Held at Quigley’s Restaurant
573 Columbia Turnpike
East Greenbush, NY 12061

Members Attending (11, no quorum): Andy Leyhane, Murray Forth, Pat Bailey, Terry Brewer, Debbie Brown, Peter Brown, Bill Dowd, Dick Drumm, Jim Leyhane, Kevin Leyhane, Debbie Rodriguez.

Guests (1): Kevin Pogge.

NOTES — We now are in the final week of selling $20 raffle tickets for the Cafe Capriccio Wine Dinner for 12. The drawings for that prize as well as 2nd prize (a custom quilt made by local artisans) and 3rd prize (a pair of tickets to a Capital Rep performance of “Shakespeare In Love”) will be made at our January 24 dinner meeting. … Details and potential dates were discussed for several upcoming annual events — the Community Awards Dinner, Bowling for Vets, and Rotary Recycling Day. We will be attempting to space out the events since the dinner and bowling events in particular rely on sponsorships to make a profit and we do not want to “go to the same well” too often in a short period. …

… Terry Brewer reported that he attended the latest District Membership Committee meeting on Wednesday evening. Plans are being made for a “Back to Basics” program to help clubs attract and retain members. He also reported that although SRC is the lone remaining Rotary club in Rensselaer County now that the Lansingburgh club has surrendered its charter, there is the possibility of the defunct Troy club being revived, with Troy realtor Kareem Jandali heading up the effort. Terry volunteered SRC to be the sponsor of the new club, and Bill Dowd volunteered to be our liaison to the incipient group since he lives in Troy. … We have collected more than 4,300 redeemable cans and bottles for the Clynk program, which means several hundreds dollars for the club treasury. Bill reminded members that the specific plastic bags and bar code stickers needed are always available at dinner meetings or, if someone cannot make it to a meeting, he will see to it that they receive the materials if they notify him.

Kirk Pogge, president of the Colonie-Guilderland Rotary Club, was the guest speaker. He provided details of the Pure Water for the World program in Honduras his club has been supporting. Colonie-Guilderland is working on a Rotary Global Grant in conjunction with District 7190 and several other clubs here and in several other states.

He also shared details of the “Amazing Race to Recovery” event (click here for details) his club is holding on Saturday, January 26, at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, It is a fundraising event to support the organization Second Chance Opportunities Inc. that is planning to open a community recovery center in Albany.

Kirk said more than 60 people have signed up to compete in the event, which is modeled on the long-running “Amazing Race” TV series, with detours, roadblocks, pitstops, etc. Teams will earn points for completing tasks throughout the mall and some tasks may be judged on time. Note: This is not a foot race, and no running is allowed in the mall.