Our Greeter today was Gwenn Carr who graciously filled in at the last minute, and she did a marvelous job.
President Mike Gschwendtner rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting. Pastor Jean Masiko 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 flag of the U.S.
GUESTS:
Al Fox, Bangor ME.RC.
Pres. Mike showed photographs from our last meeting starting with RC Banner of Chandler, Arizona, sent by Dale Heffner. Then Barb Kistler explained the red covers on the Dictionaries that were sent to the N.E. Bradford Elementary school in far western PA. She has thank you letters from some students already.
LOWHILL FOOD PANTRY:
Please remember that the Collection jar is at the registration desk for cash and check contributions.
SNACK PACK LEADER WANTED:
The Parkland SD Snack Pack program needs a leader to replace Ray Stock. Please help us continue this important hunger project. Contact Pres. Mike G.
NEW AWRC MEMBERSHIP OPTION:
Membership Chair, Herb Klotz, said that at the Nov. 21st AW Board meeting it was agreed -- subject to AWRC members’ approval -- that we will make available an “Enterprise” membership type open to Corporations and Non-Profit Groups. Each company joining will name one member to attend our meetings with other employees also attending at various times.
SPEECH CONTEST:
Gwen Pongracz and Ginny Sandoval are leading this year’s event. They will seek participants from local charter schools, etc. as well as Public schools. And the competition will happen at an AW regular meeting so as to ensure a sizable audience.
TEMPTING TASTES 4 UPDATE:
Gwenn Carr said that our May 2018 key fundraiser will not include some former restaurant exhibitors, but the committee already has added some exciting new ones.
NEW COMMUNITY PROJECT IDEAS WANTED:
Pres. Mike said that we have some uncommitted funds this year, and the board is open to new ideas for doing some good works.
HURRICANE RELIEF OPPORTUNITY:
Pres. Mike reminds us that for every $5,000 increment of funds donated to ShelterBox USA by D7430 Rotarians -- Rotary Clubs -- Interact Clubs -- another ShelterBox will be donated from the District funds. This incentive offer is open to December 1, 2017 and is limited to 5 ShelterBoxes by the district.
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY PARTY:
December 3rd, Sunday, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM, a Buffet with a cash bar, at Bravo Cucina Italiana at the Lehigh Valley Mall. Please sign-up PDQ. The price is $37.00 per person The luncheon will have 2 choices of salads served family style, sides, pasta course and entrée buffet style and chocolate cake or cheesecake for dessert served tableside. It also includes all soda, coffee and /decaf and tea.
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.
LUTHER CREST TRI-CEES CONCERT:
The Club funded concert of the Tri-Cees at Luther Crest will be on Monday, Dec. 11 starting at 7:00 PM. AWRC members are invited to attend.
NEXT WEEK:
Our Greeter will be Ronnee Klotz, and the program will be Carrie Reed Ballek about the Daughters of the American Revolution in our Community.
Pres. Mike introduced our S-a-A Mitch Huston who conducted the raffle drawings.
Remember that Mitch has introduced a new way to ask for volunteered “Guilty” fines. The new word is “PEBL” fines; i.e. Pins, Leave early, Badge missing, and Late arrival. Some donations came in today.
The door prize was won by Gary Englehardt who donated it back. .
The $32 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Jeanne Shipe’s ticket. Lots of white marbles remain.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Herb Klotz -- with a smile -- reports that there was a $2,000 donation to the Purple Pinkie event from the PA Polio Survivors Group, bringing the total D7430 Race net results to $31,500. There were 36 D7430 RCs that participated. AW Rotarians donated $1,550.
Chris Blechschmidt is very happy that his wife and 13 year old daughter will be going to Sierra Leone with him in January.
Mustafa Jaffer is happy to be back home after he and his wife completed a 2-1/2 week Pilgrimage in Iraq, along with 30 million other Muslims.
Mitch Huston is happy with his plans to visit Quebec City in a few weeks.
Jean Masiko extends her heartfelt thanks to all who made the Kingdom Life new shelves project get done and so well.
Sue Weber is happy that the Jordan Lutheran Church folks are so pleased with the carts that we gave to them.
Al Fox, our visitor from Bangor, ME. reminds us of RI Pres. Riseley’s plan this RY to plant a tree for every Rotarian. He recommends we go through “American Chestnut.”
Sue Weber noted that her Garden Club will plant trees for us at the L.V. Zoo.
President Mike Gschwendtner extends a Happy Thanksgiving to all.
PROGRAM:
Vice President Amir Famili introduced John Tacca, VP Division Polymers NCA of the Wacker Chemical Corporation. Amir has known John for over 30 years, with many years together at Air Products. John is a Chemical Engineer from Cornell University, and has a Master’s Degree from Lehigh University.
Using slides and a great video, John told us about the Wacker Corp. which has its HQ in Munich, Germany. John’s division started some years ago as a joint venture with Air Products owning 65%. Then Wacker bought the A.P. piece and in November of 2008 built a 65,000 sq. ft. facility on Tilghman Street. This employs 90 people, but manufacturing is done in their plant in Kentucky.
Worldwide Wacker does $5.9 Billion in sales. And the invest 3% into R&D each year. They have 17,000 employees globally.
Working with silicon and ethylene, the Allentown Division designs and sells polymer mixtures, both wet and dry. The Wacker Polymers division focuses on manufacturing state-of-the-art binders and polymer additives such as dispersible polymer powders and dispersions. These are used in diverse industrial applications or as base chemicals in the automotive, construction-chemical, paper and adhesive sectors, as well as in the production of coatings and printing inks.
The construction industry is the main customer for polymer binders-used as an additive in tile adhesives, exterior insulation and finish systems, dry-mix mortors and self-leveling flooring compounds.
John gave examples of various products that use these polymers. He discussed the Textile application where the carpet backings are bonded to the woven fabric, for example. And he mentioned the use of polymers to strengthen paper towels when being used wet, but still breaking down when discarded. Viva brand uses their polymers for this.
CLOSING:
We closed the meeting by reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
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