HIGH GEAR, OCTOBER 30, 2013
Today was a first in the long history of the Rotary Club of East Hartford. We held a Baby Shower for one of our members! Last year’s Paul Harris recipient and Queen of the Duck Race, Yvette Roming, is due in mid-December. All her friends in Rotary got together and feted the impending birth today. The decorative motif was yellow rubber duckies. Special thanks for putting the event together go to Janice Freschlin for bringing in a raspberry mousse cake from Mozzicato’s, Ceil Collins for
donating “Read to Me” Rotary logo infant shirts, Bob Buettner for a beautiful flower arrangement and balloon bouquet, and Dan Larson for pretending his truck was on the fritz so Yvette would have to bring him to the meeting. Due to the generosity of our members, Baby Roming will be the beneficiary of a $600 gift card to Baby’s R Us. Can’t wait to find out if it’s a Rotary Ann or Andy.
Janice took a break from her Duck signing duties (a commemorative item we all signed) to provide the Invocation. From there we filed into the adjoining room for a buffet of roast pork loin, “smashed” potatoes, and veggies. Dessert was the aforementioned decadent cake.
The room was humming with anticipatory talk of the up-coming night’s World Series clincher for the Red Sox. Ned Lynch was headed up to Bean Town for the game. Ruthie Sheehan was about to have a nervous breakdown from stress and lack of sleep. Well, by now you know what happened. Game 7? No Way!
Saw a good number of recently absent Rotarians today. It was good to say hello again to
Fred Isaakhani, Peter Klock returned from a multi-week trip (no Sue, yet), and Sheryl O’Connor is on the mend following surgery. Fred and Ned led the Welcome Song to prove they haven’t forgotten the lyrics. No other guests to report.
Here’s a few make-ups: Hope Firestone on the 12th at the Bloomfield Club; and both Collins’ attended the District Conference meeting on the 20th.
Sergeant-At-Arms Bob Buettner, smugly announcing that this last Wednesday in October marks his ‘retirement’ from the position, had the following announcements of Happy Dollars and fines: birthday boy Marc Glass wanted anyone under the age of 56 to sing Happy Birthday. Ten members stood in tribute (would have been eleven if Happy Jack Martin hadn’t been shouted down); Frank Collins passed along news from Bev Leone about a Veterans Day Benefit Dinner to be held November 12 at 7 pm on the campus of Manchester Community College. Tickets are available for $15 at the Bursars Office for a four course meal that starts with corn chowder with maple smoked bacon and ends with pumpkin cheesecake with whipped cream. Funds raised will help support Veteran operations on campus.
Janice Freschlin gave a Happy Dollar on behalf of her lovely niece; Sheryl O’Connor gave for being happy to be back after her surgery; and Marcia Leclerc put on her Mayor’s hat to invite the Club to the October 31 groundbreaking ceremony for renovations to the Raymond Library. 
That was held at 1:30pm - - hope you were there. Marcia also distributed coloring book style pictures of the Bookmobile that had been colored by children attending the October 12 “Fall Fest” at the Town Green.
One of the more interesting Happy Dollar announcements came from Dan “Oy Vey” Firestone. Get this: Rotarians are an apparently fecund bunch. Yvette is soon to give birth to her first offspring, Brian Liss will be adding child number 3 to the Liss clan, and Fred Isaakhani has number 4 in the on deck circle!
When you are wondering what all the push is about every year when it comes time to support the annual Golf Tournament, remember this . . . your efforts have again put that major fundraiser in the over $20,000 category. About $4,000 of that came from the
raffle we hold that night. So many thanks go out to Bill Saunders and his Golf Committee for leading us through another successful tournament. These dollars will have great meaning to the many service and youth groups in town who benefit from this event.
Hey, Paul Harris’s. Time’s a wasting if you want to nominate someone for Recognition this year. Jim Watts has called the nominating committee to meet next Wednesday, November 6, at 11am at The Ridge. He needs your completed nomination form (available on our website) no later than Tuesday. You can email it to him at JimW@jwatts.com
Jack Sayre will begin distributing the sign-up sheets for us to help the Salvation Army with their holiday kettle collections by ringing the bell at two entrances to the Silver Lane Stop and Shop for four Saturdays in December. We have some soul searching to do. The number of current active members means we need to bring in friends and family to fill bell ringing slots and/or sign up ourselves to take multiple slots. Remember how we always say East Hartford Rotary likes “hands on” projects? Well this is where the rubber meets the road (or the clapper bangs the brass?). Look for the sign-up sheets to be available at the table in the lobby when you come for lunch next week or call Jack and grab a few slots. The call was put out to Steve Jacoby to see if he could get the high school and CIBA Interact kids to help out again this year. These young people were the key to us meeting our obligation last year.
Jack also gave us an up-date on two of our own. Spurgeon Stokes is in good spirits but has entered a period of hospice care at his home. Roy Spiller is having a tough go of it with his cancer treatments. Cards at their home addresses are much appreciated.
Many thanks to the folks who volunteered their time to make this year’s Job Shadow Day a success. Steve Jacoby ably managed the day and noted the only “issues” dealt with transportation restrictions unfortunately needed to be in place for student security purposes. Steve can also get you into the Rotary Leadership Institute this weekend if you’re interested.
One week left if you want to order fruit through Peter Klock. We have 80 boxes on order and Peter needs it to be 100 to make this happen as another fundraiser. Nice gift for your kids or a neighbor. Think about it. And Happy Jack Martin let Mama-To-Be Yvette pull the winning raffle ticket in Mary “Sully’s” absence. Apparently Ned Lynch was buying beers in the bleachers for his fellow Red Sox fans as a result of his win.
Finally, yours truly, did the honors for Doug Willett by presenting a summary of the Fireside Chat meetings. 
In a nutshell: membership is our most valued priority, especially if we can join forces with other community groups and the Chamber of Commerce. We just can’t seem to make a visceral connection to supporting the Foundation, but a lot of good ideas for “painlessly” donating were floated. The three-page report has been submitted to President George and the Board for their rumination. We should be posting a copy on our website or through email so everybody gets a chance to read the full report for themselves. Thanks to Snow Bird and former champion Dovelletes pitcher Willett for organizing the Chats.
And now the Empress of the World joins Sergeant Buettner in retiring from this editor position with the passing of October.