Our Greeter today was Diana Dunn and she did a marvelous job.
President Amir Famili rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting and welcomed all. Then Diana Dunn gave a very nice invocation.
P-E Ralph Witcher. began the meeting having the members recite The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Flag. Then he led us in reciting the Four Way Test. Next Ralph read the list of August birthdays and we sang “Happy Birthday.”
GUESTS:
Laurie Grube, West Reading, Wyomissing RC; Mave and Fiona, Gwenn and Gary’s grandchildren.
KINGDOM LIFE FOOD PANTRY:
Jean Masiko said that on Friday evening at 6:15 volunteers will be stocking shelves.
LOWHILL FOOD PANTRY:
On Saturday August 3rd we purchased over 300 lbs. of fresh produce and delivered it. See separate article.
ANNUAL SUMMER PICNIC WAS A HIT:
See the A-W special Picnic Edition, August 6, 2019.
Pres. Amir had Sue and Bill Weber come forward to be recognized for their superb hosting of our Picnic last Sunday. Since he could not acquire bottles of cheer, he presented them with veggies from his garden.
STRIKE OUT HUNGER AT THE PHILLIES:
On August 15 . RI President Mark Maloney will throw out the first pitch. And $10 of each ticket from Rotarians will go to PolioPlus.
UPCOMING SPECIAL PROGRAM:
Pres. Amir points out that on August 21st Dr. Akbar Keshodkar of Moravian College Dept. of Anthropology will speak on Connecting East Africa to the broader Indian Ocean world in a new era of South-South prosperity. Please invite your friends to join us. It will be special.
THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
TOMORROW, August 8 at the Holiday Inn at 5:30 P.M. is our next meeting. Gwenn & Gary will conduct Health Check #2 about Membership.
NEXT MORNING MEETING:
Is August 14th with Jerry Frank as our Greeter. Our program will be Pres. Amir Famili and Treasurer Chris Blechschmidt with a Presentation of the AWRC 2019-2020 Budget.
Pres. Amir introduced Mitch Huston who conducted the drawings and collected Happy Dollars.
The door prize donated by Diana Dunn was won by David Haight.
The $10 new pot of the 50:50 was not won by Ernie Boll’s ticket being drawn followed by a white marble. Many marbles will be back next week.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Mitch Huston is happy that he survived the Corps competition and the bolts of lightning went by the fans without striking.
Al Lewis is happy that their daughter is in the Adirondacks and having fun.
Ernie Boll, once again, is just plain happy.
Len Salines said that the Corps competition was very impressive.
Granddaughter, Mave, is happy to be here.
Bill Palmer is happy about our great Picnic, and is happy to see Laurie Grube with us again.
Marlene Heller is happy to thank the Webers for the picnic. And she thanked Diana Dunn for a favor.
Sue & Bill Weber are celebrating their 54 years of marriage, and Bill explained how Sue was about 30 minutes late to the ceremony.
Sue Weber is happy to be celebrating Bill’s birthday next Monday.
Ihor Fedoriw is disappointed that a conflict kept him from attending the great Picnic.
PROGRAM:
The program today was Gwenn Carr and Gary Englehardt conducting another Health Check Point. The subject was “Membership.”
Gwenn began and noted that August in the Rotary calendar is “Membership” month. She asked each of us to read and rate the membership questions on the sheets on our tables. And each table was asked to select one member to be the scribe and to report to the group of each table’s opinions.
Gwenn said that Mustafa Jaffer and she are offering a $100 prize to the first member to bring in and induct a new member by September 39th. Details are to be confirmed. Also proposed is a contest between the Wed a.m. and Thurs p.m. groups.
Gary kept us on track and directed the reports from each table. It seemed that the members believe that we need to work on all facets of membership. We need to start with a list of candidates for membership and go from there. And we need to work on Retention using things like Mentors for new members.
DG Herb Klotz noted that our 45 RC district 7430 led the districts in the eastern U.S. in growing membership over the last RY. Unfortunately AWRC was in the bottom 5 RCs in the district having a large net loss last year.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS:
Pres. Amir reviewed a list of future programs already booked.
CLOSING:
Pres. Amir suggested that we continue to pray for our Rotary family, and specifically for Ronnee Klotz.
He closed our meeting by our reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
Good photos are by Marlene Heller