One of the ways to keep up to date with what’s going on with the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club as well as Rotary International is to follow us on Twitter. We’re @SRCrotaryNY so it’s quite simple to sign up.
Of course, we’re also here on our own website/blog, plus we’re on Facebook, and we provide regular email messages, so we’re always there for you. We hope you’ll take advantage of all these paths to staying informed and involved.
This video, the latest from Rotary International intended to explain to members and non-members alike what Rotary has done and can do, is one we urge you to share with prospective members.
No matter how you got to this website, we’re glad you’re visiting and hope you make a habit of it.
However, we have simplified how you can get here, no matter whether you use a personal computer, tablet, or cellphone.
The new URL that links you to us is a simple one:
SRCrotary.org
(Please be sure to use “.org” rather than “.com” or you will be directed to an outdated version of this website.) For quickest access, simply add this address to your bookmarks folder, and that should enable you to get here with a single keystroke.
If you use multiple devices to visit, you’ll notice the appearance varies. The most expansive way to view it is on a PC screen, but we have built the website to automatically conform to smaller devices as well for peak viewing at all times.
So, whichever you use, come back soon. You’ll find new and interesting things every time.
By Carol Hart Metzker
for The Rotarian
The sun rises on a new school day.
In rural Ganguli, India, 450 students climb aboard school buses. Five years ago they could not have gone to school because the distance from their village was too far to walk.
In San Agustín, Ecuador, students used to attend classes in the town morgue when it rained, because their school had no roof. Since 2012, hundreds of children there have learned to read and write in a real classroom.
Quietly orchestrating these and other projects was Vasanth Prabhu, a member of the Rotary Club of Central Chester County in Pennsylvania. When he was growing up in India, education was not free, and he saw how hard his father worked to pay for schooling for eight children. Understanding how school can change a person’s life keeps Prabhu working to provide education to those with no access to it, he says.
“I feel that everyone is a diamond in the rough,” he says, “but it must be cut and polished to show its brilliance.” So, instead of spending his money on luxuries, he is using it to bring out that brilliance.
There are three ways we can deal with enormous problems and our emotional responses to them. We can let them overcome us until we feel too paralyzed to act. We can bury our heads in the sand. Or, we can act. And, when we help others, we often find that we benefit as well.
“Taking action allows me to exercise passion to give it a good place to go,” Prabhu says.
James Doty, director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, wrote “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart.”
“We’re adapted to recognize suffering and pain; for us to respond is hard-wired into our brain’s pleasure centers,” Doty says. “We receive oxytocin or dopamine bursts that result in increased blood flow to our reward centers. In short, we feel good when we help.”
Caring for others brings other benefits, too.
“When we engage in activities that help, it also results in lowering our blood pressure and Read More »
Here’s something you don’t see every day. A personal “appearance” by Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary back in 1905. Enjoy!
Some of our longer-term members are aware of Little Brook Farm, the Chatham facility that is the oldest equine rescue center in the nation. Our club as a whole and some members as individuals have financially contributed to the non-profit over the past few years to further its training and rescue programs.
One of Little Brook’s major programs is called B.I.T.S. — which stands for Balanced Innovative Teaching Strategies, a state-approved curriculum in its 30th year of operation.
To mark that milestone, founder Lynn Cross, who has made presentations to our club several times, is hosting an anniversary party at The Hill at Little Brook Farm beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 16. It’s a cocktail-attire event, with tickets priced at $140 in advance or $160 at the door, all tax deductible. Admission covers an open beer-and-wine bar and an array of hors d’oeuvres, plus a silent auction and a live auction.
All donations will go toward completion of the farm’s indoor arena and provide funding for B.I.T.S. Tickets are available via PayPal, or by sending a check payable to B.I.T.S. Inc. to P.O. Box 127, Old Chatham, NY 12136.
Little Brook is located at 548 County Route 13 in Old Chatham. Phone: 518-821-5506 or 794-8104.
Today is the final day to get a “centennial discount” registration for next summer’s Rotary International Convention in Atlanta.
While it isn’t the centennial of the convention, it will be the centennial of the creation of the Rotary Foundation. Thus, convention organizers and Foundation staff are beating the drums early to get Rotarians to sign up for the June 10-14, 2017, event.
The earlybird price is $265. By comparison, registration for the recent convention in Seoul, Korea, ranged from $310 to $440, depending on when the registration was made.
Registration details for 2017 are available, along with lots of other information, on the event website.
On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”
More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion. By day’s end, the Allies gained had a foothold in continental Europe. The cost in lives was high. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.
Go to the U.S. Army website for more information on D-Day.
We have had a string of after-dinner programs in this Rotary Year that has taken us to such far away places as Greece, Guatemala, Malawi, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Haiti, and, last week, India.
This week we’ll be hearing from Ethan Brown on his recent volunteer stint in an orphanage in the southeastern African nation of Zimbabwe. Ethan, as many club members know, is a grandson of Peter and Debbie Brown.
The menu for the 6:15 p.m. dinner at Quigley’s is beef tips in mushroom gravy, salad, vegetable, bread, dessert, and beverages. Guests are welcome, but we do need to know in advance who plans to attend so we can have the proper seating and menu portions. If you haven’t already informed dinner coordinator Debbie Brown at mdbrownb@nycap.rr.com, please do so no later than Tuesday evening.
Here’s the current list of people planning to attend:
Amato, A.J.
Annis, Monika
Annis, Ron
Bailey, Pat
Brewer, Terry
Brown, Debbie
Brown, Ethan (speaker)
Brown, Peter
Butterworth, Jim
Dowd, April
Dowd, Bill
Foote, Charlie
Forth, Murray
Frankel, Julius
Hannan, Ray
Leyhane, Jim
Rodriguez, Debbie
Tolentino, Rommel
Taylor, David
A lot of us have been finishing up our spring cleaning chores, both indoors and out. So, some may have good-condition clothes we want to donate but don’t know where to take them.
Well, the Gift of Life has 22 suggestions. That’s how many locations it has throughout District 7190 for clothing donation bins. There are several in the immediate Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club area, but for those of you who live or work elsewhere, there are plenty of other options as well.
These bins are placed in conjunction with American Clothing Recycling Company, a Glens Falls business, with profits going to Gift of Life.
Here are the current clothing bin locations (note that the list changes from time to time):
In the SRC area:
Elsewhere in the region:
