Meeting Notes MAY 27, 2015
Our Greeter this morning was Sarah Andrew, and she did an excellent job.
President Barbara rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. Mike Henry gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS: Wendy Weaver, guest of Barb Kistler; Brian Peterka and Donna Beach, guests of Dan Crane; Mark Ritter, guest of Marlene; Michelle from Luther Crest as well as a number of LC residents.
Dawn Costello was with us today after a long absence.
Barb showed photos from last week’s scholarship awards meeting at LCCC.
ROBERTO REPORT:
Our Youth Exchange student from Ecuador, Roberto Reyes, reports that everything is OK. He will be returning home on June 25th, but will attend Camp Neidig the weekend before. One of the highlights of his 9 months in the U.S. was the group’s trip to Washington, DC.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Our next Thursday evening meeting at the Holiday Inn will be tomorrow May 28th starting at 5:30 PM. We will discuss further the planning of the End Polio fundraiser 5k possiblt held in in October.
The Snack Packing at Parkland is today May 27th. More volunteers are needed.
Sunday June 7th is our day to help at the Miracle League baseball game. Some Interact students will be there to help too. We need volunteers -- see AJ.
Dan is looking for some volunteers for a yard clean-up work detail.
The AWRC annual Changeover this year will be a dinner event here at LCCC in this same room as we used for the scholarship awards. The date is Thursday June 25th. There will be no other meetings of AWRC that week. More detail will follow.
Len announced that there will be a meeting of the BBQ committee on Friday May 29th at the Starlight Diner.
Halyna Stegura will conduct our next breakfast meeting here on June 3rd.Randy Beitler is the scheduled Greeter and our Speaker will be Zachary Jaindl about the Allentown waterfront project.
LUCK of the DRAW:
The door prize donated by Sarah was won by George Ikeda -- “It’s about time!”. The $100 pot of the 50:50 was won by Rev. Jeff Kistler who selected the black marble; Barb had it spent by 8:30.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Bob Gordon for not having his shirt tucked in, altho Bob was wearing socks.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Don is happy that his granddaughter is one year old.
Dawn was many times happy, first because she was here today. Then it was for a special play performance at NWL HS last Friday. And she is happy that her granddaughter in Middle Scholl won a gold and a silver medal in track.
With quite a bit of prompting, Bill Palmer noted that granddaughter Shaina at a Freedom HS Dinner last evening received two female MVP trophies, and a Scholar Athlete of the Year award. Yvette’s granddaughter, Arista, placed 3rd and 4th in the annual mid-Atlantic dance competition in K.O.P. over the weekend.
George Ikeda’s grandson has been named an All American in Lacrosse.
Dan is happy that his grandson got his first haircut.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was an update from D.C. President Barbara introduced Charles Wieder "Charlie" Dent who is the U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district, serving since 2005. Before that he spent 8 years in the PA House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party. He is the Chairman of the House Ethics committee and serves on three other sub-committees involving funds appropriations.
The ethics committee work does not address criminal issues, just behavioral. They can issue reprimands for example. He says “The work is rather interesting.” He just got word that he won the appeal against Charlie Wrangle who sued him because the Ethics Committee went after Rep. Wrangle.
Charlie discussed the VA and its very real problems. He believes that the needed change is to allow veterans to use the civilian medical system, and not keep them separate. He points out that the U.S. provided veterans after WW II with educational opportunities. These were just a part of the civilian system, and the program works well.
Charlie told us that the many student exchange programs of the U.S. Government are very important around the world. For example the upcoming program for France alone is about $4 million.
Charlie touched on the Trade Agreement legislation currently being debated in Congress. There are 12 partner countries involved in the Pacific plan. The need to make this one happen is to keep the Chinese from being in charge of the rule-making.
And he mentioned a long term transportation bill coming this year to work on the country’s infrastructure. Then there is the NSA bill that expires on June 1, 2015 that is keeping Congress jumping.
Rep. Dent opened it up for questions which ranged from Russia and the Ukraine to the AMTRAK train accident.
CLOSING:
Barb hit the right note to start us singing a good rendition of “God Bless America” This was followed by the recitation of the Pledge to the Flag of the United States and then the saying “One profits most who serves the best.”
ocus on membership for our Club. 
