November 20, 2013 Newsletter

By John Hammer

Charlotte Shelburne Rotary

Wednesday, November 20, 2013, 7:15 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

Welcome

President Dave Jonah opened the meeting with the Pledge. Kris Engstrom gave the invocation.

Guests: Speaker - Nate Brangan of BSA Troop 602

Pam Brangan – Nate’s mother

Evan Webster – Charlotte

 

Upcoming:

November 27 – Happy Thanksgiving, No Meeting

December 4 – Paula Routly – Publisher 7 Days Newspaper

April 25-27 – 7850 District Conference, Hilton Hotel, Burlington

District 7850 Calendar: Hot Link http://www.clubrunner.ca/Portal/Events/EventsCalendar.aspx?accountid=50051

Announcements

Proposed New Member

Lara Keenen, Director of Pierson Library in Shelburne. This is posted for review and comments should be directed to Ric Flood, Membership Chair.

7850 District Conference

Elaine Dates has been designated new chair for the 7850 District Conference that will occur on April 25-27, 2014. It will be held at the Hilton in Burlington. She is looking for volunteers and circulated a list for members to indicate their interest. The Charlotte-Shelburne Club is responsible for running the conference and will have a lot of volunteering to do. Interested persons should contact Elaine at elainedates@comcast.net or 658-4061.

Thank You Letters

The club received thank you letters from the Shelburne Fire and Rescue for the pump that has been donated to the new fire and rescue boat. A thank you was also received from Puppets in Education.

Looking for Speakers

Fritz Horton asked members to help him identify future speakers. Please contact him by Email at hortonfw@comcast.net or phone at 985-8387.

Thanksgiving Turkeys

President Dave reported that the Thanksgiving turkey donation program will be providing 160 turkeys to the food shelves of Charlotte, Hinesburg and Shelburne.

Rotary Foundation

Sam Feitelberg reminded members of the Polio Plus matching grant with a deadline of Christmas. A donation of $60 for Polio Plus that will be matched by the club, which will further be double matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Every donation will enable the donor to have their name entered into a custom hat drawing. The hat will be knitted by the very own hands of Pat Sokolowski.

Spad’s Humor – It seemed that a young cowboy from Texas was sent off to college with $1,000 spending money. It wasn’t long before he was writing home for more money. Rather than coming outright and asking, he told his father that the college had a research program to teach dogs how to speak. He asked his father to send “Ol’ Blue and $2,000 and he could get the dog to speak. The father was overjoyed and sent both post haste. It wasn’t long, however, before the boy ran out of money again and reported to his father that Ol’ Blue was talkin’ up a storm and that there was a follow-up course to teach Ol’ Blue to read for $3,000. The father complied and sent the money. It came time for the semester to end and the boy was set to go home for the holidays. He didn’t know how to explain to his father when saw that the dog hadn’t learned a thing. He decided to shoot the dog, which he did the day before returning home.

When he got home, his father asked, ”where’s Ol’ Blue. I can’t wait to hear him read out loud to me.”

The son sadly turned to his father and said, “Dad, I’m sorry to report that just last night, Ol’ Blue was sitting on the recliner reading the Wall Street Journal when he said, ‘Say, is your dad still playing around with that sexy and cute red-head down the street?’”

His father said, “Whoa! I hope you shot that dog before he talks to your mother.”

The son replied, “I did dad.”

Dad said, “That’s my boy.” 

The kid went on to law school and now serves in Washington, D.C. as a Congressman.

Sergeant at Arms – Richard Fox, seeking to be lenient in the face of the forthcoming Thanksgiving holidays decided to fine only those who were not carbon-based life forms.

Denny Bowen – His usual happy self.

Howard Seaver – Happy to be a part of the carbon-based life forms. He is going to have a large family gathering over for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sam Feitleberg – What do you get when you cross Thanksgiving with Hanukkah? A turkey with a yarmulke.

Ric Flood – Going to New York City next week.

Robert Maynes - Down in Woodstock last week having lunch with his 103 year old aunt who was busy making quilts. His other aunt was also there cleaning the eaves troughs and she is 93. 

Linda Gilbert – For Evan Webster (our guest) who does silk screening and decorates t-shirts in Charlotte.

Dave Jonah – Happy Thanksgiving.

Kris Engstrom – For Dave’s son Will, who is coming home for Thanksgiving and who will help her out for the holidays.

Elaine Dates – For Robert Maynes who saved her from having to ride her scooter in during Steve’s absence at the Middlebury Club meeting this morning.

Joan Lennes – For a trip she just completed to Florida, for an anniversary she hasn’t celebrated with the club and her forthcoming trip to Austria next week to visit her son.

Roz Graham – For the wonderful SBPA mixer last Wednesday at the Shelburne Office Park and she couldn’t remember the other one.

Carol Obuchowski – A dollar to bring Jim Spad back because of the quality of his jokes.

John Hammer – Celebrating the life of Dr. Spin Richardson, his neighbor in Charlotte. Last night was a fantastic wake. For the wonderful volunteer concert by the Burlington Ensemble during which 70 amateur and volunteer instrumentalists and 70 choral singers from all over the area came together, did a 3 hour rehearsal, and performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (no small feat) Sunday night. Finally he recommended Meg Price’s humorous new book Maine Wild as a great gift.

There were numerous fines for simple happiness.

Carol Obuchowski’s number was called and she drew the Three of Spades.  Roll over the pot of $253.

Speaker Nate Brangan

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Nat, a Life Scout with Troop 602 spoke about the forthcoming trip that members of his troop will be making to the Normandy Coast to a Camporee to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944.  The whole trip extends from April 19th to 28th.

Nate began with a short history of the landings. He then went on to describe the camporee, which is sponsored by the Scout Trans-Atlantic Council and will take place on April 25-27th. They will attend a church service in Bayeux Cathedral and will take part in a ceremony at the large Omaha Beach War Cemetery during which they will read the names of Vermont veterans who fell there.

The trip itself will start in London on April 20, operating out of the Scout Activity Center in Kent. The trip will spend the following dates:

April 21-22 9 - Touring London and the Imperial War Museum.

April 23 – Arrive in Honfleur, Normandy, France after a ferry ride from Portsmouth

April 24 – Day in Honfleur during which they may play a baseball game with French scouts.

April 25-26 – Camporee

April 27 – Return to London

April 28 – Fly back to U.S.

Scouts are required to finish a number of requirements, meetings, and projects before they may go. They will prepare by learning about WWII, speaking with veterans and they have already made a trip to visit the U.S.S. Constitution. They will be fundraising as the total cost of the trip is estimated to be $22,000. They estimate the cost per scout will be $1,500-2,000.  Some of the funds will be raised by Christmas tree sales and bottle drives (there is a bottle drive shed on the Parade where the trees are normally sold). The scouts will be selling Christmas presents in a tent associated with the tree sales. There will be nine scouts going from 6-10th Grades of the Shelburne Central School.