High Gear, May 29, 2013

Dah, dah, dah-dah,dah…”R-O-T-A-R-Y, that spells Rotary…” and with that familiar song, and a reminder of dear old Don Hallquist at the keyboard, we were off and running to another of President Sheryl O’Connor’s outstanding Wednesday noon meetings of the East Hartford Rotary Club! After pledging to our beautiful American flag, George Schoen offered a thoughtful invocation including reflections on Rotary bonds of comradeship, past worries, future goals, tasks ahead, and good ole food and friends. Speaking of which, we sat to a most delicious serving of roast pork (& applesauce), cold potato salad, baby carrots, and an array of cookies!

Bill Saunders was called upon for the traditional Foundation Moment and he told us of a splendid project which was funded by a Foundation global grant. In much the same way in which  our Bookmobile project was financed, Rotary clubs in Turkey and Brazil have recently succeeded in melding efforts to supply new toilets, and clean water facilities to citizens in need.

Hope Firestone and returning Herb Tischofer led us in a singing welcome to proud Stu Harris’ lovely daughter, Julia, recent Lafayette College grad, past E.H. Rotary scholarship recipient, and a wonderful plus to any gathering. Herb invoked the memory of Roger Driggs, an enthusiastic singer of songs and strutting like a drum major in our long-ago past.

Table-Topics: Student loans, Duck Race parking, and an engineering evaluation (by Stu) of past and current (duck) raceways. We assume other tables had different but similar conversations.

Sgt-at-Arms Dan Firestone, noting that current miscreants seem to be self-reporting, singled out a few, to wit: Tim Coppage, on the C. of C.’s June 4^th “Business After Hours” program; Mark Glass’ graduating son; Herb Barall’s local “Idol” program which featured 40 kids competing in song & dance; Dan Russell’s Vassar-grad granddaughter; Art Bradbury’s up-coming role in Little Theater of Manchester’s “You Can’t Take It With You,” on June 7-9, 13-16, and 21-23; and George Schoen’s pleasure in the Red Sox’s lead in the A.L-East, as well as UConn’s easy victory over Notre Dame to win the Big East Baseball Tournament.

In a Caring Moments report, Jay Stewart related that Ruth Sheehan is calmly but steadily recuperating at home, while we heard that Dick Seidman is doing the same in Florida. There!

Reporting on the “Business” of the Club, President Sheryl also thanked planners and participants in Rotary’s entry in the Town’s Memorial Day Parade, complete with Mary Martin at the wheel of the Town’s new Bookmobile (and got it back to the garage with no scratches!). Up-coming dates to be noted: May 30, 7:30AM Scholarship awards at E.H.H.S.- see below; June 4, Manchester Rotary’s Guatemala water project program (noting our Club’s $6,000 contribution!); June 5, District Installation Dinner; and June 19, our Club’s Installation Dinner, for returning President George Schoen and his new Board of Directors (have you signed up?); and finally, the June 26 Sgt-at-Arms party in Wickham Park!

In a report on one of the Club’s most meaningful projects, Jim Fallon told of the Scholarship committee’s work in sifting through over 30 applications, winnowing to an outstanding group of 6 winners, all residents of East Hartford. There were 4 from E.H.H.S., and one each from East Catholic and a magnet school in Hartford. A lot of thoughtful work went into the selection process and the committee should be congratulated on a job well done!

In the final Duck Race report, we learned from Brian Liss that 1660 tickets have been sold (do the arithmetic, 1660 x $10.00= $16, 600, leading to a nice profit, huh? And we learned that $3400 came in just today!) Peg Schoen has been recording it all, there’s a Friday (day after tomorrow) deadline on getting last minute sales to Brian; Yvette Roming gave us needs for last minute set-up and clean-up crews, and there’s still a big call for help of any kind on Saturday morning at 8:30.

And in a moment of frivolity, Bob Wood won the Raffle!!!!

As always, the program comes last, and Dan Firestone introduced our speaker of the day, no stranger to the podium, Kevin Sullivan, the State of Connecticut’s Commissioner of the Dept. of Revenue Services. Having started out by purchasing a Duck Race ticket from George Agnelli, he proceeded to describe a lot of changes which appear to have been made since taking office under Gov. Malloy. One third fewer employees, an emphasis on going after the biggest bang for the bucks, starting a campaign to collect taxes on on-line purchases from out of state, and a myriad of other changes in emphasis to help fill the state’s tax coffers; all of these and many others were described in a fact-filled  presentation. Famous for his quotes of past politicians and Mark Twain, Mr. Sullivan was most informative of the problems facing the state as it grapples with the bane of all states, too large deficits and not enough income. He’s obviously trying to take away the “bad-guy” stigma of the tax department, teaching his people to be (and call themselves) “enablers of services” instead of tax collectors (hah!). Altogether, an entertaining half hour, and we thank our Program Committee for bringing it to us.

And so, after filling in today for Janice Freschlin, we’ll be turning over the High Gear pen and ink to Bob Buettner in June ………………………as always, it’s been a pleasure!........................Arthur