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Rotary Club of
ALLENTOWN WEST
Pres. Ralph Witcher
Area 1 Asst. Gov. Barb Bottitta
District 7430 Governor
Janet Kolepp
 
MEETINGS:
ZOOM  MEETINGS BEGAN ON APRIL 1st
Wednesdays at 7:30 a.m.
 
WEBSITE

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GREETERS

Pres. Ralph Witcher is  the Greeter while we are using Zoom.
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THURSDAY EVE MEETINGS
 
There will be no Thursday evening meetings planned until after the pandemic.
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HAVE YOU MISSED A MEETING?
 
Missed a club meeting? Lucky for you, we record our Zoom meetings! Click the link and then choose which meeting you’d like to view. Use the slide at the bottom if you want to skip over the socialization part of the meeting. We open the formalities at 7:30 am, and presenters begin at 8 am. So even if you missed the meeting, it’s just like being there!
 
The AWRC Youtube.com channel link is:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClHOvGQzfK4z7CUgSQQGqHA
 
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CALENDAR of EVENTS
 
 
        Dec 10  Hanukkah 2020 will begin on Thursday evening
 
      Dec 25  Christmas Day
 
      Jan  1  New Year's Day 2021
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Please “Like” Us!
 
If you are on Facebook, and you have any sense of Allentown West Rotary Club loyalty, please show it by going to our Facebook page and clicking “Like” in the top bar, right under the picture of everyone running in the Purple Pinkie race.
 
You can also click “Follow” for extra "brownie points."
 
We are in a pseudo-competition with other clubs in our district, and right now we are in the lower half of the pack, with just over 250 likes. The top of the pack is over 500! You can also invite your friends and family to like us, by sharing any of our posts to your own FB page, and asking your own followers to like us! HELP US FLOAT TO THE TOP! We know how good we are; let’s show everyone else that Allentown West Rocks!
 
Marlene Heller
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Opportunities for Service
 
Your help is needed to:
 
 
Garden care. Contact: Gail Micca gailmicca@gmail.com
 
Pack 50 Snack Packs at your house
Pick up/drop off at Gail’s house
Contact: Gail Micca gailmicca@gmail.com
 
Purchase, pack and distribute produce on third Tuesday of the month
Location: Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry
Contact: Gail Micca gailmicca@gmail.com
 
Distribute produce at Lowhill Food Pantry
Location: 4695 Lowhill Church Rd, New Tripoli, PA 18066
Contact: Amir Famili familiamir@gmail.com
 
Distribute food at Kingdom Life Food Pantry
Location: 4333 Lime Kiln Rd, Orefield, PA 18069
Dates: September 12 and October 17 
Time: 8:30 a.m.
Contact: Jean Masiko masiko@aol.com
 
Marlene Heller
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CONTACT INFORMATION
AWRC  ACTIVITIES
 
Kingdom Life Food Pantry: Jean Masiko – masiko@aol.com
 
Parkland Snack Packing: Gail Micca gailmicca@gmail.com
 
Lowhill Food Pantry and Northwestern Snack Packing: Amir Famili 
 
Membership:  Tom Friday   mailto:fridaytl@ptd.net
 
Public Image: Marlene Heller  --  marleneheller@mac.com
TT6:  Len Salines – lenmary3657@ptd.net
 
 Dining Out:  Jean Machamer – jeanmachamer@ptd.net
 
Evening Meeting:  On hold
 
Purple Pinkie Services: Barb Kistler -- barbara.kistler@rcn.com
                          
Purple Pinkie 5K at LCCC: John Scott  -- johnscottl@msn.com
 
Park Cleanup:  Dennis Houser – houserdah@gmail.com
 
Miracle League:  Barb Kistler – Barbara.kistler@rcn.com
 
Meals on Wheels:  Dorothy Bloom – bloomnbunny@ptd.net
 
Kids of Character:  Gwen Pongracz – gwen.pongracz@gmail.com
 
Speaker suggestions:  Amir Famili -- familiamir@gmail.com
 
Website Editor: Marlene Heller  marleneheller@mac.com
 
RLI:   website www.rlinea.org        
 
Speakers
Feb 10, 2021 7:30 AM
Pilot Program for Membership Growth: "Levers of Change"
Feb 17, 2021 7:30 AM
Reflections on 45 Years of Public Safety
View entire list
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MEMBERSHIP  IS  EVERY 
MEMBER'S  BUSINESS
 
Each of us should seek out good candidates for our Rotary Club. Ask them to breakfast or to our Thursday evening meeting.
 
 
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PLEASE SUPPORT OUR
TEMPTING TASTES
RESTAURANT FRIENDS
 
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PHOTO  REQUEST
 
AW Rotarians do a lot of good things and take a lot of pictures. In order to maintain the best quality photos on file, it is requested that the original be sent first to Gary Heller, our RC Photographer.
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Here are the AWRC
Board and Committee
 Members for 2020-21
 
 
President - Ralph Witcher
President - Elect - Gail Micca
Vice President - John Scott
Immediate Past President - Amir Famili
 
Secretary - John Scott
Treasurer - Chris Blechschmidt
Sergeant at Arms - Mitch Huston
Service Committee Chair - Gail Micca
 
RI Foundation and International Grants Chair - PDG Herb Klotz
Fundraising Chair - Len Salines
Evening Meeting Chair  -  N/A
Public Image Chair - Marlene Heller
 
Membership Chair - Thomas Friday
Youth Services Co-Chairs - Bill and Sue Weber
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SPEAKERS  WANTED
      Please suggest or request speakers and topics for future meetings and send  your ideas to Amir Famili.
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TELL  JEAN
 
     As you become aware of any member of our Rotary family that would benefit from our support with cards, flowers or visits, please notify Jean Machamer at jeanmachamer@ptd.net
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Check out the AWRC
Facebook Page
See Home Page link
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Bulletin Editor
Bill Palmer
Russell Hampton
ClubRunner
ClubRunner Mobile
DECEMBER 16, 2020
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HAPPY HANUKKAH
 
 
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MORE FACE-TO-FACE
MEETING MEMORIES
 
 
 
 
 
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           QUOTE of the WEEK --
 
         “The most sincere form of kindness is not to show off our greatness but to help another discover their own.”
               ― Charles F. Glassman
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DID YOU KNOW ?
 
 The Rotary Club of Copenhagen, Denmark initiated the first Rotary exchange in 1927, and the Rotary Club of Nice, France followed suit soon after in 1929. ... Since its conception 80 years ago, the Rotary Youth Exchange program has expanded rapidly to exchange 9,000 students annually between 80 countries.
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Allentown West Rotary Club
 Zoom Meeting Notes December 16, 2020
 
Today was a Zoom meeting with 30 people on line. After some conversations President Ralph Witcher opened the meeting at 7:30 A.M.  
 
GUESTS ON LINE:
Michelle Steiner, guest of the club  --   and almost a new member; Maria Santacoloma, guest of the club; and Capt. Nick Millward, Rotary Peace Fellowship winner calling in from Japan.
 
HAPPY DOLLARS  and  MEMBER NEWS:
Ernie Boll in Arizona gave the weather forecast as 72deg this afternoon there.
 
Mary Jo Roma, our speaker today, was on very early and heard all of the AW Rotarians’ goings on.
 
Mitch Huston called in from his car as he was driving to work.
 
Bob Gordon  --  now living in Florida  --  reportedly misses us, BUT not our weather.
 
When asked, Ron Coleman said that he will wear his special Holiday hat soon.
 
Ron also said that he is recovering nicely from covid19, and Nancy is just a few days behind.
 
Amir Famili reminds us that we can buy an inexpensive Oxygen level tester to let us know if we have respiratory issues.
 
Ihor Fedoriw is most pleased that the Pfizer vaccine now is at the Lehigh Valley and the St. Like’s Hospitals. He said that the individual developers of that vaccine are from Turkey and Germany, and now are billionaires.
 
Ralph Witcher said it is extraordinary how we support one another.
 
Bill Palmer is extremely happy to  report that his grandson, Nathaniel, has passed his Law Bar Exam, and will be practicing Law in Washington, D.C. starting mid-January.
 
Amir Famili is happy to have Mitch Huston on today.
 
Mitch Huston is happy  --  thanks to Rotary.
 
Katrina Sundstrom thanks all AW Rotarians for the wonderful continuous  support for the Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry.
 
Barbara Kistler has 35 new $25 gift cards she will take to the Lowhill Food Pantry this morning. She has collected 70 so far just in the last two weeks. Good job folks.
 
Geoff Legg is happy that his doctor daughter, Kim, attended a dinner meeting at the White House last week.
 
Pres. Ralph gave a very nice invocation. Then he led us in the Pledge of Allegiance  to the U.S.
 
 
CELEBRATION DATES:
Pres. Ralph displayed the list of December members and their celebration dates. 
 
Pres. Ralph again said “The world needs more Rotarians.”
 
Ralph and Gail agree that there are a lot of Rotarians out there; they just don’t know it yet.
 
THE FOUR-WAY TEST EXAMPLE:
Pres. Ralph played the musical rendition video of the 4 Way Test.
Marlene Heller asked for volunteers to tell about a recent application of the 4 Way Test in their life.
 
Gail Micca talked about good will as she updated us on the family that we helped with housing and a car last year. They still have very ill children and the car is no good. LV Honda came up with a great price of $7,500 and now that family has a good car, thanks to Gail.
 
 
PARKLAND C.A.R.E.S. UPDATE:
Gail Micca reports:  :We were fortunate to receive a bounty of vegetables and fruits from Second Harvest for distribution on Saturday Dec. 12th.   Over 200 families were served. Brad, Gail and Ed  volunteered with Katrina and her team. We also met two Rotarians from the LV Passport club, Lisa and Frank Petrocelli, who were very helpful too.”
 
 
 
We will need more help next month with shopping and packing the produce.  Please let Gail know if you can help gailmicca@gmail.com
 
AWRC OFFICER NOMINATIONS:
Past Pres. Amir Famili, as Chair of the Nominating Committee, displayed a list of positions and candidates for the 2021-22 RY. This includes Gail Micca as President, John Scott as P-E, and Tom Friday as VP.
When Amir asked for volunteers to take on the Service Chair position, Diana Dunn, Ron Coleman, and Kathy Ott each signed up.
 
A motion to accept this slate was made by Marlene Heller, and seconded by Bill Palmer. It passed without exception.
 
HOLIDAY GIVING ACTIONS:
Message from Gail Micca  --  “We have some nice opportunities to give during this season.  Let me know how you would like to help:
 
1 - Barb Kistler will be collecting gift cards to be distributed through food pantries.  You can simply purchase some giftcards and mail them to her.  If you would like to put the card into a holiday greeting card with good wishes/sentiment and include that this is from the Allentown-West Rotary Club, that would be nice too. 
 
You can email Barb or call her for more information:
barbara.kistler@rcn.com            484-799-4818
Mail giftcards to;  Barb Kistler, 6086 Ridge Road, New Tripoli, PA 18066.”
 
2 - Gail Micca will be organizing a Holiday Family Fun Giftbag to be distributed at the Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry Drive Through Delivery Saturday, December 12th.
 
We will be providing 20 complete Holiday bags which will include:
Blanket, Sugar cookie box mix, frosting and popcorn.  All the essentials for a  family fun night!  Approximate value of each bag is $20-25 
 
Ways to get involved with this fun project:
1 - sign up to create some bags with your family and purchase the items on your own
2 - make a donation towards the purchase of these items
3 - Help Gail stuff the bags and make holiday cards to include
4 - come to the pantry delivery on December 12 and hand them out.
 
Let Gail know how you would like to help. 
Both of these projects require a speedy confirmation and
I look forward to your response.
         gailmicca@gmail.com                 610-739-2812
 Thanks so much in advance of your generous support.
 
HOLIDAY GIFT BAGS UPDATE:
Thanks to Brad Maier and his team at State Farm for packing and delivering 20 of the holiday bags for Parkland C.A.R.E.S. Food Pantry.  Contents of the packages were donated by Rotarians and included a blanket, popcorn, sugar cookie mix, frosting and a holiday themed cookie cutter. Gift bags and cards were donated by Brad.  Great team effort!!
 
 
GIFT CARD REPORT:
Barbara Kistler said that after she took the 35 --  $25 gift cards over to the Lowhill Food Pantry at 8:00 AM.  she walked into a packed Pantry of goodies for the clients.  First of all, there were around 80 trays of cookies all wrapped with a bow from our own Rotarian, Stephanie Fenstermacher at Buttered Crumb Bakery.  This has been her gift for some years now. 
 
The ladies were packing up the beautiful bags of oranges brought to them yesterday from Rotary by Amir Famili.  Beverly at the Pantry said that the clients are so pleased and excited to get the gift cards.  Merry Christmas, neighbors.   As Katrina said, it makes us proud to be Rotarians!!  
Gail Micca noted that the bag supplier has donated enough bags to cover next year.
 
HONORARY PAUL HARRIS FELLOW AWARD:
The AWRC honorary PHF award to the Allentown Chief of Police Granitz is now confirmed to take place next week on Tuesday, Dec 22nd at 1:30pm.  We will be meeting at the City Hall Bldg 1st Floor (City Council Chamber).
 
NO 2020 HOLIDAY PARTY  ----   BUT:
You can go to our website and click on “Donate” and give your $100 party ticket value to feed some hungry people.
 
YOUR SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES:
Please take a look at this new section on the left side of this bulletin.
 
STATUS OF MORNING MEETINGS;
The AWRC B.O.D. 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 December 23rd  starting at 7:30 a.m.  We will use Zoom to meet.  Our program is TBD.
 
STATUS OF THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
No Thursday evening meetings are planned until after the pandemic..
 
PROGRAM:
Pres. Ralph Witcher introduced Mary Jo Roma, President of Virtual Specialist, LLC discussing Best Practice Organizational & Social Media Ideas for Small Businesses in Challenging Times. Ralph said many complimentary things about Mary Jo.
 
 
Mary Jo thanked us for this opportunity to speak. She said that she loves learning about all the things that AW Rotarians do to help people.
 
Mary Jo received her Finance Degree from Penn State University back in 1992. From there, she went on to work for Keystone Savings Bank. In 1996, she left Keystone Savings Bank as the Construction Loan Officer so that she could be at home with her first born son. She decided to reach out to her contacts from the bank to see what she could do for them from home. Once the word spread, she was in business for herself. She enjoy being an Independent Contractor and working with so many different people.
 
As a Virtual Specialist, she specializes in Web Marketing and Social Media, specifically Constant Contact, Facebook, Linked In, & Twitter. Her goal is to help small businesses with their media visibility. Most small businesses do not have the time to monitor social media. This is where Mary Jo can help. She can take care of this part of your business, while you run the rest.
 
Mary Jo  also helps small businesses with their Accounting. She can take care of your invoicing, collections and day to day tasks on QuickBooks.
 
Their second child came four years later. Still wanting to work from home to be with their children, Mar Jo formed an LLC and had five clients. The business grew and Mary Jo added other stay-at-home Moms to her staff. Now she has three women workers and herself handling clients, and a woman who is a website designer. Now with the covid19 issue, they were already to work efficiently at home.
 
Now she is 50 and the younger one is in College. And their older son is working on getting married. So Mary Jo is thinking that as the next generation comes along, she wants to have a thriving business to leave to them.
 
A majority of their work is Social Media. Businesses are staying alive these days because of Social Media. She said that it is good to share ideas that others can use.
 
E-mail Marketing is the other part of the business. Here they urge users to try to send out a message at least once each month. Again you should share ideas. Mary Jo said that a second pair of eyes is needed to proof read material before it gets sent out. And you need to ensure that photos to be posted are not copyrighted.
 
CLOSING:
 Pres Ralph led us in the saying “One profits most who serves best.”

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 Here is a link to our District Governor 's
latest Bulletin

https://rotarydistrict7430.org/bulletin/viewsent/a4c57ec0-afce-4e75-bb46-f8a0e5af44d7/b2a7e952-27f8-4ff6-96aa-257fceb1496b?mid=AjrB9Nh08DyM2Oa9PeGhG33N0HQspGX5GzKhGuWzDjc=&type=m

 

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D7430  VIBRANT CLUB NEWS
 
This Rotary year we are trying something new to better facilitate our communication with you. We are transforming our traditional newsletter to a club-centric publication, Vibrant Club News, which will be published every other month. Vibrant Club News includes RC service projects, special events, and fundraisers.
 
The December edition was just sent out and can be viewed at:
 
https://clubrunner.blob.core.windows.net/00000050086/en-ca/files/homepage/vibrant-club-news---december-2020/Vibrant-Club-News-Dec-2020.pdf
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BIRTHDAYS
 
Bob Nagle                   Dec 03
Dawn Costello            Dec 07
Grace Keller               Dec 14
Dan Crane                  Dec 21
 

Anniversaries

 

Grace and Gil Keller           Dec 21 1968       52 years
Beverly and Dave Dries      Dec 22 1967       53 years

JOIN  DATES

 

Gil Keller                    49 years             Dec 01 1971
Brad Maier                  1 year                Dec 01 2019
Bill Weber                   42 years             Dec 01 1978
Ernie Boll                    51 years             Dec 03 1969
Keith Hoffman            1 year                Dec 04 2019
Justin Schell              1 year                Dec 16 2019
Dennis Houser           7 years              Dec 18 2013
Tim Rushton               5 years              Dec 23 2015
 
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