October 5th was our Club Assembly meeting, which was devoted to two areas important areas of focus for our 2016-2017 Rotary year. Herb Klotz, our District Membership Chair and a member of Allentown West Rotary, shared a few ideas on how his Club is growing membership, which included:
Make membership a strategic objective of the Club.
Hold membership recruiting event(s).
Conduct PR Campaigns, i.e., work to put Rotary in a positive light in the community.
Ensure new members become active and engaged in Club activities.
Host multiple meeting times.
Herb concluded his presentation by noting that RI is giving a lot more freedom to individual Clubs for setting membership requirements, which should help in our future recruitment efforts.
Herb’s presentation was followed by a brief overview of our own Club’s plans for membership presented by PE Gerry Foran and Ron Madison, Membership Chair. They have been discussing strategies and additional membership categories designed to create a more robust pipeline of potential members, including Associate, Legacy and Young Professional memberships. They will be presenting their ideas to the Rotary Board for further discussion and approval.
Herb also gave an update on the 6th Annual Yvette M. Palmer Purple Pinkie 5K Run/Fun Walk, which is being held on October 22nd at LCCC in Schnecksville. The proceeds of the race will be contributing toward eradicating polio worldwide. For this event, the Gates Family Foundation will be matching $2 for every $1 raised. Our Club is participating as a Bronze Sponsor so we will be receiving credit toward our annual Polio Plus commitment. Herb encouraged our Club to participate as a runner/walker, or if we cannot attend the race, as a donor. Individual contributions to the Purple Pinkie will count toward members’ Paul Harris Fellow recognition.
Announcements and Updates
We are saddened by the news that Stacey Scholl’s mother, Mary Jane (Jitzy) Scholl passed away early Sunday, October 2nd. Please keep Stacey and her family in your thoughts and prayers.
Happy birthday wishes go out to:
PE Gerry Foran
Bernadette Holland
Dale Kochard
Al Krug
George Kurtz
Ham Malek
Stacey Scholl
Mother Nature didn’t cooperate with our scheduled Mini-Golf event for September 29th. Our get-together had to be cancelled because of rain; however, Buck Jones promised to reschedule in spring!
Maria Nathans announced the next Fun & Fellowship activity for Thursday, October 20th at 5:30 pm. Thirsty Thursday will be held at Twisted Olive. Come out and join your fellow Rotarians to help patronize one of the restaurants that participated in Taste & Tunes.
A heartfelt thank you went out to the entire Taste & Tunes Committee, who did a yeoman’s job planning, organizing and hosting our signature event to benefit Second Harvest on Sunday, October 2nd at the Hotel Bethlehem. It was an incredible coming together of time, talent and push-up your sleeves, hands-on hard work. Kudos to all to helped make our event possible!
Special thanks to Sylvia Doyle for organizing the drive and to all who donated new or gently used books to benefit Cops and Kids and Healthy Kids, Bright Futures, organizations that help get books into the hands of at-risk children in our community.
Our nominating committee, led by Ham Malek, will be meeting on October 5, immediately following our Club meeting. Club members are welcome to join serve on the committee and/or suggest members for the 2017-2018 board.
Paul Florenz reminded Club members to get the word out to worthy not-for-profit organizations that the Rotary Foundation will be accepting grant applications through October 31st. To date, only three applications have been received.
Scholarships are still available to attend the Rotary Leadership Institute on November 12, 2016 (7:30 am to 3:30 pm at Bucks County Community College). Tyler Papaz, Ham Malek and Bob Smith will be attending so there are car-pooling opportunities available. Please contact President Gail for more information.
Another service project is being planned to help fight hunger in our community. Our Club will be participating with other Area 2 clubs – Morning Star, Nazareth, Easton and Saucon Valley – in a food packaging/distribution project through Outreach Hunger to benefit local food pantries in our respective communities. The event will be held on Saturday, March 11, 2017 at Moravian College. Special thanks to Mark Reed for offering space at the college. Catherine Trawinski and Diane Donaher will be coordinating these efforts for our Club. We will need a good number of volunteers to help package food that day so please mark the date on your calendars now.
Our speaker for the October 12 meeting will be Billy Staples, who will be talking about the BEST (Better Education Support Team) Organization.
A team of specialists from India spent eight days in Kigali, Rwanda, performing hundreds of surgeries and teaching cutting-edge surgical techniques to local physicians and medical students. The medical mission was the fourth between Rotary districts in India and Rwanda, and one of dozens to Africa over the past two decades, extending healing care to patients who otherwise would have to wait months to see a surgeon.
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