Our Greeter today was Mustafa Jaffer and he did a marvelous job.
President Amir Famili rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting and welcomed all. Then Ihor Fedoriw gave a very nice invocation.
Secretary John Scott began the meeting having the members recite The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag, followed by saying the 4 Way Test, John then reviewed some upcoming events. And introduced our guests.
GUESTS:
Laurie Grube, West Reading Wyomissing RC; Andrea, our Y.E. student from Croatia; Gayly Haviland, Andrea’s host family’ and Chris Blechschmidt’s daughter who also hosted Andrea.
John said that the members have received a Thank You note for the donations made in Joel Masiko’s memory.
Sue Weber noted that today is Andrea’s last chance to visit before she returns home to Croatia. Andrea thanked everyone for being her friend and making her visit to the U.S. an amazing experience. She will be back.
STRIKE OUT HUNGER AT THE PHILLIES:
Jeff Kistler announced that on August 15 he and Barbara will be attending and others are welcome to join them TODAY with a group ticket purchase to save money. RI President Maloney will throw out the first pitch. And $10 of each ticket from Rotarians will go to PolioPlus.
At Pres. Amir’s request, Rev. Jeff Kistler gave a special prayer for Mildred Englehardt, Ronnee Klotz and Joe Goll’s sister, Donna.
P-E Ralph Witcher read off the names of members and their spouses having birthdays in July, and we sang Happy Birthday. He then read the names of members who joined AWRC in July.
DINING OUT IN JULY:
FRIDAY, July 19 at 6:00 P.M.at Zanzibar Kabobs and Grill, Tilghman St. in Allentown. A sign-up sheet is going around.
THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
TOMORROW, July 11 at the Holiday Inn at 5:30 P.M. is our next meeting.
NEXT MORNING MEETING IS July 17 with Shawn Fejes as our Greeter. The program will be a review of the new funding requests for projects.
Pres. Amir introduced our Sgt-at-Arms Mitch Huston who conducted the drawings and collected Happy Dollars.
The door prize donated by Ihor Fedoriw was won by Sue Weber.
The $96 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Bill Palmer’s ticket being drawn followed by a white marble. Five marbles remain.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Mitch Huston is back and is in much better health. Mitch also is happy that the U.S. Women’s Soccer team wo the World Cup.
Halyna Stegura is happy to be back and recovering. She also is happy that the Webers provided transportation today, since she cannot drive.
Laurie Grube is a Rotarian recently moved into the area and she is happy to be with us today.
Geoff Legg was happy about something.
Ernie Boll said he is just plain happy.
Mike Gschwendtner is most happy that his employer, Siemens, has agreed to finance his complete MBA program.
PROGRAM:
The program today began with Treasurer Chris Blechschmidt giving an overview of AWRC’s finances. Chris used a series of slides to explain that we have two major financial sections. One is the AWRC Operating account.
This account gets revenue from Dues, 50:50 drawings, meal overheads and some donations. These monies pay for the overhead of running the club, including the per capita annual dues to RI, and the per capita dues to our District 7430.
The second section is our AW Foundation account, a 501-C-3. This receives revenue from our fundraisers and donations. And it acts as a “pass through” for monies raised by others that we manage and disburse.
The Foundation section has separate accounts for:
Northwestern Snack Packing
Parkland Snack Packing
Tempting Tastes events
Reserve funds.
Chris explained that the Reserve account consists of money put away in prior years. Right now 10% of our net fundraising dollars each year goes to the Reserve. Also, each year 5% of the Reserve is returned to the Foundation account for good works. Currently the Reserve is about $39,000.
Chris noted that the last Dictionary program was fully funded by member cash donations.
Chris mentioned that our annual Scholarship awards are over $9,000 and is one of our larger programs.
Jeff Kistler raised the question of why we do not use the Reserve to do more good works. Bill Palmer agreed with Jeff saying that the $39 K would feed a lot of hungry folks. There was more discussion.
Pres. Amir expressed Thanks to Chris from all of us for doing such a great job managing our finances.
Pres. Amir explained that back in 2006 a video was made by AW members describing who we are and what we do. It was a 7 minute trip down memory lane for many of us. Possibly we will do an updated video and link it to our Website and Facebook account.
CLOSING:
Pres. Amir closed our meeting by our reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
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