Avon Rotary Newsletter

Present were Burritt, Cameron, Carney, Ted Coyne, Croop, Csapo, Evans, Gee, Harper, Hayes, Henehan, Herman, House, Huber, Iler, Ippolito, Irwin, Kime both E and L, Koomen, Lutz, O'Hearn, Siragusa, J. Tompsett, Vanderbilt, Vonglis both L and T, Warriner, Williams, total of 29.

President Hans encourages all who missed a meeting to call another absentee and do a make-up together. For nearby make-up options, check the back of our paper directory or the on-line list of District club meeting times and places. If you do a make-up, please tell Secretary Barbara about it right away, so the correct numbers are reported to the District.
 

A few of our Avon Rotary Club members are away enjoying the wonderful August weather, but those still in town on August 24 opened our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag, led by Dave Henehan, and "America the Beautiful" with Gladys Iler on the piano, as always!! and Steve Stephenson leading the lyrics.

In place of our traditional prayer, President Hans offered a "convocation".

Guests tonight included our exchange student Sandra Holzer, from Hochstrass, Austria; also this year's Interact Club president Johanna Hanchar, and Jacob Carney.

Lots of celebrations this week:

• a BIG celebration by Billy Gee, of an award plaque bestowed on him for 35 years at Camp Sam Wood, for "Distinguished Service" ... "Thanks, Mr. Billy", read the plaque, "for your many years of service and dedication to the camp". Congratulations, Billy!
• Steve Irwin celebrated three excellent days at Saratoga, watching the horses;
• Laurie Vonglis: for the success of the Corn Fest; the program production for the Corn Fest; a fine evening at our camp in Pike; their house on the market; and prospective son-in-law's new job;
• Hans: also celebrating the successful Corn Fest; he notes the number of hits to the Corn Fest website has doubled since last year: people are certainly accessing the site for information;
• Julie Carney, celebrating the GVRC gathering last week, and a tour provided there by her daughter's best friend;
• Doctor Hayes, for an excellent 50 / 50 raffle at the Corn Fest, with a HUGE $704 payout to the winner. The last hour of ticket selling boosted that total tremendously, he says!!
• Tom Vonglis is pleased that all Corn Fest committee chairs will return for next year's Fest, and celebrates Kirk Vanderbilt's two very successful years as Chair;
• that very same Kirk celebrates each and every chair and Rotarian who slaved and labored to achieve this success. Corporate sponsorships helped put us over the hump this year. Kirk notes that preliminary cleanup was completed by 11:00 p.m. on Saturday night, and totally cleaned up very early next morning. Thanks to Jan and Kelly Cole for hosting the day-after picnic.
• Hans saluted Karl Sawicki, who coordinated vendors -- 35 more vendors than last year!!
• Steve Stephenson celebrated a Colorado camping trip, and a last day encounter with an ex-Livingston resident, a nephew of long-time Rotarian Frank Piraino;
• Carl Lutz celebrated a getaway with his son, plus two friends and their fathers, at the famous Vonglis Adirondack camp;
• Jim Tompsett wanted equal advertising time for some property-or-another-someplace which is also available for getaways;
• Kelly Cole celebrated the help from Tom and Laurie, in cleaning up leftovers from the picnic. Did this mean cleaning up beverages?
• Marcia Cameron confessed that the first four t-shirts she sold at the Corn Fest Souvenir booth were at an incorrect price!!

SOME Announcements:

• Julie Carney reminds all Rotarians to order their meals for August 31 by Sunday; she won't be here to monitor, next week.
• Gladys Iler asks for four sturdy helpers to move a piano;
• President Hans refers to his "carrot and stick" offer in last week's newsletter, regarding Directory errors (well, go back and read it again!!) Bob French sends word that he can't correct the directory, since he is on his boat and stuck someplace on the canal. If it ain't one problem, it's another. Apparently, having Bill Shaw with him is not much help.
• Big note: the District 7120 Oratorical Contest, for junior and senior students, will be coming up. Needed: someone to represent our club and coordinate the applicants.
• THANKS TO YOU, Sandra, for a gift from Austria, to our president. He did not open it at the time, but kept it hidden. Hmmmm.

Our presenter and guest was Dr. Doug Stockman, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester, Family Medicine specialization. Having spent time in both Liberia and Ghana, he now concentrates on an area of Honduras, visiting and working there in the San Jose township since 2003, along with "Shoulder to Shoulder", an NGO. We heard description of the difficult terrain, the energies expended in mere substistence. He listed several goals, primarily improving the health of the target community, and including working with locals, sustainability of projects; long-term commitment to the projects; planning for expansion; reducing calorie expenditures in chores; introduction of projects for earning monies from outside the immediate area. Their hope is to begin construction of a clinic within the next year.

In closing, we celebrated our own Rotary status with a rousing round of our anthem. And Ben Siragusa won the 50 / 50 payout.

Your club secretary, Barbara Herman