RSVP now for last 2 home-hosted events

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Dear Fellow Rotarians & Friends:

We’re asking today for your reservations for the last two home-hosted events of the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club’s “Summer Casual” schedule. Please respond by Tuesday, July 19, although earlier is preferable.

After those two events, we’ll be on the road for wine tasting, baseball watching, riverside dining, and theater-going activities to close out the summer. (Get details about those events on the website by clicking on “Calendar” in the “Inside Information” listings.)

Moes• Ray Hannan and David Taylor will be co-hosting a dinner at 6 p.m. at Eastwyck Village this coming Thursday, July 21, with food catered by Moe’s Southwest Grill and a make-your-own-sundae bar for dessert. It’s a BYOB evening, by the way. You don’t need to bring anything else.

Souvlaki• Dean and Doris Calamaras are co-hosting a Greek dinner at their home on Thursday, July 28 — chicken souvlaki and all sorts of other ethnic treats. Because of space limitations and dinner prep workload, attendance will be capped at the first 25 to sign up. We already have 10, so don’t miss out.

HOW TO RSVP: Simply check the two-event schedule below to see if your response is included. If it is not, then please reply to the club email only (SRCrotary@gmail.com) whether you are or are not planning to attend. Even if you are not we need your response to know no one was overlooked. Plus, it’s the courteous thing to do. As always, guests are welcome, but we need to know they’re coming, too, so the hosts can have an accurate headcount.

Have a great weekend, everyone. We hope to see as many of you as possible at the upcoming family-friendly events, a great way to build stronger bonds through Rotary — and have fun doing it.

SRC Home Hosted RSVPs

 

Today in history

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On July 16 in …

1661 –- The first banknotes in Europe are issued, by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

1790 –- President George Washington signs into law the “Residence Act,” establishing an area known as the District of Columbia as the capital city of the United States. The federal government currently is located in New York City, but will move once office construction is completed in DC.

1861 — President Abraham Lincoln orders Union troops to begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become known as the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the Civil War.

1945 –- The “Atomic Age” begins when the U.S. government successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon in the desert near Alamogordo, NM. The test is part of the Manhattan Project that will help develop the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

1973 –- During U.S. Senate hearings on what was nicknamed “Watergate,” former White House aide Alexander Butterfield reveals that President Richard Nixon has secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

 

Dodging the ‘drops en route to a fun evening

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SRC Minutes Logo“Summer Casual” Dinner
Martinez Residence
East Greenbush
July 14, 2016

Members Attending (15): Debbie Rodriguez, Roberto Martinez, Jim Leyhane, Bill Dowd, Andy Leyhane, Murray Forth, Dean Calamaras, Doris Calamaras, David Taylor, Dick Drumm, Terry Brewer, Julius Frankel, Stewart Wagner, Carole Spencer, Becky Raymond. Plus 16 guests.

Despite the threat of storms, the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club’s second “Summer Casual” event of the season escaped being rained upon, and we had a good turnout co-hosted by Roberto Martinez and Jim Leyhane. Proceeds of more than $350 are going to the Freedom From Fistula Foundation.

The menu included pulled pork, mac-and-cheese, broccoli salad, appetizers and desserts, beverages … and a lot of good conversation.

Among the numerous guests was Jeff Simons, the new superintendent of the East Greenbush Central School District and a veteran Rotarian in the Rome, NY, area. Jim has signified his intent to join SRC.

Our next event — which already has a dozen reservations despite the heavy vacation schedule — will be a catered southwest picnic at Eastwyck Village, co-hosted by Ray Hannan and David Taylor, at 6 p.m. next Thursday, July 21. Please keep an eye on your emailbox for the weekly RSVP request plus other information. (P.S. This will be a BYOB dinner, so plan accordingly.)

Meanwhile, here are a few scenes from Thursday’s event.

Motley Crew
A motley crew poses for the camera. Front, left to right: Andy Leyhane, Bill Dowd, Stewart Wagner. Rear, left to right, Jeremy and Murray Forth.

 

Roberto & Maggie
Maggie looks pensive, Roberto looks happy, and Mary is communing with her inner child via electronic means.
Debbie & Becky
“Still Life With Apples” — and Debbie and Becky.
Carole and Jim
Carole and Jim at the appetizer table. Special guest Jeff Simons is seen behind her.
David & Doris
Now appearing, David & Doris!
Klatsch
Paying rapt attention.
Deck
Some people didn’t mind the humidity …
Indoors
… while other preferred the air-conditioning.
Hannans
Lois Hannan chats with her daughter and son-in-law, active duty members of the U.S. Air Force who are visiting en route from South Korea to their new posting in Italy.
sign2
And, so we say farewell to yet another fine Rotary event.

Feeding the Y’s ‘Circle of Champs’

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Club member Shannon Romanowski, director of the Greenbush YMCA, preps breakfast on Thursday morning for kids in the Y’s “Circle of Champs” program as her quartet of backup singers … er, food slingers .. poses behind her.

From left: Matt Smith, Jim Leyhane, Andy Leyhane, Murray Forth. After the event, the kids (not shown because of privacy rules) were off on a field trip. “Circle of Champs” offers support and experiences to children with life-threatening medical problems.

Y

 

Today in history

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On July 15 in …

484 BC –- The Temple of Castor and Pollux is dedicated in ancient Rome. During the days of the Republic, it will be used as the site of Senate meetings. During the Imperial period, it will be used for such things as housing the government treasury.

1799 –- The Rosetta Stone, which eventually will be used to decipher ancient lost languages, is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.

1834 –- The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.

1870 –- Georgia becomes the last of the former breakaway Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

2006 –- Twitter is launched, and quickly will become one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

 

Today in history

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On July 14 in …

1789 –- During the start of the French Revolution a crowd of citizens of Paris storms the Bastille, a fortress and prison seen as a symbol of royal authority in the city.

1874 –- The Great Chicago Fire burns down 47 acres of the city, killing at least 20 people, destroying 812 buildings, and resulting in the fire insurance industry demanding municipal reforms from Chicago’s city council.

1881 –- Convicted murderer William H. Bonney, popularly known as Billy the Kid, is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner, NM, about two months after he had escaped from jail while awaiting hanging.

1933 -– Nazi eugenics begin with the proclamation of the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.” It calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders as determined by the government.

1943 –- The George Washington Carver National Monument is formally dedicated in Diamond, MO, the first U.S. National Monument in honor of an African-American.

 

Sign up now for ValleyCats game, picnic

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View from the ValleyCats pavilion.

We’re all set for our annual picnic and pro baseball game at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, set for 6 p.m.  on Thursday, August 18. And, it promises to be a bigger Rotary night than ever.

Why? Coincidentally with our selection of that date for our outing, new District 7190 Governor John Mucha (pronounced moo-haw) has designated it a “District Rotary Night” and is urging Rotarians from all clubs to participate.

While the District is handling ticket reservations and has set up a Facebook page for the event, we still are handling our own SRC reservations, so please do not be confused by any information you see elsewhere.

As everyone should know by now, we are making every effort to centralize RSVPs for all of our “Summer Casual” events, and this is no different. Although Terry Brewer is coordinating the event, Bill Dowd still is the point person for accepting reservations; just $25 per person gets you a picnic dinner in the covered pavilion, a Tri-City ValleyCats game, and a souvenir hat. The ‘Cats are playing their New York-Penn League foe the Aberdeen (MD) IronBirds.

Please let Bill Dowd — not someone else — know via email whether you plan to participate and, if so, how many guests you’ll be bringing. It’s a true family event, and we usually have quite a turnout with a lot of kids.

The deadline for reservations is Thursday, August 4, but earlier is better. In case of an extra-strong turnout, a real possibility because of the recent growth of the club, we’ll need as much time as possible in case we need to acquire more than our initial bloc of 35 tickets.

NOTE: Even though we’re hoping to eventually get through to all members that only one sort of RSVP is desirable — that of responding to Bill’s RSVP requests via email — we still have members who keep responding verbally to hosts, or through third-party conversations, or using other ways. That makes it unnecessarily difficult on the event hosts or coordinators. So, once again, we ask your cooperation in following proper practice. Thank you.

 

1st message from new RI president

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John F. Germ

• John F. Germ of Chattanooga, TN, took office as president of Rotary International on July 1. In this, his first message, he sets the tone for his term in office.

Today, we look ahead toward a Rotary year that may one day be known as the greatest in our history: the year that sees the world’s last case of polio.

Wild poliovirus caused only 74 cases of polio in 2015, all of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As we continue to work tirelessly toward our goal of eradication, we also must look beyond it, preparing to leverage our success into even greater successes to come.

It is tremendously important to Rotary’s future that our role in the eradication of polio be recognized. The more we are known for what we’ve achieved, the more we’ll be able to attract the partners, the funding, and, most important, the members to achieve even more. We’re working hard at RI headquarters [in Evanston, IL] to be sure that Rotary gets that recognition.

Every day that you serve in Rotary, you have the opportunity to change lives.
Everything you do matters.

But, it can’t all happen there. We need you to get the word out through your clubs and in your communities about what Rotary is and what we do. We need to be sure that our clubs are ready for the moment when polio finally is eradicated, so that when people who want to do good see that Rotary is a place where they can change the world, every Rotary club is ready to give them that opportunity.

We know that if we want to see [the motto] “Rotary Serving Humanity” even better in the years ahead, we’ll need more willing hands, more caring hearts, and more bright minds to move our work forward. We’ll need clubs that are flexible, so Rotary service will be attractive to younger members, recent retirees, and working people. We’ll need to seek out new partnerships, opening ourselves more to collaborative relationships with other organizations.

Looking ahead, we also see a clear need to prioritize continuity in our leadership. We in Rotary all are playing on the same team, working toward the same goals. If we want to reach those goals together, we all have to move in the same direction, together.

Every day that you serve in Rotary, you have the opportunity to change lives. Everything you do matters; every good work makes the world better for us all. In this new Rotary year, we all have a new chance to change the world for the better, through “Rotary Serving Humanity.”

 

Today in history

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On July 13 in …

1787 –- The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, establishing rules of governance for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states to the U.S.A. and limits the expansion of slavery.

1863 –- In New York City, opponents of conscription into military service — the draft — begin three days of rioting that later will be regarded as the worst in U.S. history.

1878 –- Bulgaria, which did not appear as a separate nation on world maps, comes into existence with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin — a redrawn map of the Balkans region as decided by European power and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty also gives independence to Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania from the Ottoman Empire.

1923 –- The iconic Hollywood sign officially is dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles, as part of a real estate promotion. It reads “Hollywoodland,” but the four last letters will be dropped after renovation in 1949.

1973 -– Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield reveals during a U.S. Senate hearing into the Watergate scandal that President Richard Nixon has a secret tape recording system in his office.