Rotary Club
of East Hartford 
         High Gear

Volume 2 | Issue 51, June 20, 2018

 

Another crisp, beautiful sunny day escorted us to the hill top today. A good crowd, lots of youthful energy, several guests, a gifted speaker, important work, all the ingredients for a fun filled and productive noon session. How fortunate we are to be the receivers of so much of life’s bounty. It’s great to be young and a Rotarian. And one out of two ain’t bad either.

Pray For the Children

But, as if reminding us that not everyone is as fortunate as we are, President Elect Kevin Kickery appropriately chose today to frame his invocation as a Prayer For The Children of The World. With the horrific events unfolding on our southern borders, it is heartbreaking to hear the words, “Lord there is nothing more pure than the heart of a child. Hold them in your arms of love, make all mankind good stewards of the precious gifts we have been given.”  And to realize how far America is currently straying from this ideal.

In any case, back at the Ridge, the buffet was tasty featuring ziti, veggies, salad, some fish concoction which evaded name recognition, and some straight-out chocolate cake for dessert. Not bad, not bad at all.

Lots of guests today including Gil Spencer and Marty Fins from Manchester, Joe Jaconetta and Deirdre Turcell from Glastonbury, First Lady Chickie Amberg, our three scholarship winners, Erin Janty and Amanda Ouk from CIBA and Brittany Leonard from East Catholic. Mr. and Mrs. Janty accompanied their daughter.  Also making a rare appearance were Larry Frazier visiting from Maine and Guy LaBella visiting from Goodwin College. Erstwhile Steve Jacoby out did himself by driving into the parking lot as the rest of us were already heading down the hill. Our usual song leaders performed with zest and harmony.

Installation Picnic At Kickery's Next Week

Sargant at Arms Nick Cecere had a list of miscreants highlighted by Dan Firestone who paid “a dollar a day” for his significant birthday. It turned out to be an expensive Happy Birthday Song for him. Dan Larson paid to brag about his son being named Manchester’s Citizen of the Year, Chickie Amberg paid to recognize the upcoming 71st Wedding Anniversary for Art and Charlotte Bradbury, and several other fines were paid which have been lost to Nick’s penmanship and my losing his chicken scratched sheet of paper.

The Golf Committee will meet on July 11th at the Goodwin meeting that evening. It’s time to collect raffle prizes, to sign up for sponsorships, to get your foursomes in order. Everyone in the Club is expected to participate in some meaningful way. The Tournament will be on September 17th this year.

Next week is our Installation Picnic at the Kickery’s and all are invited to enjoy the pool and the company. Festivities start around Five or so. BYOB. The week after is the 4th of July so we will not be meeting that week. The following week is the second Wednesday of the month, so we will see you at Goodwin College at 6 p.m.

Our Scholarship winners each gave a brief introduction and told us of their college plans. Another impressive trio of talented young ladies.

We had two raffles today. First Happy Jack engineered our weekly raffle to pull the ticket of our outgoing President and proceeding to hand the winnings to the keeper of the purse, Chickie Amberg. She did not refuse to take it.

The second raffle was of more consequence as it was our drawing for our club fundraiser.  Raffle Mistress Mary Martin pulled eight tickets for our raffle prizes with the winners of the $400 fourth prize, the $600 third prize and the $1,000 Andersen Jewelers Gift Certificate all being names we did not recognize. But the big winner was sitting only steps away from the Empress. Wes Willett smiled broadly as he accepted the top prize, $2,500. I was happy to see it. 

As of 6/18 this year’s raffle raised $14,000, an improvement of $1,500 over last year. George Agnelli continued to be our biggest salesman with 26 books sold, 20% of our total sales. Bill Saunders with six books sold was our runner up. Of our 49 members, 26 sold 3 books or more and 3 members did not sell a single ticket. Thanks, Empress, for another outstanding job leading this effort.

Jaconetta Brings Chamber Message

Our guest speaker today was old friend Joe Jaconetta, Past President of the Glastonbury Rotary Club and current President of the Connecticut River Valley Chamber of Commerce. This group was formed by merging the Glastonbury and East Hartford Chambers into a single entity. Both South Windsor and Marlborough were sought as additional members but, as yet, they have declined to join. The new Chamber reflects a national trend of regional chambers and has offices in both towns.

The membership is heavily Glastonbury focused as East Hartford has only 20% of the members while having twice the number of businesses and twice the population of Glastonbury. So, the opportunities to grow the East Hartford segment are obvious.

There is currently an East Hartford Ambassador’s Council with 18 members who are attempting to do just that. There is also a concerted effort to grow the number of young professionals associated with the new Chamber. The group has 65 young associates in the program.

Joe is optimistic that the growth opportunities in East Hartford can be realized and he is an enthusiastic and convincing spokesman for the cause.

That’s it for this week. See you at the picnic next week.

Doug Willett

 

 

 

 

 

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