Members Meeting by Zoom (12): Jim Leyhane, Roberto Martinez, Pat Bailey, Debbie Rodriguez, Phil Kellerman, Kevin Leyhane, Debbie Brown, Peter Brown, Ruth Russell, Dick Drumm, Charlie Foote and Andy Leyhane.

Guests by Zoom (1): Dan Maksin.

President Roberto Martinez called the meeting to order.

Theme for the year: Grow membership, do good in the world, leverage social capital, & have fun!

Meeting Notes:

Treasurer Update: Quicken is being used to monitor expenses and income and to delineate line items. About 90% of the imputing of finances has been completed. Next, Murray Fourth and Phil Kellerman will set up a budget. $500 will go to the District in April to support exchange students. Murray Forth sent a message to be careful when making payments using checks. He read that many cases of check fraud is being done by post office employees.

Bowl-A-Thon: Per Phil Kellerman, the Bowl-A-Thon is scheduled for April 6th. It will cost $16 for 1 1/2 hours or $20 for 2 hours. The special is $90 per lane of 5 people ($17 per person) which includes 2 hours of bowling, shoes, and food (pizza and soda). Sponsorship is $50. Phil has not heard back from Maple Hill. He has suggested that the activity be aligned with the backpack project with the East Greenbush Central School District.

Benefit Concert: Phil Kellerman sent an application to the East Greenbush Methodist Church to hold a benefit concert to support a charitable project of the Church.

Global Grant: Per Peter Brown, the Rotary Club in Kenya has an agreement in place with Crown Hydro who will serve as the contractor for the project. $1,000 was added to the project to cover the costs of the permits and survey. The cost may exceed the available funding by a small amount.

Defensive Driving: The AAA course will be held on May 17th at the Nassau Library from 9 am until 3:30 pm. We need a minimum of 25 people to sign up. If you are a member of AAA, the cost is $22. If you are a non-member, the cost is $27. Contact Pat Bailey if you wish to attend.

Community Project: Kevin Leyhane, Terry Brewer, Peter Brown and Phil Kellerman met with 17 members of the East Greenbush School District on February 13th about the backpack project to provide food over the weekend for at risk students. There are seven schools in the district which split $25,000 to cover the cost of food. It is administered by Regional Food bank. Funding is donated by various local businesses and the PTO. The SRC Rotary will help organize fundraising for this project on an ongoing basis.

RYLA: The District is restarting RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards). RYLA will be held from June 29th to July 2nd. The District is looking for donations of $350 per student. The Club voted to put RYLA on hold for this year.

CNY News: Information on all of the following and more is posted to the website, cnyrotary.org.

Pre-PEL 3: Public Image/ Branding, Feb 19^th 7 pm.

Pre-PEL 4: Membership and Leadership, Feb 27^th, 7 pm.

Rotary 120th Birthday Extravaganza will be held in Glenville, February 23rd from 2 pm until 4 pm.

CNY Member Orientation is held every 4th Tuesday of each month. The next will be held on February 25th at 7 pm.

Foundation Grant Management Seminar, Zoom, Feb 26th from 7:3 pm until 8:30 pm.

RLI March 1, Johnson City, NY. LI is $25, L2-G is $40. The Club will cover tuition. Sign up at http: //www.rlinea.org. Phil Kellerman and Chris Bystroff may be attending.

In-Person PETS Training, March 15-16, double Tree Syracuse. Registration has begun. Roberto Martinez, Jim Leyhane and Phil Kellerman will be attending.

Rotary Presidential Peace Conference: To be held February 20-22, 2025, at the Hilton Istanbul Bomonti Hotel and Conference Center in Istanbul, Turkey. Register at rotery.org/istanbul25.

District Conference: April 4-6th, Hilton Downtown Albany. Registration required. Roberto Martinez will be going.

RI Conventions: Calgary, June 21-25, 2025. Carole Heaney will be attending.

Next Meeting: There is no meeting next week. The next meeting is Thursday, February 27th at 6:00 pm at Moscatiello’s Italian Family Restaurant, Route 4, North Greenbush. Also, you can join by Zoom using the link on the websites calendar page. The guest speaker will be John Justino from the School of Public Health.

Entry Choices will be Antipasta Salad, Chicken Limone and Baked Ziti.

Dan Maskin worked for thirty years with the Otsego County Community Action Services. He started out in 1987 working part-time, was appointed to the Board, became CEO and retired on July 1, 2024. There are over 1,000 Community Action Agencies in the United States, 40 in New York State and one in Rensselaer County. The agency started out with the War on Poverty Act in 1964. The Agencies are overseen by a Board consisting of 1/3 public officers, 1/3 community workers and 1/3 people receiving services. Agencies develop their own work plan and measure outcomes.

With an eight to nine-million-dollar budget, they funded Head Start, 2 shelters, a home energy assistance program and the Women, Infants and Children’s (WIC) health and nutrition services. A payroll of 4.5 million funded 150 employees. Funding comes from the Federal Community Block Grant.

Rensselaer County has an 11.5% poverty rate. This translates to 18,000 people, 16% of which are children and 2% are over 65 years of age. This does not include the number of people who work but do not have a livable wage but make too much to qualify for assistance.