The Greeter this morning was Gary Englehardt and he did a hellava good job.
President Herb rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. Dale Heffner gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS: Michaela Luzicova, our Y.E. student and Dave Dries, Spring Township RC. Christopher Droney and father, Brian, and Philip Bertolino, Principal of the Academic Center at LCTI.
STUDENT of the MONTH:
Jeff Kistler presented Christopher Droney with the AWRC Student of the Month award for November. See separate article.
NEW MEMBER INDUCTION:
Ralph Wasiakowski sponsored by Dan Crane was induced by Chuck Ehninger into AWRC active membership. Welcome Ralph. We’re glad to have you with us.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
On Nov. 11th AW Rotarians once again helped Meals on Wheels.
On Nov. 12th at our evening meeting, we added Nancy Handwerk to AWRC as an Honorary Member. See separate article.
Our next Thursday evening meeting is tomorrow, November 19th at 5:30 PM at the Holiday Inn in Breinigsville. Bring your friends.
NOTE, that in December we will meet on the 3rd Thursday -- not the 4th, because of the holidays.
On Nov 13th the TT2 committee met. They will present their plan to the club at our January 6th meeting.
On Nov. 17th at the AWRC Board of Directors meeting, former member Dave Dries was made an Honorary Member, since he is family and visits regularly.
Today, Nov. 18th is Snack Packing at Parkland HS at 2:15 pm.
The Lowhill Food Pantry volunteering will be working today and tomorrow.
Herb read a letter from Don Grammes’ son thanking AW Rotarians for the care, support, cards and calls. Don loved Rotary meetings. Herb noted that whatever donations are made in Don’s memory will be sent to the Rotary Foundation PolioPlus Fund in Don’s name. Don had polio as a child.
December 4th at 6 P.M. is the AW Holiday Party at Brookside CC in Macungie.
PLEASE REGISTER BY NOVEMBER 25TH; WE NEED A HEADCOUNT. The cost is $45 pp with a cash bar. There will be 4 entrée choices, with a $15 premium for filet mignon. AJ and Mike are handling the reservations. We have about 50 signed up so far.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS:
Club Service meets Nov. 18th.
Membership Committee meets here on Nov 18th.
AWRC NOMINATIONS:
Barb Kistler as Chair of this year’s committee is seeking members to run for Vice President in 2016-17. Also we need an Assistant Treasurer to work with Dale Hostetter who claims he will retire on June 30, 2017.
Allison Ludlow, LCCC Donley Center regarding the Center for Career Pathways and Literacy Tutoring Opportunities said that orientation of Tutors will be on December 9th and10th. Tell Herb if you are interested.
SHELTERBOX CAMPAIGN:
Our effort to help address the Syrian refugees’ needs is to conduct an independent fundraising effort through November and December to go towards ShelterBoxes. Barb Kistler is leading this effort.
REQUEST FOR RC BANNERS:
Herb asks that we give to him any RC banners from other RCs we can part with that we have accumulated over the years. They are part of our history and he has a plan to exhibit them in some way. Herb collected one from a RC in India last Monday. Vern says that there is a large box of them somewhere.
GRANT SUGGESTIONS:
President-Elect Dan Crane is asking members for their ideas on what grant projects we might pursue for RY 2016-17. This also will be discussed at the upcoming Club Assembly meeting.
We are reminded to take a look at our Facebook pages.
President Herb asks us all to e-mail him about any announcements to be made at future meetings so he can include them as part of his planned agenda.
Next week our scheduled Greeter is Gwen Pongracz and the program will be Brian Peterka giving his Classification Talk.
ROTARIAN of the WEEK:
The AW “Rotarian of the Week” is Gwenn Carr who was brought into Rotary by Dan Crane. Gwenn is an Educator and a Corporate Trainer. She has taught students from Kindergarten level on up to Senior Citizens. She is a Project Management professional.
Gwenn has served on many committees including PR, Membership, and has done our newsletters. She and Gary are the leaders of the Tempting Tastes annual fundraiser. They also have introduced the Dictionary project to a RC on St. Martin in the Caribbean. They really enjoy visiting other RC meetings around the world, more than 20 so far. And Gwenn truly is proud when she sees the good things that Rotarians do.
LUCK of the DRAW:
The door prize donated by Gary was won by Geoff Legg. Then Sue Weber overcame enormous odds of one chance in two and snagged the black marble and won $230 in the 50:50.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Bill Weber for something, Keith for no pin, and Herb for forgetting to announce tomorrow’s evening meeting at the Holiday Inn. Also Dale Hostetter, Gwenn and Gary each signed in today in the wrong column.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Jerry Frank admitted to another birthday and we sang to him nicely.
Mike Henry was happy that Michaela rode with them delivering Meals last week, especially when they stopped to drop off an extra meal to a woman who speaks no English. Michaela jumped right in with her superb fluent Spanish and all went well.
Dave Dries is happy to become an Honorary member of AWRC.
Jeff Kistler is happy that their son and daughter-in-law are returning from Swaziland today. Matt won the trip in a contest and helped dedicate a new water well.
Herb and Ronnee are celebrated 35 years of marriage.
Sue is happy to have these two great students here today to tell us about their Camp Neidig experiences.
PROGRAM:
Mike Gschwendtner is our Camp Neidig -- Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) Chair. This event is held annually over the Father’s Day weekend and starts Friday afternoon and is closed out with a chicken BBQ and ceremonies on Monday evening that are open to families and friends. Mike introduced Cerem Ozcan from Parkland HS and Lauren Fenstermacher from Northwestern Lehigh HS to tell us about Camp Neidig 2015 experiences.
Cerem began by saying that it was a great experience and she made some great new friends. They start out as complete strangers. Everything that they did had a purpose, and they learned by playing games and solving problems as a team. They were divided into “tribes” and separate group cabins. They learned to accept each other as they are. She thanked us for sending her to the camp.
Laurie told a similar story. She has written down a “life message” derived from each speaker over the weekend, and shared some with us. Laurie expressed her pleasure at being here at our meeting today; she likes that Rotarians have fun and it’s comfortable. She thanked us and ended by saying “There really is life outside of New Tripoli.”
CLOSING:
Halyna hit the right note to start a nice rendition of “America the Beautiful.” 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.”
