Author: SRCrotary

A volunteer service club located in Rensselaer County, NY, that is part of Rotary International, the 1.23 million-member international organization of men and women serving their community and their world.

Adopt-a-Family project is different this year

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Screen Shot 2018-11-21 at 11.27.47 AMWe’re headed into the major holiday season, a time of family, friends, and celebration. It also is a time for sharing, and once again the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club will be involved in making the season a happier one for some of those less fortunate.

We are again partnering with Circles of Mercy to adopt a family, but this year with a couple of twists. The family we’ve been assigned is a small one — just a mother and one child. However, a second family, consisting of parents and three kids, will be adopted by Columbia High School in its first year of involvement in this effort.

The other change is that SRC will be creating individual personal hygiene kits for as many people as possible — a target number is 50 to 100 kits. These simple items are distributed to many people during the winter by Circles of Mercy. Details on kit contents and our two-person family and what they need is shown below.

Please be sure to email project coordinator Bill Dowd (billdowd4troy@gmail.com) ASAP to let him know what aspect of the two-pronged drive you plan to be involved in. If it’s the hygiene kits, let him know how many you will create.

The deadline for turning in gifts (wrapped and tagged with recipients’ names, please!) and personal hygiene kits is at our Thursday, December 13, dinner meeting.

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PERSONAL HYGIENE KIT / CIRCLES OF MERCY

Each kit should contain all the items below and be small enough to fit into a backpack pocket with ease. Odorless products are best due to allergies. Items to be placed in Glad-brand zip-lock heavy duty bags (one gallon size). All need to be travel-sized containers of:

  • shampoo
  • hair conditioner
  • toothpaste
  • dental floss
  • toothbrush
  • breath strips
  • mouthwash
  • small first-aid kit (i.e. assorted Band-Aids and antiseptic such as Neosporin)
  • very small travel-size sewing kit (minimum thread and needle)
  • deodorant
  • soap or bodywash
  • hand sanitizer
  • lotion
  • lip balm (such as Chapstick)
  • combs, brushes and hair bands

 

Starter ideas for your themed holiday baskets

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Basket 2
A bird lover’s basket has it all

Basket 3
An all-in-one cupcake kit

For the umpteenth consecutive year, we will be holding a “Holiday Party & Themed Basket Silent Auction.” This year, it is scheduled for Thursday, December 20, on the eve of the winter solstice, at a site to be determined.

Basket 4
Cook up breakfast with this cup of handy ingredients

golf
A golfer’s bucket list is in this “basket”

The dinner always is delicious, and the basket auction always is fun. For the former, you don’t have to do anything except show up and enjoy it. For the latter, you have to do two things — (1.) use your imagination to create a theme, and (2.) bid on the other baskets that appeal to you. (Proceeds go to our club treasury to support various services.)

The themed baskets have, in the past, taken on many forms, including such things as wine-and-cheese collections, baking sets, travel guides and beverages, candy samplers, Bloody Mary kits, toys and games assortments, and so on. You’re limited only by your imagination. And, other sorts of containers can serve as “baskets.”

Basket 5
Hunter/hiker’s assortment in a handy tote bag

We’ve sprinkled images of a variety of baskets around this posting to prime your imagination’s pump. Remember, it’s never too early to start getting your basket together. After all, the Holiday Party & Themed Basket Silent Auction is just 33 days away!

Basket 6
Warm-and-cozy-for-winter basket

Basket 7
A Christmas cookie kit

Italian
Italian dinner in a colander

mary
A  bushel of Bloody Marys

Healthy
A basket of healthy snacks for kids

pamper
A package of pampering products

 

Breakfast Meeting of 11/15/18

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3rd Thurs LogoSRC Third Thursday Breakfast Meeting
Greenbush YMCA
20 Community Way, East Greenbush

Members Attending (8): Murray Forth, Terry Brewer, Pat Bailey, Debbie Brown, Peter Brown, Jim Leyhane, Shannon Romanowski, Ron Annis.

Guests: None.

• Vice President Terry Brewer provided an update on current Rotary activities — The club survey, Circles of Mercy Adopt-a-Family holiday effort, the Thanksgiving food basket drive in conjunction with the Greenbush YMCA,  the latest Recycling Day update ($970 profit for our scholarship program), Rotary partnerships with schools in a mentoring program, and the annual SRC Holiday Party & Basket Silent Auction, scheduled for Thursday, December 20, at a location to be determined.

• Secretary Pat Bailey suggested that the second raffle for a private wine dinner for 10 at Cafe Capriccio in Albany be expanded to include a quilt donated by East Side Quilters, and a $50 cash prize. The thought is that bundling more prizes into the raffle could help expand ticket sales. Pat and Jim Leyhane will work out the details for the February 9 raffle drawing.

• Shannon Romanowski, Rotarian and Greenbush YMCA executive director, will speak at next month’s breakfast meeting, scheduled for 7 a.m. Thursday, December 20, at the Y.

Screen Shot 2018-11-15 at 12.22.54 PM
Ron Annis (center) discusses his company’s business model.

PROGRAM — Rotarian Ron Annis, CEO of Top Form Inc., provided an overview of the business.

Ron began his career with the East Greenbush Central School District as an athletic trainer and has expanded into owning and operating a premier athletic training center with several locations in the Greater Capital Region.

Ron has developed a business model with a focus on working with both students and adults that promotes a healthy body and mind.

Among the many aspects he has incorporated into that business model are such things as student mentor programs, nutrition and health, coaching certification, CPR and AED training, injury rehabilitation, and partnerships with many community service programs.

 

 

 

Snow on the way, we’re canceling tonight’s meeting

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Screen Shot 2018-11-15 at 12.02.13 PM
Arrow shows the path of the storm. (Weather.com map)

Good morning, but not a good evening.

The weatherbeings who predict such things every four minutes on TV and insist on assigning names to everything from a drizzle to a typhoon say we will be perturbed by Winter Storm Avery later today.

The latest (noontime) forecast says steady snow by 4 o’clock or so, and then through the night, leaving anywhere from 3 to 6 inches of snow in our immediate area, with the usual slippery roads.

Exercising an abundance of caution, we have cancelled tonight’s dinner meeting at Quigley’s.

That means we won’t meet again until Thursday, November 29 (Thanksgiving is next Thursday) when District Governor Tammy Heckenberg pays us an official visit. We’d like a major turnout for that event, so please plan to participate with us.

 

RSVP chance for 2 meetings this week

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Screen Shot 2018-11-13 at 12.42.11 PMThis is the one week of the month you’ll have your choice of participating in one or two SRC meetings on the same day — Thursday.

• SRC member Ron Annis will offer a presentation on athletic training and his business, Top Form, at the 7-8 a.m. breakfast meeting at the Greenbush YMCA. Please be sure to let Terry Brewer (tlbrewer12piseco@gmail.com) know no later than noon Wednesday if you plan to attend. A continental breakfast will be available.

• At the 6:15 p.m. dinner meeting at Quigley’s, several of your fellow Rotarians will discuss their experiences at the recent Rotary Leadership Institute, where the SRC contingent has enrollees at all four levels of training. The menu will feature ziti and meatballs, antipasto salad, chef’s choice of sides, bread, dessert, and beverages. Please be sure to let Debbie Brown (mdbrown@nycap.rr.com) know no later than this evening (Tuesday) if you plan to participate.

 

Meeting Clipboard: 11/8/18

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

Members Attending (14, quorum reached): Andy Leyhane, Terry Brewer, Pat Bailey, Murray Forth, Jim Leyhane, Roberto Martinez, Ron Annis, Debbie Brown, Dick Drumm, Charlie Foote, Ray Hannan, Kevin Leyhane, Carol Orvis, Debbie Rodriguez.

Guests: Richard Zazycki.

Richard Zazycki

PROGRAM — Richard Zazycki (above), executive director of Circles of Mercy, provided an updated overview of the 21-year-old family services agency that SRC has been assisting in various initiatives over recent years — such as Easter baskets for kids, Adopt-a-Family at Christmas, Back-to-School Supplies, etc. Richard noted that 87 cents of every dollar donated to Circles goes to program participants, and in the past year 7,900 service transactions involved 1,600 clients. (Click here to access his PowerPoint presentation.)

SRC will adopt two needy families for Christmas as part of Circles’ ongoing efforts to help families in need, and Columbia High School will adopt a third. Bill and April Dowd again will coordinate our club’s effort at supporting that project. We will collect and donate items from a “wish list” created by Circles volunteers after meeting with the families. Richard said the list and names of individuals in the families will be provided before Thanksgiving.

Screen Shot 2018-11-14 at 6.45.49 PMNOTES — Jim Leyhane moved, and Andy Leyhane seconded, a motion to elect Phil Kellerman president for the 2019-20 Rotary Year. Phil had been nominated by the Board of Directors for the vacant office. The motion was passed without dissent. … The final tally for our October ShelterBox fund drive is $6,340. Fourteen SRC members and one former member contributed varying amounts of money, and thanks go to all of them in carrying us beyond our $6,000 goal. The checks will be delivered by club ShelterBox liaison Bill Dowd to District 7190 ShelterBox coordinator Jack Faddegon on Friday. … In addition to the local survey being conducted by Terry Brewer, SRC has been invited to participate in a Rotary International survey addressing individual Rotarians’ volunteer activities. It’s an online survey with a November 20 deadline. Several members already have completed and submitted the form, which was emailed to all SRC members this week. … Our latest semiannual SRC Recycling Day cleared a profit of $970, according to coordinator Murray Forth, for youth scholarships despite truly inclement weather last Saturday that no doubt scared off a lot of potential recyclers compared to prior events. We will hold another such event in the spring of 2019. …

Screen Shot 2018-11-10 at 10.31.31 AMThe Blue Star Mothers organization that we have assisted for several years is attempting to collect enough donated items to fill 1,000 “Freedom Boxes” for the Christmas holidays to send to military personnel around the world. SRC members are asked to bring items from a list to be posted on our website to the November 29 and/or December 6 meetings. … Two meetings are scheduled for next week. The monthly breakfast meeting will begin at 7 a.m. at the Greenbush YMCA (RSVP to Terry Brewer by Tuesday evening), and the weekly dinner meeting will begin at 6:15 p.m. at Quigley’s (RSVP to Debbie Brown by Tuesday evening). We’ll hold a discussion of “Impressions of RLI” from various members who attended different levels of this year’s Institute session. Reminders: No meeting on November 22, Thanksgiving Day. We’ll resume meeting on November 29, when District Governor Tammy Heckenberg pays an official visit. Please mark your calendars to be sure to attend that dinner.

 

SRC’s generosity benefits ShelterBox again

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Screen Shot 2018-11-10 at 10.55.35 AM
SRC’s Bill Dowd hands ShelterBox coordinator Jack Faddegon a fistful of checks for the disaster relief agency.

The latest fund drive by the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club to help the ShelterBox disaster relief agency had a $6,000 goal. Thanks to the generosity of 14 SRC members and one former member, we not only met that goal, we exceeded it.

On Friday evening, Bill Dowd, our club’s ShelterBox liaison, delivered checks totaling $6,340 to Assistant District Governor Jack Faddegon, the ShelterBox coordinator for District 7190.

Since 2010, our club  has donated about $23,000 to ShelterBox.

“Your club always warms my heart,” Jack said. “You’ve given so much to ShelterBox over the years, and it certainly is much needed considering all the simultaneous disasters going on everywhere. ShelterBox has 22 fast-response teams around the world, and all of them are deployed right now.”

The club offers its thanks to all who contributed in both large and small amounts. Every dollar goes toward the outfitting of regionally-customized ShelterBoxes to be distributed in regions hit by earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters as well as widespread needs stemming from terrorism and warfare.

Want to know more about ShelterBox’s humanitarian work? Click here.