A surprisingly robust crowd today despite the oppressive heat and humidity outside. The remnants of the dog days of August were not enough to dampen the enthusiasm of our Rotarian cohorts. And we were greeted by a more intimate arrangement of tables encouraging a feeling of comradery and cohesion. With Art Bradbury and George Schoen absent, the opening song was an abomination unto the Rotary gods, leading Jim Watts to ad lib “Lord, give us a new member who is a singer” to his invocation.
Mark your calendars
The buffet table was stocked with rice, chicken ala king, some type of fish (not the Chilean sea bass that Jack Martin claimed it was), veggies, salad, rolls, the usual. It sufficed to fuel the conversation to the end of meeting.
For some reason, our table conversation centered on gymnasium architecture with Alex Wisz recalling the Bennett Middle School gym in Manchester with its circular track on the second level overlooking the gym floor. The first East Hartford High School, later converted to Center School, had the same design and tablemates remembered clanking set shots from the corners into the ceiling below the track.The sound produced was like the opening song today.
President Kevin had a couple of thank you notes to note today. Past President Dave Amberg and Perennial Past President Bill Saunders expressed appreciation for recognition given by Kevin at the induction picnic. One of our scholarship winners, Brittany Leonard, sent a nicely worded thank you for contributing to her education about to begin at UConn.
Announcements
There were no guests today, but President Kevin did introduce Amy Pelletier, who joined us as part of the East Hartford Public Schools joint membership. Amy introduced herself as the new Executive Director of the Working Students Challenge, a new program funded by the Boston Federal Reserve to promote neighborhood income growth through comprehensive community involvement. East Hartford is one of five towns in Connecticut to receive this funding and the Silver Lane School community is its target audience. Amy committed to give us a progress report in the Spring.
On the announcement front, Hope Firestone commented that she is in the process of organizing assistance to the Homeless Shelter in East Hartford. Whether this takes the form of contributing money or physical involvement is yet to be determined. Manchester Rotary has a special guest speaker, Scot Haney, local TV personality, on October 9th. All District 7890 Rotarians and their guests are invited. The Connecticut River Valley Chamber of Commerce is holding an event on September 13 called Bids, Bites and Beer. There will be craft beer tastings, food pairings from local farms, and monies raised will be donated to suicide prevention work. Goodwin College will be holding its annual golf tournament on September 12th.
The traditional Sergeant at Arms function will recommence next week. Dick McCarthy went to great lengths to clarify that the money we collect in Sgt. At Arms fines goes to the Scholarship Fund, not to the annual Sgt. At Arms Picnic as is commonly misstated. The money from the weekly raffle funds the picnic and it has been falling off as membership and attendance continues to fall off.
Jairo Lemos will be heading the Program Committee this year and all Rotarians were urged to provide him ideas on appropriate speakers in the coming months.
Peter Kock plugged a book, Polio and Me, by Ken Dalton which shows the effect of polio on a life span and provides further proof of the value of the Rotary Polio Plus effort. It can be obtained from Amazon Prime for free. Wes Willett won the raffle this week.
Now Is the Time for All Good Rotarians to...
Bill Saunders provided the golf tournament update today. With only three weeks to go, the player count is at 54, raffle prizes are sorely needed, particularly gift certificates and sponsor opportunities are available.With only two meetings left before the event, now is the time for every Rotarian in the Club to make his/her contribution known. President Kevin announced he will be taking this Friday afternoon off from work to go out and knock on doors to solicit golf tournament support i.e. raffle prizes and players. If you would like to join him in this effort, give him a call or send him an email.
So that’s it for today. As the Sox show signs of their historical tendency of being unable to close out the deal (Bucky Dent, anyone?), Ruthie is getting nervous and Ned is throwing money at the Sgt. At Arms in hopes of paying off the baseball gods.And Marc has the Eagles right where he wants them. So, all is right with the world. Stay cool.
