Burke Adams, founder of the Miracle League and a member of the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club, was honored on Saturday’s opening day at the league’s East Greenbush facilities with “Burke Adams Day.”

The honor was created by a resolution from the Rensselaer County Legislature, commending Adams for his 25 years of dedication to special needs athletes through the Miracle League of the Capital Region. Despite intermittently heavy rain, athletes, coaches, family, and fans played through opening day festivities and fun.

The organization offers baseball, basketball, bowling, football, soccer and track & field events to special needs Upstate athletes of all ages. All baseball, football and soccer games are held at Jaime M. Adams Field in East Greenbush, which opened in 2009 as the first multi-sport turf field in the U.S. specifically designed for such athletes.  Basketball games are held at the Boys and Girls Club in Rensselaer, and bowling takes place at the East Greenbush Bowling Center, Click here to find out more about the organization.

More than 30 people turned out for a very special “Rotary Home Cooking” series event on Saturday evening in East Greenbush.

Titled “An International Wine & Cheese Tasting,” it drew the crowd to Roberto Martinez’s residence despite rainy, chilly weather for the event designed and co-hosted by Roberto, Bill Dowd, and Jim Leyhane on behalf of the club’s International & Foundation Committee to support Gift of Life, ShelterBox, and other ongoing Rotary global programs.

A wide variety of hors d’oeuvres, sliders, specialty salads, mini-hot dogs, mac-and-cheese, chicken strips, and numerous desserts was available in addition to pairings of wines from eight countries and cheeses from American and European makers selected by The Cheese Traveler gourmet shop in Albany to pair with each, plus cornichons, Provencal olives, and charcuterie as palate cleansers. All that, plus a range of artisanal beers, spirits, and soft drinks, and a selection of New York State wines.

While the hors d’oeuvres and other foodstuffs and beverages were available all evening, the focal point was a guided tour of the wines and cheeses led by Bill Dowd, who has been a judge in international wine and spirits competitions for decades.

He distributed event programs he specially designed for the event that included information about the wines chosen from his personal collection from France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Greece, Argentina, and Portugal as well as the cheeses selected for the tasting by Mary Rizzo, the new owner of The Cheese Traveler, after detailed consultation with the event co-hosts, particularly Roberto and Jim. And, Mary graciously offered us a price discount in recognition of Rotary’s focus on public service.

Here are some scenes from the festivities:

Meeting at Quigley’s Restaurant
593 Columbia Turnpike
East Greenbush, NY
May 17, 2018

Members Attending (13): Roberto Martinez, Murray Forth, Pat Bailey, April Dowd, Debbie Brown, Bill Dowd, Jim Leyhane, Andy Leyhane, Ray Hannan, Dick Drumm, Terry Brewer, Geoff Brewer, Peter Brown.

Guests: None.

BOARD ELECTION: President Roberto opened discussion on the  election of a board for the 2018-19 Rotary Year. He explained that the Board’s desire was to involve Matt Smith as president-elect. Matt, whose meeting attendance has largely been at monthly breakfast meetings although he has been very active in various SRC activities, is making changes in his professional schedule to allow time for more Thursday meetings as he transitions toward the 2019-20 Rotary Year when he will be available each week. Bill Dowd moved, and was seconded by Murray Forth, that “The current slate of elected club officials who have said they will continue to serve, plus Matt Smith as President-elect, be approved for the Rotary Year to commence on July 1.”  The motion passed without dissent. Thus, on that date our board will consist of President Andy Leyhane, President-elect Matt Smith, Immediate Past President Roberto Martinez, Treasurer Murray Forth, Secretary Pat Bailey, Members At-Large Jim Leyhane, Bill Dowd, and Terry Brewer. Other At-Large members may be added at some time.

YOUTH TOPICS: Information has been sent to local high schools on the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program and our scholarship awards. … Current RYLA participants will visit SRC on May 31 to comment on their experience. … Students from Columbia High School spoke at today’s breakfast meeting on the “We Rise” student movement that sprang up across the country in response to the spate of school mass shootings. Click here for details on their talk.

GRANT TRAINING: John Justino, Jim Leyhane, Phil Kellerman, and Roberto Martinez underwent a special training session hosted by PDG Sue Austin of the District 7190 Grants Committee. SRC now has qualified to submit grants to be decided in the 2018-19 Rotary Year. We plan to apply for a District grant to go toward our annual scholarship awards. The deadline for doing so is June 1.

ROTARY HOME COOKING: “An International Wine & Cheese Tasting” is set for 6 p.m. this Saturday at Roberto’s residence, with Bill Dowd and Jim Leyhane also co-hosting. Roberto is urging attendees to car pool to help ease parking.

DISTRICT CONFERENCE: Registration is open for the June 1-3 District 7190 Conference to be held at the Rivers Casino in Schenectady. The theme is “Sparking Change in the Capital Region.” Click here for details.

ROTARY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE: Registration has opened for the RLI workshop to be held at the UAlbany School of Public Health on October 20. Any SRC member interested in participating will have registration paid for by SRC. Program details and registration information is available from Bill Dowd or Debbie Rodriguez, both of whom are graduates of the three-year, three-level program.

STAR OF HOPE: The refurbishing of this memorial to Columbia High School students who died before they graduated will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, June 9. The memorial is located on the grounds of the East Greenbush Public Library. A task force from CHS, and an oversight group from SRC, will take on the work. The neighboring Greenbush YMCA will take on the responsibility of watering and weeding the plantings there. Faddegon’s Nursery has offered a planting design.

PROGRAM: “4th annual Great North American Whizbang Trivia Test”

Bill Dowd presented his annual competition, with Peter Brown emerging on top. That keeps intact the string of a different winner in each event. However, it took a tiebreaker round for Peter to edge out his sister, Pat Bailey. Each received different specialty books of “best of” lists and puzzles as awards.

This year, the number of categories was reduced from five to four, and more multiple choice opportunities were added. The categories were “American History,” “Around the World,” “Television,” and “Odds & Ends.” Click here to see the questions and answers.

Breakfast Meeting
at the Greenbush YMCA
East Greenbush
May 17, 2018

Members Attending (11): Roberto Martinez, Shannon Romanowski, Michael Harkin, Mike Bennett, Terry Brewer, Geoff Brewer, Matt Smith, Murray Forth, Andy Leyhane, Jim Leyhane, Jeff Simon.

Guests (2): Lilly Hutton, Heather Pangburn.

This month’s Third Thursday breakfast meeting was a student-centric one.

Students Lilly Hutton and Heather Pangburn (seen above) of Columbia High School gave a presentation on the “We Rise” student movement seeking to make their voices heard about action to be taken in the wake of a series of mass school shootings.

As a result, the students created a local chance for expression. On March 14, the event was held at the school auditorium with the expectation that 30 to 40 people would attend. As it turned out, more than 600 students participated. They then decided a group should go to Washington, DC, to take part in a major demonstration and started a “Go Fund Me” campaign to cover travel costs. A group of 24 students and three parents participated in that March 24 event.

As a followup, several students participated in a Capital Region school walkout on April 20, and invited and paid for two students from the Parkland, FL, school where the latest mass shooting sparked the national student demonstrations. There was a 13-minute “lie-in” in memory of the 13 students killed in the 1999 Columbine, CO, shooting. The group next is focusing on a 50-mile walk for late July.

Their efforts have raised discussions about the issues of safety, drugs, mental health concerns, and bullying issues in the schools. They said students now realize they do have a voice with politicians and state agencies. They will consider how Rotary may assist in their efforts.

In other business:

• The Star of Hope memorial to students who died before graduating from Columbia will be refurbished during a June 9 joint workday with SRC and CHS students. That project was discussed by the attendees, including CHS Principal and SRC member Mike Harkin who is working with the students. SRC will coordinate with Faddegon’s Nursery in Latham for flowers and other materials.

•  SRC’s Youth Committee co-chairs Matt Smith and Shannon Romanowski reviewed communications regarding both RYLA and scholarship letters sent to local high schools. Mike Harkin, Mike Bennett, and Jeff Simon indicated that communications should be sent directly to them to expedite responses from Columbia.

• The same educators expressed support of SRC’s plan to apply for a grant to help cover the cost of scholarships and will write letters of support for the grant being submitted to District 7190 for the 2018-19 Rotary Year.

SRC joins the families and friends of members of the new Danes Rotaract club who will be graduating from the UAlbany School of Public Health this week.

Their portion of several graduation ceremonies from various parts of the university is scheduled for 9 o’clock Friday morning in the Campus Center Ballroom on the main campus.

Several of the club’s charter members have told us they plan on staying in the area after graduation and will remain active in Rotaract while helping to recruit additional members from the two-year Public Health graduate program and from the UAlbany community at large.

• The 2018-19 Rotary Year begins in just 47 days from today. That means a new president for Rotary International and a new motto and theme for the year. Watch the video to learn about them from incoming president Barry Rassin of the Bahamas.

Phil Kellerman kindly passed along this item from the “Lifeline Letter,” the official newsletter of the Oley Foundation. Members will recall we recently presented the organization with a check for $400.

This week is the program we’ve all been waiting for — at least us trivia junkies! Bill Dowd will officiate at the “4th Annual Great North American Whizbang Trivia Test,” and it always is great fun.

Last week Bill remarked that we’ve had a different winner each year, so there is no corner on first prize. Come and join the fun. Dinner before the contest will feature beef tips with mushroom gravy, mixed salad, chef’s choice of side dishes, bread, dessert, and beverages.

The following members have indicated their intent to attend. As usual, please let me know by Tuesday evening at mdbrown@nycap.rr.com if you can join us for this great event. The more the merrier!

Bailey, Pat
Brown, Debbie
Brown, Peter
Dowd, April
Dowd, Bill
Drumm, Dick
Forth, Murray
Frankel, Julius
Hannan, Ray
Leyhane, Jim
Martinez, Roberto
Raymond, Becky

Hope to see you all Thursday!

— Debbie Brown

At SRC’s recent “Recycling & Shredding Day,” we collected numerous documents to be shredded off-site. The certificate above is proof of the receipt, and subsequent confidential shredding, of five large cartons of papers by the ConfiData company.

Meeting at Quigley’s Restaurant
593 Columbia Turnpike
East Greenbush, NY
May 10, 2018

Members Attending (17): Roberto Martinez, Murray Forth, Pat Bailey, Jim Leyhane, Ray Hannan, Bill Dowd, April Dowd, Peter Brown, Terry Brewer, Geoff Brewer, Dean Calamaras, Doris Calamaras, Debbie Brown, Phil Kellerman, Julius Frankel, Charlie Foote, Becky Raymond.

Guests (2): Fred Daniels, Effie Frankel.

BUSINESS/ANNOUNCEMENTS

OPENING: President Roberto welcomed District Governor Fred Daniels. He also displayed photos from our website covering last weekend’s recycling effort and dinner prep at Ronald McDonald House.

DISTRICT CONFERENCE: DG Fred described the agenda for the June 1-3 District Conference to be held at the new Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady. (SRC is taking out an ad in the event program.) He distributed a listing of nine different local service projects to be available on opening day. Registration information is available by clicking here.

RECYCLING RESULTS: Treasurer Murray Forth reported that the recent “Recycling & Shredding Day” netted nearly $1,800 for our scholarship fund.

GRANT TRAINING: An SRC contingent will attend a District Grant Training makeup session at the home of PDG Sue Austin on May 15, which will make us eligible to apply for a grant by the June 1 deadline. Any grant approved will be for the next Rotary Year. This year we received a $500 grant toward the cost of the Viking Gym installed at Schodack Town Park.

BYLAW PROPOSAL:  Proposed changes to the District 7190 bylaws have been posted on our website (click here to read them). Anyone who attends the District Conference will be eligible to vote on them.

GRANTS TO COLUMBIA HIGH SCHOOL: A $250 grant was approved to help the Columbia H.S. Unified Basketball Team travel to Seattle, WA, for a Special Olympics tournament. And, a $150 grant was given to purchase paint for the school’s mural project,

ROTARACT REPORT: Rotaractors were involved in both of our weekend events — the recycling day and the Ronald McDonald House dinner prep. … Becky Raymond and John Justino, two of our club liaisons with Rotaract, held a meeting with the Danes Rotaract officers at the UAlbany School of Public Health. Becky said the students expressed their gratitude for the support and guidance from SRC during their startup year, that they were impressed with the recent induction ceremony, and are working to recruit more students for the upcoming academic year.

BOARD RETREAT: The second board retreat of this Rotary Year (the first was held in October) is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 4, at the Community Care offices in Schodack.

STAR OF HOPE RENEWAL: SRC and Columbia High School are scheduled to clean up the Star of Hope memorial at East Greenbush Public Library and plant several trees there as part of RI’s global tree-planting project. We’re unsure of the date but hope to have it firmed up by tomorrow, and are asking volunteers to sign up for the short work m-project with Terry Brewer. (Note: A firm June 9 date was reached the following day. Details available by clicking here.)

INTERNATIONAL WINE & CHEESE TASTING: We have 35 adults and kids signed up so far for this “Rotary Home Cooking Series” event to be held at Roberto’s residence on Saturday, May 19. Deadline for reservations is Tuesday, May 15, with any of the event sponsors — Roberto, Bill Dowd, or Jim Leyhane; just $10 per adult, kids free. In addition  to the international wine-and-cheese samplings we will have “heavy” hors d’oeuvres, designer beers, a spirits bar, and more. All are invited.

NEXT MEETINGS: On Thursday, May 17, we are expecting to have several RYLA student visitors at the 7 a.m. breakfast meeting at the Greenbush YMCA; and, Bill Dowd will present the “4th annual Great North American Whizbang Trivia Test” at the 6:15 p.m. dinner meeting at Quigley’s.

PROGRAM: “Antiquities of Egypt & Jordan”

Peter and Debbie Brown presented a slideshow on their recent 17-day trip to parts of Egypt and Jordan.

After a visit to Cairo, their party visited the Giza area where they saw the step pyramid, the temple where pharoahs were crowned, the sphinx, the Muhammad Ali mosque, and the famous Aswan Dam. Among many other Egyptian sites visited were the Way of the Sphinxes, the Karnak Temple Complex, and the Valley of the Kings.

The next leg of their trip was to Jordon, where they visited such historic spots as Mount Nebo from where the Bible says the Hebrews first glimpsed the Promised land, a crusader castle built in the Middle Ages to help control commerce in the region, the carved-stone city of Petra — a World Heritage Site, the Dead Sea, and the Moses Spring that runs continuously in an otherwise arid region.

The slideshow has been posted on the Program Presentation Archives on the club website.