High Gear, April 3, 2013

It was a bright, sunny, blustery, chilly spring day, perhaps typical of New England, but please, let the warmth come!  This report will be perfunctory, since this editor worked late, and has an early morning tomorrow.

A smaller group than usual gathered—at least one table was empty.  Brian Liss offered, no, blessed us with a thoughtful idea about seeds of rebirth, such as helping to provide clean water in areas where it is rare, and than turning that idea into an invocation.  How fortunate we are to be Rotarians.

Lunch was a fresh green salad, the perennial favorite chicken pot pie, and double chocolate cake.  (Vanilla cupcake for this editor.)

Sue Klock had a Rotary Moment to share with us—the Polio foundation, Rotary’s involvement and how far we have come.  In 1988, Rotary raised over $2 million (well above our challenge) to help eradicate polio.  Few of us then involved realized how long the eradication would take, and how costly it would be.  But the good news is that we are almost there—only three countries in the world still have live polio viruses.  Wow!  India is now officially free of polio.  We have three countries to go.

Guests included Aaron Lewis, who is on the board of YMCA, whose profession is publishing, and who has many talents outside those attributes.  (This editor speaks of personal knowledge.) And Debbie Wood who, with Bob, will be hosting a GSE team member from Turkey in May. The Club will hear much more about that visit in upcoming meetings.  And our speakers, Alia Lahlou and Zoe Mercer-Golden, more about them later.

Bob and Janice lead the Welcome Song.  Jack Martin, acting like the Sheriff of Nottingham, with a red armband on his left bicep, was our Sergeant-at-Arms. He apparently collected a good stash from the following:  Art Bradbury and George Schoen, for the UCONN Women’s victory; Gil Wishart, because the Red Sox beat the Yankees, so it is an undefeated season; Bob Buettner, for a birthday, and an extra buck because he wanted no singing; Bill Saunders, for a nice conversation with former Rotarian Gerry McTeague (not sure of the spelling, my records are sketchy); Dan Larson, to “say something” and Herb Barall, as well; Chuck Clarke, who needed to talk an ear off; Larry Hangland, for no pin: Neal Cunningham, for being late-he needs a faster car; Alex Wicz, for leaving early, and George Agnelli, for being late.

The somethings that were paid for:  Dan Larson, for the greatness of the Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting, and the fact the East Hartford Rotary received a Community Service award, how proud we can be.  Herb Barall, for the Fine Arts Commission/Tree of Life upcoming production of April in Paris, and President Sheryl O’Connor, to announce a South Windsor/East Hartford concert on Sunday, 2:00 p.m., an exceptional violinist, at the Wood Memorial Library.

Caring moments:  Jack Sayre:  He and Jan have been enjoying having granddaughters with them—one, Alice is pictured on a Staples TV advertisement. 

Business:  Ticket (Duck Race) Committee next week, before the meeting.

Senior Citizens Ball is to be on April 24, we have 23 signed up to help—great!  May 10:  Rock Cats “Rotary” Game.  $22 per person including the picnic supper, we get a $4 rebate, per person.  Kids 7 and under are free.  Our District governor will have an End Polio Now that evening.  And our GSE Team from Turkey will be with us, having arrived in East Hartford that day.  The Committee needs “vocational assistance.”  Contact Larry Hangland if you have some interesting contacts.  We will meet the team at the District Conference.  And April 27^th:  Mayor’s Clean Up Day at the Town Green.

The Raffle was won by Steve Jacoby.

Program:  Alia Lahlou is a Communications Associate at Seeds of Peace in New York.  She has a Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University and a Master’s from Al Akhawayn University in Morocco.  She speaks Arabic, French, Hebrew and Spanish--and English. 

Zoe Mercer-Golden is a senior at Yale, majoring in English and Art History.  She was born in Hong Kong, grew up in London, England and the San Francisco Bay area.

They have just done a forum at East Hartford High School:  Seeds of Peace.  The initial screen said: “Treaties are made by governments, Peace is made by people.”  One of their goals is to teach young people:  to promote tolerance, to have dialogues in communities, to cultivate future leaders, and always to have conversation.  The four key assets and aspects for social change:  knowledge of the issues, critical thinking, responsible action and strong networking.

This editor found the program a bit disappointing because these erudite, enthusiastic young ladies ignored the microphone and spoke so quickly, as if they were texting, that their points became totally obscured.  Thank goodness for the bit of visuals.  Obviously they are involved with a very worthwhile program

Make Ups:  Ted Hsu:  West Hartford, Manchester, New Britain; Hope Firestone:  Bloomfield.

So, ‘til next week……………………………………………………….Dan Russell