Our Greeter today was Dorothy Bloom, and she did a great job.
President Herb Klotz rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. Assistant Governor Sue Weber gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS: Michaela Luzicova, Youth Exchange student from Slovakia; Steve LaPierre, Emmaus RC; and Roark and Michelle Grammes.
SPECIAL AWARDS:
Roark and Michelle Grammes were awarded an honorary Rotary Paul Harris Fellow in remembrance of Roark’s Father, long time member Don Grammes by President Herb on behalf of all AW Rotarians.
Dale Hostetter was awarded an Honorary Paul Harris Fellow in memory of his late wife, Mae, by President herb on behalf of all AW Rotarians. Mae was quoted as saying “Calm down, Herb, don’t worry about things that are not important.” She also worked more than 8,000 hours for Meals on Wheels, and after retiring returned all of her earnings back to them as a donation.
YOUTH EXCHANGE REPORT:
Michaela, a.k.a. “Miska,” told us that her time with AW Rotarians and Parkland High School has been a great experience; she is glad that she came here. She especially thanked her host families. She mentioned running cross country for Parkland and playing Lacrosse. She also was on the Honor Roll 3 times. And she finished in 2nd place at the 5K district Purple Pinkie Race.
Miska will be joining some of the other Y.E. students for a trip to Calif., Ariz., and Nevada soon. Then 36 days from now – her Mother is counting – she will fly home to Slovakia.
She plans to finish High School and do two years of college back home. But then she may return to the U.S. to finish college. But she just may come visit us next Summer.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
June 1st was the last snack packing at Parkland until September. There were 15 volunteers on hand and they produced 170 snack packs.
Jun 3rd was the Tempting Tastes 2 “Lessons Learned” meeting, and it produced recommended changes for TT3.
Jun 4th Saturday, Chris Blechschmidt volunteered at the Lowhill Food Pantry.
President Herb noted that the Lowhill FP account balance is sufficient that there will be no cash collection this month.
June 5th , Sunday the Miracle League baseball game was rained out.
On Tuesday evening, June 7th three of our new members were treated to pizza and an Orientation session all about Rotary.
The next Thursday Evening Happy Hour meeting at the Holiday Inn is TOMORROW, June 9th. Herb will review our Financials.
June 15th is the Young Professionals Networking event put on by the Chamber of Commerce. We will co-sponsor their June 15th event along with the Allentown RC. Herb needs a few more AW Rotarians to attend and mingle to represent Rotary there.
June 15th and 16th is volunteering at Lowhill Food Pantry.
June 20th, Monday evening, is the annual Camp Neidig BBQ and closing ceremony. It always is great. Buy your tickets on line.
June 24th Friday is Dining Out at 29 Cooks in Emmaus; price is $25 per person, and we will be treated to a BBQ Blowout menu. BYOB.
June 29th Wednesday at our regular meeting we will conduct our annual Changeover. Let’s all attend to welcome Dan Crane as our next President. Bring family and friends. WE WILL START AT 7:15 A.M. !!!
Next week the scheduled Greeter is Gwenn Carr and Engineers Without Borders will provide a Sierra Leone Update with three others who traveled there last March.
ROTARIAN OF THE WEEK:
Don Davis , our long time Sergeant-at-Arms, is our Rotarian of the week. President Herb refers to Don as “The Minister of Fun.” Every week Don’s 10 minutes of fines, happy dollars, drawings and banter is what makes our club inviting. Thanks, Don.
NEXT YEAR’S COMMITTEES:
Each AW member is asked to contact each committee chair , if you want to serve during the 2016-17 Rotary Year. There are lots of wats to serve.
NEW LV RC:
Herb confirmed that the District team will start an all new RC in the Whitehall area. It will involve the support of some established Rotarians in nearby Rotary clubs. Please contact Herb if you would be willing to get involved in making a new club happen.
DATABASE UPDATE:
Brian Peterka will be sending out a form to each member for information we need to update our ClubRunner database. Please be sure to respond.
LUCK of the DRAW:
Today’s door prize donated by Dorothy Bloom was won by Dawn Costello. Then Dan Crane won the right to draw a marble for the $15 50:50 pot and did not win.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Dan Crane for no pin.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Halyna Stegura is happy that she and Mike went to Hilton Head and spent time with the Webers and the Franks.
Sue Weber is happy that the Steguras visited, and they went to the Sunset Rotary club.
Sue also is happy to confirm what we all know -- Miska is a fabulous Youth Exchange student.
Sue noted that Ginny Sandoval and Wendy Weaver will be host families starting late August for our student from Argentina.
Joe Goll admits to having his 63rd birthday about now, so we sang Happy Birthday and charged him a dollar. Don asked for $63, but it didn’t work.
Mike Henry paid a dollar in recognition of the anniversary of his joining AWRC.
Then Don Davis paid a dollar in recognition of joining us in 1999.
Don is happy to announce that the sum of the weekly fines and happy dollars adds up to about $1,500 this year.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was President Herb’s review of the AWRC 2015-16 Financial accounts. He explained that AWRC is run with three distinct accounts: Club Operations, the AW Foundation, and The Rotary Foundation. They total about $100,000 this year.
Club Operations gets Revenue from member dues, fines, our half of the weekly 50:50 and a markup on the breakfast charges. The items paid from this account includes RI member dues, a matching RI Annual Fund donation incentive program, ClubRunner website costs, expenses for Membership promotional events, advertising, leadership training (RLI), and this year we bought our great sound system. Total outgo was about $22,500.
Our AW Foundation is a 501 ( C) 3 that gets its Revenue from the Tempting Tastes event, the Pig Roast, individual donations, and a 5% return from the Reserve Fund.
Over the last 5months the AW board of directors has been discussing and creating a 5 year Strategic Plan for the AW Foundation. Its Mission Statement is the same wording as what we had in 2008. The Reserve Fund gets its monies from 10% of the generic net proceeds from fundraisers. The Reserve Fund is invested in a stock mutual fund. The practice described above is projected by Chair Geoff Legg to provide a modest growth essentially keeping up with inflation.
And we include provisions to use more of the Reserve Fund for such unusual things as disaster relief needs, tough economic times, provided two board meetings discuss and agree and all AW members have an opportunity to provide opinions and ideas.
The sum of the AW Foundation account monies is about $42,000. About 83% ( $34,000 ) goes to Lehigh Valley Youth programs, 7% to Food Pantries, and 10% to international projects.
The third accounting section for the RI Foundation was explained in detail with handouts on the tables. These are for tracking both District Grants and Global Grants. We AW Rotarians collectively donate over $10,000 to the RI Annual Fund each year, and $1,000 to PolioPlus. Half of the district donations to the Annual Fund eventually come back to our District 7430 and are used for any RC to have an approved District Grant and/or Global Grant.
This year we had two District Grants totaling $8,700 and we spent $3,000 for Sierra Leone’s Centennial School. And we spent $3,000 and got $5,000 of grant money for Snack Packs.
SUMMARY: There is about $2,000 in the Operating account, $7,000 in the AW Foundation account, $24,000 in the separate Snack Packs account, and $34,000 in the Reserve Fund.
The foregoing is the year 2015-16. Our recent Tempting Tastes 2 netted $33,000 for next year’s good works programs. “We are doing well.”
CLOSING:
Halyna Stegura hit the right note to start us singing a nice rendition of “God Bless America” Then we recited the Pledge to the Flag of the United States and then the saying “One profits most who serves the best.”
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