The Greeter this morning was Gwen Pongracz and she did a good job.
President Herb rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. PDG Bill Weber gave a very nice invocation with special mention of Mae Hostetter, Dawn Costello and Mr. Jaffer.
GUESTS: Donna Beach, guest of Dan Crane; Jim Palmquist, Emmaus RC; and Tim Rushton, LCTI.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Last wed. Nov. 18th 15 Interact students and 7 Rotarians filled snack packs at Parkland HS in 45 minutes. Dec. 16th is the next Parkland packing day.
AW Rotarians helped at the Lowhill Township Food Pantry twice last week. See separate report.
The Dictionaries have been delivered and presented to the Weisenberg and Salisbury third-graders. The Webers will do Parkland today. Thanks for another great project.
PLEASE determine the names and contact information for candidates for membership and send them to Mike Gschwendtner. Our big membership Business-to-Business event will be on January 14th. Details to follow.
Dec. 2nd is Snack Packing at Northwestern.
December 4th at 6:00 P.M. is the AW Holiday Party at Brookside CC in Macungie. We have about 58 signed up so far.
Dec. 5th we will need volunteers to help at the Lowhill Food Pantry.
Our next Thursday evening meeting is December 9th at 5:30 PM at the Holiday Inn in Breinigsville. Bring your friends. Go to the assigned room.
NOTE, that in December we will meet on the 3rd Thursday -- not the 4th, because of the holidays.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS:
Membership meets Dec 2nd here.
Tempting Tastes 2 meets Dec. 4th a.m. at Jordan Lutheran Church.
Good Shepard Rehab. at Noon on Dec 9th.
Nominating Committee needs candidates; see Barb Kistler. We need the right people at the right time.
PolioPlus contributions in memory of Don Grammes are welcome.
The ShelterBox campaign is on through December. Consider donating in the name of family or friend as a Christmas Gift. Barb makes up great cards to wrap.
AW Funds for matching gifts to The Rotary Foundation’s Annual Fund are down to $75 as all that is left. Go for it.
Ideas for AW District Grant projects for RY 2016-17 are needed; tell Dan Crane.
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 Chris Blechschmidt, and the program will be Jory Berwitz and "My Bittersweet Homecoming" The History and Nostalgia on Allentown.
LUCK of the DRAW:
The door prize donated by Gwen was won by Dale Heffner. Then Len Salines snagged a white marble and did not win $17 in the 50:50.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Al Lewis for his anniversary of joining AWRC. Then he fined Lehigh Grads for the win.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Keith Koepke is happy to acknowledge visitor Jim Palmquist who led Keith to join the L.V. Professionals.
Halyna is most happy to report that daughter Christina and son Michael both finished the Philadelphia Marathon and with 8 minute miles!
Candi is delighted to have delivered dictionaries yesterday, although she started by going to the wrong school and speeding to the correct one.
Sue is happy that the check for Snack Packing from the Lutheran Church grew from $932 to $1,400.
Jim Palmquist is pleased that S-a-A Don Davis has not raised the price of fines to $2 as done in Emmaus RC meetings.
Jim also noted that the latest Rotarian magazine includes an article about the Easton RC.
Herb is happy that RI has lifted the travel ban on Sierra Leone.
ROTARIAN of the WEEK:
The AW “Rotarian of the Week” is Brian Peterka. He is a Senior Manager at Airwave Networks. Brian has been helping Herb with AWRC IT needs. He became interested in Rotary after hearing Dan Crane explain the good things that Rotarians do. He is goal-oriented, an Eagle Scout, a Freemason, and holds a black belt in Taekwondo.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was a Classification Talk by Brian Peterka who began by pointing out that he is the AW Rotarian with the beard. He began to study martial arts when he was 5. The Ninja Turtles were his inspiration.
Brian was born in 1982 and built his first computer when he was 9 years old. He grew up in Allentown and at 16 he was a groundskeeper in a cemetery. He went to Penn State and earned a degree in Information Sciences and technology in 2004. He has been a Freemason for 5 years.
Brian’s grandfather was in the Boy Scouts and gave his merit badge sash to Brian. So as Brian climbed the ranks in scouting, he was motivated to earn even more merit badges than Grandpa. He earned his Eagle Scout rank and was invited into The Order of the Arrow. He attended a Scout Jamboree at Ft. A.P.Hill in Virginia and earned two 50 miler citations. He believes that doing an Eagle Scout project helped prepare one for projects in the business world.
Brian is very interested in surveillance systems and is trained in installing them and support. He did get into the car wash business and moved on to make it Brian’s Automotive Detailing, where he got some great hands-on business experience. Then he started Brian’s Computer Service which he ran all through college.
Then Brian went with Airwave Networks where he started at the bottom and worked up to a Senior Manager. Airwave was started in 2003 with 5 founders, and they taught him a lot.
Brian and a partner started a company D3 Network Solutions which has positioned itself as a leading technology integrator in the Lehigh Valley. They reduce IT costs while improving overall network reliability and performance.
Airwave Networks, Inc. specializes in the specification, design, build, test, and maintenance of High-speed Internet access, TV & entertainment programming, Surveillance Cameras, Websites and Phone services for the MDU marketplace.
Brian says that he is pleased with the way that Rotarians have embraced him when he joined. Service above self indeed motivates him.
CLOSING:
Halyna hit the right note to start a nice 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.”
