing of the tip jar.

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LeTip of Denville meeting March 8, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Dan Gehrig – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
Michelle Clevenger – Membership Chair
Marianne Jones
Jeff Jones
John Tully
Rudy Riveron
Joe Nugent
Martha Paravati
Justin Marcus Smith
Dan Linkletter
Joe Bellistri

Absent:
Janet Navarro
Andy Krauser
Frank Berman

We welcomed back Marianne and Jeff Jones to the group after their recent absence due to the passing of Marianne’s father. Jeff was at his ebullient and effervescent best as today’s greeter.

Greg announced to the group that based on the recent balloting Michelle Clevenger would be taking over as Membership Chair and Dan Gehrig would be taking over as Vice-President. We wish them luck!

Our scheduled speaker couldn’t make the meeting so Bimal Gupta stepped up and offered to fill the slot. Bimal is our CPA and chapter treasury and the owner of Parsippany Tax and Accounting.

Bimal Gupta addressing group

Bimal Gupta addressing group

It’s become somewhat of a tradition to start with a joke and Bimal’s joke included astrology and doubtful parenthood!?

Bimal discussed the four main areas his company gets involved in:

  1. CPA services. Despite the company name they are not technically a tax preparer (although that does make up 60% of their business) but they do get involved in a lot of tax work. Not just income tax – also sales, property and estate tax.
  2. Audit services for both companies and non-profits.
  3. Payroll services.
  4. Bookkeeping
LeTip of Denville chapter members

LeTip of Denville chapter members listening to Bimal

Bimal talked about a common misconception about taxes – “if you make money you have to pay to tax”. This is not true for a variety of reasons including not making enough money and by listening and/or not listening to the government.

He often advises his clients that if they have a big purchase (more than $5000) that they should buy it in Jersey City where the sales tax is lower.

He also cautioned that IRS English and regular English are not the same thing. When the IRS says that something is “voluntary” – they don’t necessarily mean it.
Another misconception related to estate tax. Many people don’t think they’ll have an issue with estate tax because the federal threshold is $5M, but in NJ the state gets involved with estates worth over $625,000. Bimal can help with creating trusts to help avoid this estate tax.

Bimal offers the option to have a free second look at tax returns to see if your existing tax preparer missed anything out. Bimal’s parting shot to the group was to start paying attention to their financial situation and to remember that they were there to help!

The meeting wrapped up with our commercials and the passing of the tip jar.

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LeTip of Denville meeting March 1, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner yesterday.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Michelle Clevenger
Joe Nugent
Martha Paravati
Frank Berman
Justin Marcus Smith

Absent:
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Jeff Jones
Andy Krauser
Dan Linkletter
Joe Bellistri

We started the meeting with the LeTip creed in stereo, recited by both Dan Gehrig and Bimal Gupta.

Dan was also the focus of a great tip story. Dan had been referred to a job by Rudy. It was a big job ($100,000+) and Dan won the job based almost solely on Rudy’s recommendation. Now that’s a tip!

Superman ShieldToday’s speaker was our chapter president, Greg Angelillo, who started his talk with a somewhat inappropriate joke about Superman and Wonder Woman!

Greg is a Rutgers graduate with his degree in Journalism and History. After his football career was cut short he turned his attention to sports journalism and worked for 5 years after graduation with a couple of small TV stations. He felt an affinity towards the financial services and insurance industry – his Dad had passed away young but had life insurance that allowed his kids to attend college, and joined MetLife as a general agent for the State of New Jersey.

Greg Angelillo addressing group

Greg Angelillo addressing group

Greg recently switched to Prudential and he highlighted a couple of difference, unique-to-Prudential products:

WorkLife 65 allows someone to buy term life insurance all the way until age 65 rather than just a 10, 20 or 30 year term. The insurance also includes the option for both an unemployment and disability waiver.

Return of premium insurance, gives people the option of getting back their premium in the situation where they don’t die before the term expires. With only 2% of life insurance policies ever paying out this represents an attractive alternative for many people.

We ended the meeting with commercials – where possible the chapter members did their “visitation” commercials, for instance Robin “was” Bimal and Bimal “was” Robin. Its amazing how much you learn about the other members from the visitation commercials!

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LeTip of Denville meeting February 23, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner on Thursday.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Michelle Clevenger
Joe Nugent
Joe Bellistri

Absent:
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Justin Marcus Smith
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Jeff Jones
Andy Krauser
Martha Paravati
Frank Berman

Greg was back in the saddle for today’s meeting. Unfortunately we had quite a few absences but because the chapter has grown recently we still had a good group of people to network with. Greg presented John with his $50 for introducing the first new member of 2012 – Joe Bellistri of Bellistri Training.

Today’s speaker was yours truly, John Tully of dsm-llc, the chapter’s marketing person and web coordinator.

John Tully addressing LeTip chapter

John Tully addresses the group

I used my time to give the group members at quick tour through the various Social Media options that are available to them and other small businesses. Here’s the definition of Social Media from Wikipedia:

Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

The important part being the “interactive dialogue”, encouraging a two-way communication between people. Wikipedia lists over 200 Social Media sites worldwide so keeping up with them can be a challenge for anyone.

I covered:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Google +
  • Pinterest
  • WordPress blogs

and tried to give some “pros” and “cons” for each.

Inexplicably I missed out LinkedIn which is also a service used extensively by small business people to connect and interact.

Breakfast followed and we ended with our 30 second commercials and passing the tip bucket. (Visitation commercials will be held over until next week because of the absences today).

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LeTip of Denville meeting February 16, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner on Thursday.

In attendance:
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Michelle Clevenger
Martha Paravati
Frank Berman

Absent:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Justin Marcus Smith
Joe Nugent
Joe Bellistri

No president and no guests today – Marianne Jones ably took the reigns of the meeting.

Today’s speaker was Dan Linkletter of Tri-State Computer Solutions LLC, the chapter’s resident IT professional.

Dan Linkletter

Dan Linkletter addressing the LeTip of Denville

Dan described his starting in the business in 1996 when he became the systems administrator at Woodbury Commons at the ripe old age of 18! Dan had already been responsible for maintaining the computers in his high school – which lead to him achieving a high GPA from his grateful teachers and in turn the opportunity to study IT and informatics at Rutgers University.

After college Dan had a couple of jobs before starting Tri-State CS with his friend Angelo, in Angelo’s spare bedroom. The company has been in existence for 6-1/2 years growing from sales of $150,000 in their first year to almost $1M this year – congratulations Dan! They moved out of the spare bedroom when his partner’s daughter was born and they moved into their current facility in Rockaway (just up the street from the Hibernia Diner!). Tri-State as a company sells, customizes, installs and maintains computers, printers and networks for a variety of clients but have had their greatest success with doctor’s offices and other medical professionals.

Rapt attention for Dan (left-to-right) Dan Gehrig, Bimal Gupta, Joe Troy, Martha Paravati

They provide remote backups, particularly of accounting software from their client’s servers to their own servers via “the cloud”. This allows clients to receive instant back-up of critical files in case of an emergency.

Dan has always enjoyed the socializing aspect of his business, unlike many of his contemporaries who prefer to spend their time hunched over computers and servers. He enjoys meeting his clients and spending time solving their problems. For all your computer repair and networking needs you can call Tri-State Computers Solutions.

After Dan’s talk John brought up the topic of having an evening mixer in Denville, inviting the local businesses to find out more about LeTip and its members. It turns out that Martha is on the Denville Chamber of Commerce and might be able to get some interest for the mixer within that group. John will meet up with Martha and see if a suitable venue can be found – maybe the new Irish bar in Denville would be a good place to start!

Next week we all do somebody else’s commercials having completed the visitation schedule. The meeting ended with our 30 second commercials and the passing of the tip bucket.

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LeTip of Denville meeting February 9, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner on Thursday.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Joe Nugent
Michelle Clevenger
Martha Paravati

Absent:
Frank Berman
Justin Marcus Smith
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary

Guests:
Joe Bellistri – Bellistri Training Solutions
Carol Lucas – Trinity Designs
Brian Soo Hoo – Euler Hermes
Alex – Independent Energy Consultant

We had a full house at this week’s meeting with four guests. All four guests got a chance to explain their own industries and how we could dollars in their pocket.

Today’s speaker was one of our newer members – Martha Paravati the banker of the group, from Valley National Bank. Martha started her talk with a great joke – something about a pen and a rectal (!) thermometer! She described her upbringing in Newark as the daughter of Italian immigrants before heading off to Rutgers to study psychology. Because of family issues she never got a chance to pursue a career in psychology and instead took a part-time job as a bank teller.

30 years later Martha is still with the same bank – now as an Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager! Valley National Bank was started in 1927 and have been through 23 mergers and 4 acquisitions to become the bank they are today with 200 branches across NJ and NY. Martha puts great store in the fact that VNB is still NJ based and has worked very hard to ensure that customer service is at its core. The fact that when you call them up you get someone who lives in NJ and knows where you are calling from is very significant.

Martha concluded her talk with a summary of the services that VNB offers businesses including Merchant Payment and Payroll Services.

Greg reminded everyone of the visitation schedule, where each member visits one other and then prepares to present their 30 second commercial “as them” at a future chapter meeting.

Scheduled Visitations are;
Robin Wolf              Bimal Gupta
Janet Navarro         Justin Marcus Smith
Frank Berman          Greg Angelillo
Rudy Riveron           Dan Gehrig
Marianne Jones        Michelle Lea Clevenger
Dan Linkletter          John Tully
Jeff Jones               Andy Krauser
Joe Troy                 Martha Paravati
Joe Nugent              Joe Troy

Joe Bellistri confirmed that he would be joining the group as our resident Personal Trainer. We look forward to hearing more about his services over the next couple of months and being whipped into shape. John Tully looks forward to receiving $50 for introducing the first new member of 2012!

The meeting ended with the passing of the tip bucket and the 30 second commercials.

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LeTip of Denville meeting February 2, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner yesterday.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Joe Nugent
Michelle Clevenger

Absent:
Martha Paravati
Frank Berman
Justin Marcus Smith

Guest:
Joe Bellistri – Bellistri Training Solutions

No special treats or surprises at today’s meeting – we had what would pass as a “regular” meeting. We welcomed Joe Bellistri as a guest – Joe runs his own fitness and training company in Whippany. Greg also handed out the visitation assignments to the group for February. We will be presenting each others commercials at the meeting on February 24.

Today’s speaker was originally supposed to be Martha but she had an excused absence so Janet Navarro stepped up to the plate.

Janet Navarro addressing LeTip of Denville

Janet Navarro addressing LeTip of Denville

Janet talked about her background and how joining LeTip has helped her business.

She’s been practicing law for 15 years – first working for a solo practitioner then for a bank before setting up her own solo practice. Although she mainly handles real estate work now, her background is in litigation which she finds is invaluable in her practice – the ability to back up words with actions if deemed necessary. It also leaves her free to pick up additional litigation work if it becomes available.

Janet talked about how she received no business training in law school so joining LeTip has been really important in developing her business, especially having a very close network of “advisors” to fall back on. She singled out Marianne Jones as a particular example of a strong woman in business and how that has helped her keep going. The lack of management skills straight out of school is an issue facing many attorneys although some make it clear that they don’t want to learn any!

Janet Navarro and Dan Gehrig

Janet Navarro answering questions from the group

In response to some questions Janet talked about home closings and where some of the potential problems arise. Her job at the closing is to make sure the “deal” the buyer gets is the one that they wanted. Problems often come from assumptions – assuming something is part of the sale but actually isn’t. Many issues at closing are due to home inspection issues and Janet works hard to make sure that these issues don’t become a source of re-negotiation.

Before the meeting wrap-up and 30-second commercials Greg confirmed the LeTip of Denville “Rush into Spring” Drive. The first member to sponsor one new member between today and March 31 will receive $50 cash.

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LeTip of Denville meeting January 26, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner yesterday.
In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Joe Nugent
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Martha Paravati
Michelle Clevenger

Absent:
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Justin Marcus Smith
Frank Berman

Greg was fully back in the swing of things and quickly brought the unruly mob under control. We welcomed our newest members Michelle and Frank (although Frank was in fact absent from the meeting).

Today’s speaker was Robin Wolfe of Sunrise Title Services ( www.sunrisetitleservices.com).

Robin Wolfe

Robin addressing the group

Robin has discussed her profession in front of the group in the past so rather than go over old ground she answered questions from the chapter on various matters pertaining to title insurance and introduced some of the group to some new terms and expressions.
Mechanics Lien – this happens when you’ve hired someone to do a job at your property and then didn’t pay them. The contractor can put a lien on the property to make sure they get paid eventually – although many are forgotten and only come to light upon a property sale.
Water and Sewer Lien – applied to the property by a local municipality or agency to reclaim the costs associated with supplying water and sewer services. Again often isn’t even known about until a property sale.
Title insurance is a state regulated entity and is required on all mortgaged properties. Theoretically they are not required if the buyer is buying outright with cash, but everybody does it because it uncovers all possible liens.
Adverse possession – if your neighbor occupies part of your land either with or without your knowledge, after 30 years they are entitled to claim the land under adverse possession laws.
Rights of way – generally not an issue because they are very well documented.
Co-ops and leaseholds – generally to be avoided because the contracts can include some very “strange” clauses that can become problematic.

Greg announced that the 30 second commercials would be in the form of one word, with a $5 prize going to the best one. The words ranged from the strange, “glox” from John Tully as a word played recently by Greg Angelillo in Words with Friends, to the heartwarming “love” from new daddy Greg. The winner of the $5 was Joe Nugent who suggested “prophylactic” which emphasized the protection that he offers!

After the meeting a report from the board was received which contained the following items:
First week of the month Greg will assign Visitation Schedule. Once the assignments have been made its imperative that each group member VISITS each other, and prepares a commercial for the person that you visit. The commercial will be on the 3rd week of the month.
Second week of the month is Progressive Five a Day. Simply bring a guest and receive $5.00, on the other hand no guest give $5.00 to our chapter
Third week is visitation commercials.
Fourth week is our Board Meeting.

Also, in the spirit of driving membership and guests, the board has decided to have a Spring Time Membership drive. The first member to recruit a new member by March 31st will receive $50 cash.

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LeTip of Denville meeting January 19, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner yesterday.

In attendance:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Joe Nugent
Justin Marcus Smith
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Martha Paravati

Absent:
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress

Guests:
Frank Berman – Security Direct
Michelle Clevenger – Massage Therapist

Greg was back after his stint of paternity leave and was full of stories and reports of his new baby. His stories lead to reminiscences from some of the other members on their brushes with childbirth. Greg also confirmed that he will be contributing $100 in the chapter kitty because he FAILED to bring in the additional members he promised to bring in at the end of last year! On top of all that he also recently changed jobs and is now employed by Prudential.

Today’s speaker was Justin Marcus Smith ( www.jmarcussmith.com ) one of our newest members.

Justin Marcus Smith

Justin Marcus Smith addressing the group

Justin talked about his varied experiences in the technology world before he changed careers and became an attorney. His love of technology started in the 1970’s a time of impressive macro-scale tech projects such as the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower and the Space Shuttle. Although he started at college as a hard core scientist he switched mid-stream and became an econ major, but was still interested in tech companies and products and got caught up in the 1990’s trend towards micro-electronics. He went into project management at a time when many of his contemporaries went into management consultation and got involved with benchmarking research projects at electronics and component parts manufacturers. He also got involved in market research, measuring market share for companies such as 3Com and Intel.

LeTip of Denville

Andy, Joe N, Jeff and Rudy listening to Justin Smith

While working for a small manufacturer of networking components he got caught up in the bursting of the tech bubble in the late 1990’s and had to reassess his future. He had been working with contracts and agreements – all legal stuff at his company so the switch to the legal profession seemed like the perfect option.

Justin studied law at Rutgers Newark while in his early 30’s and after graduating worked for the NY Attorney General’s office (during Elliott Spitzer’s reign) prior to starting his own business where he deals mainly with small business clients handling disputes and contracts. He finds that his background in research and technology really helps him now with investigating the facts of each case and presenting detailed solutions for his clients.

A really fascinating talk from Justin and we all look forward to working with him more closely in the future.

The meeting ended with the 30-second commercials and the passing of the tip bucket.

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LeTip of Denville meeting January 12, 2012

We had our regular Thursday morning meeting at the Hibernia Diner today.

In attendance:
Janet Navarro – Vice-President
Bimal Gupta – Treasurer
Marianne Jones – Membership Chair
Robin Wolfe – Tip Mistress
John Tully
Jeff Jones
Dan Linkletter
Dan Gehrig
Rudy Riveron
Andy Krauser
Martha Paravati

Absent:
Greg Angelillo – Chapter President
Joe Troy – Secretary
Joe Nugent
Justin Marcus Smith

Guests:
Frank Berman – Security Direct
Michelle Clevenger – Massage Therapist

Greg was still away on paternity leave so Marianne took the reins again and shook things up by declaring today as SDRAWKCAB YAD (Backwards day!). So we started with the 5 reasons to join LeTip and ended with the Pledge of Allegiance!

Today’s speaker was Dan Gehrig of Gehrig Construction ( www.gehrigconstruction.net ).

Dan Gehrig

Dan Gehrig addressing the group

Dan talked about the difference between a remodeler of the 1970’s and 1980’s and today’s version. Prior to 1980 the remodeler did everything on the job whereas today’s remodeler acts as more of a general contractor using specialty-trained sub-contractors.

There are many benefits to the home owner from this approach and Dan described a few of them:

  1. The GC directs and has oversight over the different sub-contractors. He handles the tradesman’s interactions rather than the homeowner.
  2. Using a GC allows planning for future work, where additions and modifications can be planned now to accommodate future expansion.
  3. Using skilled sub-contractors is generally faster than having one guy do everything, although the GC is there to make sure that things aren’t done too fast!
  4. The GC is responsible for the cleanliness of the site
  5. The GC is the main problem solver – not throwing their hands in the air, but actively solving issues as they arise.
  6. A good GC, although they may not be as individually skillful as the sub-contractors, has a knowledge of the whole job and is the person responsible for keeping up with any new rules and regulations.

All good reasons why you need a general contractor in charge and why you should talk to Dan for your remodeling needs!

Bimal, Janet, Robin and Rudy in "rapt attention" mode

It looks as though Frank and Michelle will be joining the group. We look forward to hearing more about their services over the coming months.

The meeting ended with the 30-second commercials and the passing of the tip bucket. Although 4 members were absent 14 tips were still passed between the group.

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