Here’s something you don’t see every day. A personal “appearance” by Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary back in 1905. Enjoy!
Month: June 2016
Little Brook Farm plans B.I.T.S. anniversary party
Some of our longer-term members are aware of Little Brook Farm, the Chatham facility that is the oldest equine rescue center in the nation. Our club as a whole and some members as individuals have financially contributed to the non-profit over the past few years to further its training and rescue programs.
One of Little Brook’s major programs is called B.I.T.S. — which stands for Balanced Innovative Teaching Strategies, a state-approved curriculum in its 30th year of operation.
To mark that milestone, founder Lynn Cross, who has made presentations to our club several times, is hosting an anniversary party at The Hill at Little Brook Farm beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 16. It’s a cocktail-attire event, with tickets priced at $140 in advance or $160 at the door, all tax deductible. Admission covers an open beer-and-wine bar and an array of hors d’oeuvres, plus a silent auction and a live auction.
All donations will go toward completion of the farm’s indoor arena and provide funding for B.I.T.S. Tickets are available via PayPal, or by sending a check payable to B.I.T.S. Inc. to P.O. Box 127, Old Chatham, NY 12136.
Little Brook is located at 548 County Route 13 in Old Chatham. Phone: 518-821-5506 or 794-8104.
Last day for discounted registration for 2017 RI Convention
Today is the final day to get a “centennial discount” registration for next summer’s Rotary International Convention in Atlanta.
While it isn’t the centennial of the convention, it will be the centennial of the creation of the Rotary Foundation. Thus, convention organizers and Foundation staff are beating the drums early to get Rotarians to sign up for the June 10-14, 2017, event.
The earlybird price is $265. By comparison, registration for the recent convention in Seoul, Korea, ranged from $310 to $440, depending on when the registration was made.
Registration details for 2017 are available, along with lots of other information, on the event website.
Pause for a moment and remember
On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”
More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion. By day’s end, the Allies gained had a foothold in continental Europe. The cost in lives was high. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.
Go to the U.S. Army website for more information on D-Day.
Tuesday RSVP deadline for Thursday dinner
We have had a string of after-dinner programs in this Rotary Year that has taken us to such far away places as Greece, Guatemala, Malawi, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Haiti, and, last week, India.
This week we’ll be hearing from Ethan Brown on his recent volunteer stint in an orphanage in the southeastern African nation of Zimbabwe. Ethan, as many club members know, is a grandson of Peter and Debbie Brown.
The menu for the 6:15 p.m. dinner at Quigley’s is beef tips in mushroom gravy, salad, vegetable, bread, dessert, and beverages. Guests are welcome, but we do need to know in advance who plans to attend so we can have the proper seating and menu portions. If you haven’t already informed dinner coordinator Debbie Brown at mdbrownb@nycap.rr.com, please do so no later than Tuesday evening.
Here’s the current list of people planning to attend:
Amato, A.J.
Annis, Monika
Annis, Ron
Bailey, Pat
Brewer, Terry
Brown, Debbie
Brown, Ethan (speaker)
Brown, Peter
Butterworth, Jim
Dowd, April
Dowd, Bill
Foote, Charlie
Forth, Murray
Frankel, Julius
Hannan, Ray
Leyhane, Jim
Rodriguez, Debbie
Tolentino, Rommel
Taylor, David
Donated clothing makes money for Gift of Life
A lot of us have been finishing up our spring cleaning chores, both indoors and out. So, some may have good-condition clothes we want to donate but don’t know where to take them.
Well, the Gift of Life has 22 suggestions. That’s how many locations it has throughout District 7190 for clothing donation bins. There are several in the immediate Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club area, but for those of you who live or work elsewhere, there are plenty of other options as well.
These bins are placed in conjunction with American Clothing Recycling Company, a Glens Falls business, with profits going to Gift of Life.
Here are the current clothing bin locations (note that the list changes from time to time):
In the SRC area:
- Community Care Physicians, 81 Miller Road, Castleton
- Tractor Supply Store, Schodack Plaza, 1649 Columbia Turnpike, Castleton
Elsewhere in the region:
- Ryan’s Produce, 114 Railroad Avenue, Albany
- Breakabeen-North Blenheim Presbyterian Church, Clauverwie Road, Middleburgh
- A to Z Auto Repair, Chestertown
- Hewitts, Clifton Park
- Powers Irish Pub, Clifton Park
- Kelley Farm & Garden, Cobleskill
- Rustic Gourmet Restaurant, 785 Delaware Ave, Delmar
- SE Kitchens & Baths, Gansevoort
- Hewitts, 605 Feura bush Road, Glenmont
- St. Philip Neri, Grand Gorge
- Faddegon’s Nursery, Latham
- Grassland Equipment & Irrigation Corp., Latham
- Mechanicville Area Community Services Center, Mechanicville
- Turtle Rock Café (empty store front/parking lot), Middleburgh
- Warner’s Body Shop, Middleburgh
- Hewitts, 294 Quaker Road, Queensbury
- Stock Building Supply, Richmondville
- Stamford Laundromat, Stamford
- Watervliet Elementary School, Watervliet
- State Line Flea Market, Whitehall
Meeting of 6/2/16: ‘India By Train’
Meeting at Quigley’s Restaurant
593 Columbia Turnpike
East Greenbush, NY
May 26, 2016
Members Attending (21): Terry Brewer, Debbie Rodriguez, Murray Forth, Pat Bailey, Jim Leyhane, Bill Dowd, Peter Brown, Debbie Brown, A. J. Amato, Dick Drumm, Ray Hannan, Carole Spencer, Roberto Martinez, Ron Annis, Monika Annis, Carol Orvis, Rommel Tolentino, Stewart Wagner, Charlie Foote, Phil Kellerman, Julius Frankel.
Guests (3): Maryann Hannan, Ed Hannan, Effie Frankel.
PROGRAM: “India By Train”
Club member Carole Spencer introduced her traveling companions Maryann and Ed Hannan, who accompanied her on a seven-day journey through India by train.
She explained the zig-zag route they took from Delhi southeast to Module, traveling mostly at night so they had their days to visit various locales en route. (The trip of about 1,472 kilometers — or 915 miles — would take about two hours by air or just under 23 hours by car or bus.)
Among the scenes presented were the juxtapositions of lush interiors of the train and several hotels compared to the crowded, hectic street life in cities along the way, and the majestic architecture of the Taj Mahal and other palaces compared to the primitive scenes of bathing in polluted water and open-air markets looking the same as they did centuries ago.
What was perhaps most striking were the scenes and descriptions of the daily open-air cremations along the Ganges River — despite the availability of nearby crematoriums that go unused, and the nightly festive celebrations giving thanks to “Mother Ganges,” with boats decorated in bright colors and candles.
Carole also spoke about festive dinners, riding on an elephant, an unpleasant encounter with a camel, visiting a rather shocking place called the Rat Temple — just what it sounds like — which was an enormous contrast to visiting the Taj Mahal, seeing grass-roofed huts on farms, entering shops offering brilliantly-colored garments and fabrics, the bustle of city traffic that included cars, trucks, motorbikes, and elephants side by side.
ANNOUNCEMENTS/BUSINESS
NEW-MEMBER INDUCTION — Our latest person to officially be welcomed into Rotary was Monika Annis, inducted as is our custom by SRC Board member Jim Leyhane. President Terry Brewer noted that other new members will officially be inducted at our June 23 meeting when District Governor Milan Jackson and DG-Elect (for 2017-18) Fred Daniels will attend. Monika was inducted in advance because she and Ron will be headed back for Sweden before that session.
DRIVER TRAINING — Jim Leyhane, who is coordinating an insurance premium-reducing driver training course, said the event will begin at 11 a.m. this Sunday atRead More »
New page provides tech data for our speakers
The latest new page on our club website, which went live today, should go a long way toward making our after-dinner speakers’ presentation setups go smoothly.
When you schedule a speaker, all you have to do is provide them with this Internet address — tinyurl.com/hym5yba — and they can go directly there for all the setup and other technical data they need.
A special thanks to Roberto Martinez for shepherding this cooperative guide to fruition.
Go here to take a look at it. The link also is part of our website’s “Inside Information” lineup.
3 open dates left on ‘summer casual’ schedule
We have several cookouts, a wine-tasting dinner, a baseball game and picnic, plus …
Well, that’s up to you. We still have three dates remaining open for anyone who wishes to host an event or arrange a family-friendly outing for the club.
Those dates:
• Thursday, July 28
• Thursday, August 4
• Thursday, August 25
We then will have a break, from August 26 through Wednesday, September 7, before resuming our regular dinner meetings at Quigley’s on Thursday, September 8.
If you’re interested in helping fill one of those three available dates, please contact Debbie Rodriguez ASAP. For details on the activities already planned, just click on “Calendar” under the “Inside Information” listing here on the website.
Water improvement on schedule, with lots more work to do
• From Rotary International
SEOUL, KOREA — A report released at this year’s World Water Summit, held here to coincide with the annual Rotary International Convention, highlighted the progress being made:
- Over the past 25 years, more than 2.5 billion people gained access to improved drinking water, and 2 billion who did not have adequate sanitation now do.
- Child deaths from water-related diseases dropped from 1.5 million to just over 600,000.
- The United Nations Millennium Development Goals’ target for clean drinking water was met five years ahead of schedule.
But, for the 1.8 billion people whose drinking water remains contaminated and the 2.4 billion without access to proper sanitation, progress still is too slow, said Vanessa Tobin, director of water and sanitation for Catholic Relief Services and one of the event’s main speakers.
The water summit, the eighth convened by the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group, seeks to match industry expertise with Rotary service projects.
“We need a movement,” Tobin declared, saying it should follow Rotary’s polio eradication model. “Polio was universal and everyone had one aim: eliminate every case in the world. We need to set a goal that by 2030 every child has safe water and sanitation for life. Water and sanitation must be at the top of each country’s development agenda.”
Gary White, chief executive and co-founder of Water.org, agreed and told attendees thatRead More »
Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club 