High Gear, October 23, 2013
A Rotary meeting where the room was packed! Steve Jacoby’s work putting together Job Shadow Day meant we had 36 students and guests joining 33 East Hartford Rotarians. The meeting was rowdy but well run by both Steve and President George. Kudos to Krause Caterers for putting up with our un-announced round tables and offering a kid-friendly buffet of chicken parm, pasta, cookies, brownies and punch.
President George kindly walked our guests through the meeting agenda and himself did the honor of giving the Invocation. 
With so much to talk about, we kind of zipped through the Welcome Song ably led by Gil “my whole family golfs” Wishart and President Elect Brian Liss. I think we were showing off because both the R-O-T-A-R-Y song and the Welcome Song seemed especially robust today.
Bob Buettner climbed over tables to get to the microphone for his Sergeant-At- Arms report. Seems the take was mostly in honor of the Red Sox making the World Series although we think we heard it was Ceil Collins’ 17th Club anniversary.
Two caring moments: Our Past President, Sheryl O’Connor, is still home recuperating from recent surgery. 
And a sad announcement that the young pregnant mother who recently lost her life in a motor vehicle accident is the granddaughter of the Reverend Art Dunham of South Windsor.
It was the perfect time to induct two new members into our ranks. Especially so because the first to be brought to the podium by sponsor Steve Jacoby was Nate Quesnel, Superintendent of Schools for East Hartford. Hint: do not pronounce the “s” in Quesnel (kwa-nell). Nate’s personal history includes the fact that he is the father of 6 children, including a set of twins born this past summer, and lives in Portland. Busy guy!
Our second inductee actually looked us up! He is Alan Bates, Past President of the Putnam Club, Paul Harris recipient, and a member of Rotary since 1986. Putnam’s loss is our gain. Alan is the Assistant Administrator for Riverside Health Center on Main Street. As a transfer, President George took credit for being his sponsor.
With yours truly being Project Administrator for the Raymond Library Renovation Project, I’m calling dibs here on writing up the first Announcement. The long-awaited groundbreaking has been scheduled for Thursday, October 31 beginning at 1:30pm on the Central Avenue lawn of the Library. Governor Malloy will be joining us for the ceremonial “Dig In”. All Rotarians are invited. If you haven’t seen our new Bookmobile in person yet, it will be parked there and available for inspection. By next month you will see this colorful vehicle tooling around town.
Brian Liss provided us with information on the 16th Annual Greater Hartford Multi-Faith Prayer Breakfast. It will be held Thursday, November 14 from 7:15 to 8:45am at the Artists Collective, 1200 Albany Avenue in Hartford. Free parking is available and a Continental breakfast has its start at 7:00am. This year’s theme is the unfortunately too appropriate “United in Prayer: Praying for Safer Streets”.
Our Board has voted to support the International Baccalaureate program at O’Connell School with a $5,000 donation. Funds are going toward their science, math, and technology curriculum. The kids will be participating in a robotics competition on November 16th. Interested in car-pooling to the event?
The final sign-up for the Fruit Sale was today. Ceil Collins has been filling in on same for the absent-due-to-traveling Peter Klock. If we do not meet the minimum order, this fund raiser will have to be cancelled.
Chuck Clarke invited us to join with the Patriotic Commission in placing flags on veterans’ graves for Veterans’ Day. The activity is Saturday, November 2nd at Hillside Cemetery, begins at 8:00am, and is probably completed by 11:00am. All you need to bring is a long-handled screw driver to poke the hole in the ground. This is another example of a good “hands on” activity for Rotarians that allows us to partner with another community service group.
The clock is ticking down on nominations for Paul Harris Recognition. Send your form (available on our website) to Jim Watts prior to the committee meeting. 
You do not yourself need to be a Paul Harris to nominate somebody. If you are a PH, you are automatically a member of the committee and need to present yourself at the nomination meeting: 11:00am at VMC on Wednesday, November 6th. Announcement of recipients will be made at the Holiday Party in December. Induction takes place in March.
Marc “The Gimp” Glass, still eliciting our sympathy for his double whammy infirmity, allowed President George to pick this week’s winner of the raffle. Drum roll, please . . . . . Mary Sullivan!!!! Now I ask you, aren’t we sending the wrong message to our young guests today? I mean, what’s next? Casino gambling? Keno? Yikes!!!
We turned our collective attention to Steve Jacoby’s Job Shadow Program.
Steve thanked the many community businesses, some represented by our own members, who participated: American Eagle (Alex Wisz), First New England (Mary Sullivan), Dan Russell (prominent architect), Bob Buettner (Buettner Florist), Judge Herbie Barall (Court system), Ted Hsu (Horizon Cleaning Contractors), Town Hall’s EHPD (Chief Mark Sirois and Sgt. DeMaine), Health Department (Nancy Wheeler), Engineering Department (Doug Wilson and Dave Riordan), Parks and Rec’s Ted Fravel, and Goodwin College (Nicole Miller), and the Freightliner Company.
Three youngsters were sand-bagged, I mean, asked to come to the podium to share their experiences. The kids did a great job staring down a room full of education folks, Rotarians, and fellow students. Not easy at any age. Michelle Zbignew, head of Career Counseling at the High School, pointed out how important today could be for these youngsters in determining what they might choose or choose not to do as their future vocation. Who knows what impact a simple half-day’s effort by business people will have on the community in coming years?
Let Steve know if you have suggestions for next year’s Job Shadow Day. Could be hard to improve on this one.
Auf wiedersehan,
The Empress