• 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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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We now have a solid date for the planned cleanup and tree planting at the Star of Hope memorial area near the East Greenbush Public Library — 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 9.

If you are interested in participating, please email Terry Brewer at tlbrewer12piseco@gmail.com.

This will be a joint undertaking between SRC and a contingent from Columbia High School. The effort will be both a renewal of the memorial area as well as our participation in Rotary International’s worldwide tree planting project.

The memorial was created during the 2001-02 academic year by the CHS Interact Club to honor students who passed away before they could graduate. However, that club has been non-existent for a number of years and upkeep of the memorial has been lacking. The library-neighboring Greenbush YMCA will be watering and maintaining the site.

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Dan Stec and Sue Austin, District 7190 Past District Governors who are the members of the District’s Rules, Regulations and Bylaws Committee, have recommended several changes.

Such an effort is undertaken every few years to ensure that our Bylaws reflect current activity, policy, and procedure.

They discussed the proposed changes with the District Board of Directors, made up of Rotarians who are on the District Governor track plus the two immediate past DGs. We made some minor adjustments to the proposals. In essence, the proposed changes must be approved by a two-thirds majority vote of those present at the District Conference that will be held in June.

Click here to read the current Bylaws, last updated in 2015, and click here to read the proposed changes.

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Debbie and Peter Brown are fresh off a trip to see the antiquities of Egypt and Jordan, the topic of the after-dinner presentation they will be making at this Thursday’s 6:15 p.m. meeting at Quigley’s.

We’ll begin the session with a meal of chicken Marsala, antipasto salad, chef’s choice of side dishes, bread, dessert, and beverages,

As always, if you plan to attend but haven’t yet signed up, please email Debbie at mdbrown@nycap.rr.com no later than Tuesday evening so she can arrange appropriate food and seating.

Here’s who has signed up so far:

Pat Bailey
Debbie Brown
Peter Brown
April Dowd
Bill Dowd
Charlie Foote
Phil Kellerman
Jim Leyhane
Roberto Martinez

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A team of Rotarians and Rotaractors prepared Sunday dinner for 45 or so guests at the Ronald McDonald House facility in Albany.

The team consisted of SRC’s Bill Dowd, April Dowd, Phil Kellerman, and Julius Frankel plus Effie Frankel and two members of the Danes Rotaract that SRC sponsors at the UAlbany School of Public Health, Ashley Beaulieu and Annette Highley.

Ronald McDonald House provides temporary free lodging in a homelike setting for family members of pediatric patients being cared for at the nearby Albany Medical Center. A different SRC team prepared breakfast there a week earlier, and a variety of local business and organizations also regularly take part in meal preps there.

The Rotary team put together a menu of pulled pork barbecue and slider buns, lasagna, mixed salad, peas, corn, butternut squash, sweet potato fries, waffle-cut potato fries, meat-and-cheese platters, sliced tomato and basil platter, Puerto Rican bread, plus dessert choices of strawberry shortcake, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, and individually-sized blueberry pies and apple pies.

Some of the RMH guests were circling the kitchen before we were finished laying out the buffet, including one really cute little boy who carried his plate around with him.

Here are a few scenes from the effort, courtesy of Bill and Phil:

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Yet another financially successful “SRC Recycling & Shredding Day” is in the books.

A team of SRC members plus a pair of volunteers from the Danes Rotaract club at the UAlbany School of Public Health took advantage of a beautiful Saturday to accept and process a large number of obsolete TV sets, printers, PCs, and other electronic items as well as papers for shredding.

The net financial results of  the effort will be announced at Thursday’s 6:15 p.m. dinner meeting at Quigley’s, but we think we can safely predict that we will have cleared several thousand dollars for our ongoing scholarship programs.

Thanks once again to the volunteers — Murray Forth and Terry Brewer who organized the day and cleverly overcame some last-minute vendor problems, Matt Smith, Pat Bailey, Bill Dowd, Mike Dewey, Geoff Brewer, Charlie Foote, April Dowd, Debbie Brown, Peter Brown, Jim Leyhane, and Becky Raymond — and to Josh Wainman for making his Wainschaf Associates offices and grounds available to us.

Here are a few scenes from the event:

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