Our Greeter today was Pres-Elect Jeanne Shipe, and she did a fabulous job.
President Mike Gschwendtner rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting. David Haight gave a very nice invocation.
Pres. Mike began the meeting having the members recite the Five-way Test with the fifth question, “Is it Fun?” We recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S.
GUESTS:
David Haight, friend of Al Lewis;
Pres. Mike showed pictures of our Feb 28th meeting including Amir’s new hat and Y.E. student, Ala. And we saw some from the recent Northwestern Snack Packing, and of the Ruth Bush paintings for the TT4 Auction.
.LOWHILL FOOD PANTRY:
Please remember that the Collection jar is at the registration desk for cash and check contributions.
FOUNDATION GALA MARCH 17TH:
The Dinner is on this Saturday, March 17th.
DINING OUT in MARCH:
Thursday March 22nd at 8:00 PM is the next Dining Out. It will be at the Mediterranean Cafe & Grill0, 7720 Main St #6a, Fogelsville, PA 18051. And it is BYOB. Halyna Stegura has the sign-up sheet going around.
SCHEDULE:
President Mike announces upcoming events at our meetings and a list of them appears on our website. A list of the appropriate contact information appears each week in the A-W bulletin.
THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
March 22nd at 6 PM as our monthly Dining Out event.
TT 4 MEETING:
The next TT4 project meeting will be at the Holiday Inn on Friday, April 6th starting at 7:30 AM.
TT4 AUCTION REVIEW PARTY -- APRIL 8th:
Gwenn and Gary are having a party at their home on Sunday, April 8th from 4 to 7 PM. The admission fee is one or more items to be auctioned off at TT4. Snacks will be served.
Dorothy Bloom needs some volunteers to help at the registration tables.
PUERTO RICO SUPPORT:
Herb and Ronnee Klotz visited Puerto Rico and St. Marten during their cruise last week and were disturbed by the obvious needs to recover still from the hurricane devastation. Herb said that there now is a “Donor Advised Fund” set up with the Rotary Foundation to accept donations to help in this relief effort.
Herb noted that AW members will be meeting at the Northwestern School next month. And it would be great if we had some funds to go with their Interact Club’s relief efforts.
NEW GLOBAL GRANT:
Chris Blechschmidt explained that while he and Herb were in Sierra Leone last month they established a plan with the Bo RC to apply for a new Global Grant focused on maternity and child care with Nurses training and a structure to allow an onsite Mid-wife at the Hospital. The AW b.o.d. will discuss this at next week’s meeting.
KINGDOM LIFE FOOD PANTRY:
Pres. Mike said that we have a thank you letter for our work on the shelves that we did. Our efforts now total almost $3,000.
WHITEHALL AREA RC CHARTER NIGHT:
On March 28th the WARC will be one year old and will be having a M.A.D. (Make A Difference) Day. Herb will be attending and all AWs are invited. Tell Herb.
NEXT WEEK:
Our Greeter will be Wendy Weaver and the program is Gwen Pongracz in charge of a Live 4 Way Test Speech Contest sponsored by our club. The winner moves on to the Regionals in April.
Pres. Mike introduced S-A-A Mitch Huston who conducted the drawings and collected some “Guilty” dollars. Ron Coleman forgot his badge today.
Mitch got creative today and put our names on a slip of paper for the drawings -- he forgot the tickets.
The Door Prize breakfast donated by Jeanne Shipe was won by Stan Drabick.
The $77 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Jerry Frank’s ticket. Five marbles remain.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Gil Keller is very happy that his grandson is a football star performer in H.S. and has earned a 5 year total scholarship at Albany College.
Halyna Stegura’s daughter, Christina, has just returned from Israel and expects to start her new job with the U.S. State Dept. next week. Christina volunteered for 3 weeks of service in Puerto Rico last month.
Jean Masiko is most happy that Joel is back attending meetings – as are we.
Bill Palmer ‘s A-W bulleting last week that reported on the “non-meeting meeting” brought him six member e-mails bearing praise of sorts.
Stephanie Fenstermacher’ s oldest daughter has been on the Dean’s List forever and graduates in May. And her other daughter finishes HS in June and will attend Westchester College in the Fall.
Ronnee Klotz urges support for Puerto Rico and St. Marten.
Jeanne Shipe noted that AW members are considering two new food oriented projects.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was led by DGN Herb Klotz, our Membership Chair. It was about Satisfaction, Appreciation and Attraction, which promote Membership growth. He noted that we lost 12 members over the last year, and we have added 5 since then. The goal is to add 7 more by June so that we do not have a net loss, and the “new blood” will do us good.
Herb said that “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” He said that our plan falls into 4 categories and we need members to help in each one. They are 1. Attract, 2. Retain, 3. Organize, and 4. Public Image.
Herb reminds us that two years ago 10 separate AW Rotarians each sponsored a candidate -- for the first time! We need this to happen again and soon.
One issue to help candidates to join is to make them feel welcome the first time they visit. Herb told a contrary story he experienced when visiting another RC.
It is important that at their first visit we get their contact info and get their OK to start sending them our weekly bulletins. Ron Coleman and Herb are on this first section. They have an EXCEL spreadsheet following the steps with all potential members.
Please remember the average statistics show that you ask 7 to join and get 1 acceptance. That is a challenge. Statistics also show that about 70 % of the new members in RCs come from business acquaintances, neighbors and friends. That is where we concentrate.
Herb said that an anonymous donor has established a table for eight candidates to attend TT4 as our guests.
Part 2 on Retention includes Chuck Ehninger ensuring that we have proper induction ceremonies, and Barb Kistler holding in-depth orientation sessions for new members.
We must get new members involved in one or more club projects or committees right away. And we need somebody to follow up with current members whom we have not seen at meetings for a while.
To attract, and to keep, members we need strong fellowship, a friendly atmosphere, and a good meeting place. Fortunately AW members are very good in these areas.
The third section is Organization. Amir Famili will lead this and needs others to help. We need leads for candidates. One action is for our club to become an active member of the Greater L.V. Chamber of Commerce. Also we try to bring in Corporate leaders.
Working on our public image is the 4th section. We have Mitch Huston on PR, and Brian Peterka and John Scott on Facebook. It is important for us to tell the surrounding communities just what we Rotarians do.
Herb then had us break into four groups, one for each section. After 15 minutes of discussion each reported 2 or 3 action items that will be pursued. And some members signed up to work in those sections.
CLOSING:
We closed the meeting by reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
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