Today was a Zoom meeting and there were 36 of us on line. After 15 minutes of talking amongst ourselves our Greeter and outgoing President Amir Famili, opened the meeting at 7:45 A.M. P-E Ralph Witcher gave a very nice invocation with a special mention for Bill Weber having surgery tomorrow.
GUESTS ON LINE:
DG Janet Kolepp, Beth. MS RC’ DGE Bob Hobaugh, Kutztown, RC; Pat Witcher, Ralph’s wife; and Capt. Nick Millward, a Peace Fellowship candidate calling in from Japan.
Ralph Witcher began the meeting by having the members recite The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag. Then he led us in reciting the Four Way Test.
Pres. Amir thanks all “first responders” and other Essential Workers for what they do and asks all to pray for them.
HIGHWAY CLEANUP PROJECT DONE:
The ten AW Rotary cars lined up along highway 222 on a cloudy, drizzly Saturday morning June 27. The members created more than a little pickup load of garbage and piled it up at one spot for Penn DOT to pickup. See separate article.
HELP OUR TEMPTING TASTES FRIENDS:;
Restaurants and providers are now hungry for our support. Please consider ordering from them when you are looking for a break from your own cooking! You can also support them with the purchase of gift cards, for yourself or others.
MORNING MEETINGS;
President Amir Famili has suspended all AWRC face-to-face meetings until further notice. ZOOM meetings are now scheduled for each Wednesday at 7:30 A.M.
NEXT MORNING MEETING:
Wednesday July 8th starting at 7:30 a.m. We will use Zoom to meet together with appropriate distancing. Our program will be Captain Nick Millward telling us about his Journey from Northwestern Lehigh Interact Club to United States Marine Corps.
HAPPY DOLLARS and MEMBER NEWS:
Pres. Amir conducted this part and kept score on who owes how much money.
Amir Famili said that it seems that when you hit age 65 and get a Medicare card, things go wrong so you have to use it.
Halyna Stegura is happy to report that son Mike completed his 60 mile run from Philadelphia to Allentown last weekend and just was sore and he ran again the next day. He raised money for the homeless in Phila. Halyna thanks Gary Heller for his great photos.
Gary Englehardt is happy that their new dock on Barnegat Bay now is finished. And he was happy to have Dan Crane on with us today.
Bill Palmer is happy that a friend and he went to a local restaurant and had a pizza and a beer while resting on their patio.
Amir described a chemical and method of spraying trees to get rid of something.
Bob Hobaugh said that last Sunday his car club had a tour through western Lehigh County -- AW country.
Brad Maier is happy to have children’s group activities starting up.
Gail Micca is delighted with the progress of the new garden Project.
Chuck Ehninger called in happily at the beach in Saginaw Bay in Michigan. We could hear the birds in the background.
Ron Coleman is $5 happy to report the pent up demand to buy and sell houses. There are many clients coming from New York City.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION:
Laurie Grube, Vice President / Regional Manager at Riverview Bank, has been named Business Woman of the year in the Lehigh Valley.
PROGRAM:
Today was our annual changeover from the Presidency of Amir Famili to that of Ralph Witcher.
Outgoing President Amir reviewed some of the accomplishments during 2019-20, starting with the Membership report from Gwenn Carr:
2019-2020 AWRC Membership Plan Input
** Obtain feedback on the Health of the Club
Completed Club Experience Health Check – 7/25/19 and 8/7/19
Completed Membership Health Check – 10/16/19 and 10/24/19
Completed Image Health Check – 11/19/19
** Obtain feedback on AWRC Rotarians’ experience at meetings
Completed two 3 question surveys during the weeks of 9/25/19 and 1/8/20
2019-2020 AWRC Membership Plan Goals
Retain 100% of current members - ?
Recruit 10 new members - 8
Have a least two members of the PM club on the Membership team - 0
Grow the Membership team to 5 members – 4
Develop, complete and present an AWRC video
October 1, 2019
Participate in the Non-Profit Awareness Expo
Completed on 10/5/19
Retention of Current Members
Recognition events
Pancake Day – December 4, 2019
Thank you for being a Rotarian Night – November 14, 2019
Rotary Fun Facts
Rotarian of the Month
Stress Ball Awards
Support opportunities for service
Monthly recognition for participating in service
Provided healthy and unhealthy snacks
Recruiting New Members
Encourage Service Committee to provide a variety of opportunities
Highway Cleanup
East Penn Neighbors helping Neighbors
Center for Vision Project
Invite “leads” to participate in service projects and special events
Food Pantries, Center for Vision Project
Hold “Recognition of Service to the Community“ event to reach out to other organizations
Pay the first six months of dues for five new Rotarians
Done
Marlene Heller reported that our website was changed to a “Mobile Friendly” one And its contents mostly describe who we are. Our Facebook page now concentrates on what we do.
Also we are doing better in the Social Media area with our Facebook work and our Public Image.
Marlene also worked for the District 7430 with her monthly CAREmongers reports. And she is the “Brand Guardian” for AWRC.
Gail Micca has submitted a great report listing and explaining the fantastic good deeds by our AW Rotarians during the 2019-20 Rotary year. The report is posted on our website. She was very busy as well.
PDG Herb Klotz gave a report about our Rotary Foundation. Herb said that TRF has been good to AWRC with 3 grants now and 2 more coming. He noted the Global Grant for the hospital in Sierra Leone, and that EWB and 3 D7430 RCs have donated funds to replace what we received.
Herb said that AW Rotarians came through last month and we now have donated about $14,000 to TRF Annual Fund, beating our goal by 40%.Also last year AW Rotarians donated over $5,000 to PolioPlus. And we ran the Polio 5K race that raised over $60,000 from the district to eradicate Polio.
Herb also said that AW has two more members now who have joined the Paul Harris Society.
Herb then announced new Paul Harris Fellow recognitions for:
Ernie Boll PHF +6
Jean Masiko PHF +5
Chris Blechschmidt PHF
Marlene Heller PHF
Amir Famili PHF +3
Amir reviewed some highlights of last year. We are proud that we only missed 2 meetings in March and started our Zoom meetings on April 1st, one of the first RCs in the district to do so. And the pandemic just did not stop AW Rotarians from doing all of the planned projects and adding more.
Amir firmly believes that our regular praying together has helped members with issues to get better. He thanks us all for our support.
Amir then brought up two AW traditions when changing years. First he showed the Painting from the 1980s given to us by the father of our exchange student. He promised to deliver it to Ralph.
Then Amir showed the very special egg from the Ukraine provided by Dr. Ihor Fedoriw. It represents a new season and goes to the new President, Ralph.
President Ralph Witcher thanked Amir for his support and guidance. He said that we have a really great Rotary club. And he thanked the many committee chairs for making the good things happen last year.
Using some slides, Ralph noted that DG Janet is due to meet with us officially on August 26. He also said that we need to fill some “board” seats and asks for volunteers. Ralph likes families, especially his own. Then he expressed his thanks to Herb for his leadership last year.
Ralph wants to grow our membership, and he will be asking members to “adopt a project.” And he will be doing a monthly survey within the club.
OUR NEW FUNDRAISER:
Dennis Houser reviewed the details of our fundraiser that starts today and ends on Sept. 9th. See the separate article. Please buy tickets, sell tickets, and tell your friends to buy more tickets. We are hoping to net at least $20,000.
Dennis reminds us of all of the cash we have saved by not buying breakfasts since mid-March. Len Salines thanks his committee and all of us for supporting this event.
CLOSING:
Pres. Ralph led us in the saying “One profits most who serves best.
.png)
