It is with sincere wishes that the Board of Directors hopes that you and your family members are well at this time of crisis. We here in the worldwide boxing community have lost quite a few members over the last few months; and many more have been sickened by this disease. Many of former Ring 8 Honorees and NYS Boxing HOF’ers have succumb to this disease. Our Prayers and respectful remembrances to those and their families from the Ring 8 Family at this time.

According to schedule, our next Ring 8 meeting was to be held on Tues. May 19^th, 2020 at ONeills Restaurant in Maspeth, Queens. The NYS Gov. has set a May 15^th date for PARTIAL re-opening of the state. We feel that this is not enough time to hold a meeting, if one was even possible, because of restrictions that are in effect.

Therefore, Ring 8 will re-schedule the meeting with a TEMPORARY date of Tues. June 16, 2020. At ONeills. Of course this meeting is predicated on certain terms with respect to the virus rules in effect at that time. Will ONeills or any other place be able to hold group meetings ? Will social distancing still be in effect ? Will ONeills themselves be open ?

All these questions must be answered as time goes on. As ALWAYS, Ring 8 cares about the health of our members and guests. It will never jeopardize that and will always side on the side of “safety over risk”. Therefore we will keep you updated on all our events as things get closer to their time. Thank You

Continuing to look after our Ring 8 members, a program for the month of April was set up by Bob Duffy, President of the New York State Boxing HOF, and in  co-operation with Henry Hascup and  our members and friends of the New Jersey Boxing HOF that afforded them a stipend if they were from those two states. Any member from the boxing community, if they applied through those organizations and was vetted, was given a un-repayable stipend if they did not receive a stimulus check from the government. This was for the entire month of April and the program has ended. The Ring 8 Fund gave out over $ 5,000 to those in need and received Thank You from All. We must mention that we received donations from of boxings top people to assist with these gifts. Thank You Bob Duffy for your hard work on this endeavor.

Please check back at the beginning of each month for updates. Ring 8 Board of Directors wishes everyone and their families a continued safe and healthy spring.

Charles Norkus Jr, President Ring 8 VBA

NEW YORK (April 1, 2020) – The New York State Boxing Hall of Fame (NYSBHOF) and Ring 8 jointly announced today a partnership to establish a COVID-19 fund to assist New York and New Jersey boxers and boxing personnel who are in financial need during the coronavirus pandemic.

Any boxing personnel (boxers, trainers, cut-men, etc.) who are independent contractors and live in New York or New Jersey may apply for monetary assistance by filling out a request form posted at www.NYBoxingHOF.org and  www.Ring8ny,com, or request a form at  fightpublicist@gmail.com to be directly emailed.

All applicants must be licensed (NYSAC, NJSAC or USA Boxing) and forms must be submitted  to NYSBHOF president Bob Duffy by email (depcomish@aol.com) or call him (1.516.313.2304) with the required information.

“Gyms are closed, and boxing has been suspended indefinitely,” NYSBHOF president Bob Duffy said. “Most boxing trainers, cut-men and other boxing personnel are independent contractors, so they do not have any income right now during this pandemic.  They have families to support, rent to pay, food to put on the table, and other critical expenses.  We want to help them by establishing this fund.  We’re not in the position to give each applicant a large stipend,  but we are able to provide a small payment to temporarily help them a little bit.  We’re committed to doing this for the month of April, at the very least, and then we’ll will revisit extending payments until boxing returns, as long as there is money available in this fund.  It’s the right thing to do!”

“Ring 8 is furthering our goals to assist boxers and boxing people in New York during this crisis,” Ring 8 president Charlie Norkus, Jr. added.  “It has been our mission since the very beginning.  We are pleased to join the New York Boxing Hall of Fame in this endeavor.”

CONTACT:

Bob Trieger, Full Court PRESS, 978.590.0470, bobtfcp@hotmail.com, @FightPublicist

Contact:
President, Charlie Norkus

CNorkusR8@aol.com
516-781-3065

The Plattduetsche Restaurant has advised us to cancel our meeting that was scheduled for next Thursday, March 19th because of the Coronavirus.

We will reschedule the meeting in the near future!

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The next meeting of Ring 8 VBA will be held at The Plattduetsche Restaurant, 1132 Hempstead Tpk, Franklin Square, NY on THURSDAY March 19, 2020. Doors open at 7pm 

January 23, 2020

An open letter all Members of Ring 8 VBA:

A special Board of Directors meeting was held in early January 2020.

The Board of Directors have adopted the following changes starting with our January meeting:

Ring 8 membership dues will rise $5, from $30 to $35 per member. Our operating costs have risen with various price increases for our events. This will be the first dues increase in several years for our membership.

Ring 8 General Membership meetings will now meet every other month instead of monthly. Please check our website www.ring8ny.com for upcoming meeting notices and guest speakers.

Our schedule for 2020 will now reflect our meetings in the following months:

January (just held),

March 19^th  (Thursday)  at the Plattdeutsche Rest., Franklin Sq., NY (Rest. Is closed Tuesdays)

April 19^th, 2020 (Sunday) New York State Boxing HOF Dinner. Russo’s on The Bay (Flyer will be posted shortly)

May 21^st  (Tuesday) at ONeills Rest, Maspeth

We will break for summer months June, July and August

September (date and location to be determined)

November  (date and location to be determined)

We will  hold our December 13^th, 2020 (Sunday) Annual Ring 8 VBA Holiday Awards Dinner at Russo’s on The Bay as in the past.

All meetings will start at 7 pm as in the past with open buffet. Board Of Directors meetings start at 6 pm

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The co-pay price of the pre-meeting meal will rise $5 to $10 to help meet the price increases at the Restaurants.

We Thank You for your kind consideration in this matter. We value your membership to Ring 8 VBA  and hope to see you at our meetings and events.

Charlie Norkus Jr, President

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Contact:
President, Charlie Norkus

CNorkusR8@aol.com
516-781-3065

The first meeting of the New Year took place on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 at O’Neill’s Restaurant. President Charlie Norkus opened the meeting with our Flag Salute followed by the 10 count by Boxing Judge Ron McNair!

President Norkus announced several changes for 2020, including the annual membership dues going up to $35, our buffet will now cost each member $10 and Ring 8 will have a by-monthly meetings, instead of monthly ones!

We had several Outstanding Guest speakers which included Mathew “Lefty Gunz” Gonzalez, who was interviewed by President Norkus and talked about his career and his future plans. We also had Bobby McGuire the Head Coach/ Mgr of FDNY Boxing Team, who will be running bouts March 13th Hulu Theatre FDNY vs Police Depts.

Bob Duffy talked on the up coming New York State Boxing Hall of Fame event on April 19th and Fred Romano who talked on his newest project “The Boxing Genome Project.”  A large scale future boxing reference to identify, collect and categorize, preserve and publicize the existence of various content related to the sport of Boxing.
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(All Pictures taken by Stan Janousek, professional fight name Stanley Yanachek)

Fred Romano

Mathew “Lefty Gunz” Gonzalez with President Charlie Norkus

Bobby McGuire

Bob Duffy

Contact:
President, Charlie Norkus

CNorkusR8@aol.com
516-781-3065