The Rotary Club of
New York
February 17, 2003
Fellow Rotarians,
Our legendary Rotary Club has raised its profile
in the World of Rotary with the appointment of President Silvio Amori to the Board
of Directors of The "History of Rotary" Project at www.RotaryHistory.org.
Congratulations Silvio! You can read more about Silvio’s appointment at http://rotaryhistory.org/committee/#silvio.
I took the picture of Silvio during his presidential inauguration on July 9th,
2002. The History of Rotary has a special section
about the Rotary Club of New York at www.rotaryclubhistory.org/cities/clubs/06newyork.htm
(click on this link).
The History of Rotary project has been
affiliated with our club for more than two years. When I started to write
e-mail newsletters to leading Rotarians around the world for the History of
Rotary 18 months ago, it only had a couple of thousand visitors per month. The
website now receives an impressive 50,000 visitors per month and the momentum
is still growing.
The speaker at our next club meeting on February
18th is John L. German, who is the founder and director of
Non-Profit Computing, Inc. It is an award-winning non-profit organization. He
also received a citation at City Hall from Ruth W. Messinger, President of the
Borough of Manhattan in 1995. His organization received the Mayor’s Voluntary
Service Award from New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1996 for its
extraordinary pro-bono efforts to bring the computer age and the information
highways into our school system. You can read more about Julie Stewart in the
latest Weekly Bulletin on our website at www.nyrotary.org/Bulletin/bulletin_02-18-2003.pdf.
Jim Thompson has
written a very interesting Reporter of the Week in the Bulletin about our last
meeting. It was especially interesting to me as I missed last weeks meeting.
Jim has been a member of our club since 1999 and his classification is Security
Services Residential. Jim is Senior Security Consultant at ADT Securities, Inc.
Before Jim joined our Rotary Club, he was a Rotarian in Staten Island for many
years and is a Past President of that club. Jim has also contributed many hours
of volunteer service to the New York Rotary WTC-DISASTER Relief Fund,
where he has interviewed and recommended candidates to receive grants from the
fund. Rotary Radio interviewed Jim on July 9th last year together with New York Rotary
President 2001-2002 Helen Reisler and myself. You can listen to these
interviews on the Internet at http://12.162.161.64/cart/ProductDetail.asp?PR_ProductID=329.
The bulletin informs us that the International Service
Division of the Rotary Club of New York will meet on Wednesday, February 19 at
the German Permanent Mission to the UN, at the top floor restaurant on First
Avenue (between 48th and 49th Streets), from 08:30 to 09:45 AM. This month's
topic will be "The New Liquid Gold – Water." The guest speaker will
be Ms. Eirah Gorre-Dale, Communications and External Relations Manager at the
Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, the international advocacy
organization for "WASH - Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All." The
reservation cut-off is Monday, February 17, 9PM. After that, no reservations
will be accepted.
The Bulletin also informs us that our Rotary After Hours Group is
meeting at a new location, which is Torre Di Pisa at 19 West 44th
Street in the bar 5:00-6:45 PM, Wednesday, February 19th.
Our Board of Directors has this week approved no less than four
membership proposals. They are for Raul Escuza, George King, III, Thomas
McConnon and Daniele Boslo. You can read more about them in the Bulletin.
President Silvio has sponsored three of these new members. Welcome to our club!
The list of Divisions and Committees on our website has been
updated and is more detailed than before. You can see the list on our website
at www.nyrotary.org/Officers/officers.html.
Takako Johnson, who is Chairperson of the Young
Girls Educational Committee, has asked me to announce that her committee will
meet immediately after the Rotary luncheon on February 18th.
Takako’s mission is simple, she saw a need, formed a committee, and used our
Rotary network to bring just one more success to
Paul Harris' dream.
Lou DiPaolo took pictures at our last meeting. You can see Lou’s
pictures on the web at www.nyrotary.org/meet_our_members/lou_dipaolo/photos_2-11-2003/index.html.
Here is an invitation from our Rotaract Club at the United Nations
about their upcoming event to which we are all invited:
I will be speaking at our Rotaract Club about Group Study Exchange
on Thursday February 20th at 7:30 PM. They meet at 310 East 67th
Street, New York Blood Center.
District Governor Bob Benson sent me the following announcement
about the recent District Governor nomination:
I am pleased to announce that as of today Don
Lee is officially District Governor Nominee and will become District Governor
in 2004-2005. My congratulations to Don and best wishes to him for a most
successful term in office.
Bob Benson
District Governor
Congratulations Don! He is also a member of the Group Study Exchange. It is a great committee and I enjoy being its chairman.
District Governor Bob also sent the following message about the District
7230 South Africa School project:
On Saturday March 1st at 8:30 AM we need some
Rotarians to help load a container with school desks and computers headed for
South Africa. We need Rotarians who are healthy and can stand some physical
labor. Professionals will do the bulk of the hard work, but we need 15 to 20
other folks to assist. Please try to be there so we can accomplish this task.
If you can help please contact PDG Janet DiBenedetto at either 914-923-6110,or
914-773-7376, e-mail jadiben@banet.net. The location of the container is The Staples
Plaza on Route 119 in Elmsford. Janet can provide more precise directions.
Our New York Rotary Executive Director Andreas Runggatscher sent the following message about the same project:
Our Rotarians have previously mentioned in
various occasions that they wish to do more "hands on" projects.
This seems to be one of them. Since we the club and the foundation have
sponsored the District 7230 South Africa School project with $5,000 it would be
great if our club could have some members help during this volunteer task.
Past District Governor Chuck Katze is in charge
of the District 7230 South Africa School project in partnership with District
9250, which covers the capital of South Africa, the capital of Mozambique, all
of Botswana and all of Swaziland. It is the same district that we also have our
Group Study Exchange Program with.
Chuck, who is also a member of our Group Study
Exchange Committee, just came back from a trip to South Africa and District
9250. He told me that the Rotarians there treated him like a king. They also
took him on a safari. I want to thank our fellow Rotarians in District 9250 for
taking such good care of Chuck.
We are now getting closer to the February 28 deadline for our
Group Study Team Member and Team Leader applications. We
need more applicants for GSE Team Members. Rotaractors are
encouraged by Rotary International to apply. You
can find out more about the Group Study Exchange Program on the Internet at www.nyrotary.org/GSE7230.
A great example of our world wide Rotary fellowship is the following message that I received from Past President Tim Hanson at the Rotary Club of Washington DC:
In reading your bulletin, I noticed the GSE
team visit to Africa. One of our members was just sworn-in as
the US Ambassador to Botswana. His name is Joe Huggins and he
is a great Rotarian... don't have his new email yet, but you should at least
contact him if your team gets to Gaborone.
Also, another one of our members, Angela
Griffin, was transferred to Pretoria last year. She is already
president elect of her club, so I suspect she's in the loop for the GSE visit.
Please give my best to Immediate Past
President Helen. We served during a challenging and exciting time
for both of our clubs.
- Tim Hanson
Rotary Club of Washington, DC
President, 2001-2002
Thank you Tim! We will contact Joe and Angela.
The experiences of 911 World Trade Center Disaster has created strong bonds between Rotarians around the world. I recently received the following messages from Larry Lunsford and Pat Mayfield. They both visited our club bringing with them major donations from their Rotary organizations:
Matts
Good
luck with your District's GSE program this year! Please tell Helen
Reisler I said hello!
PDG Larry Lunsford
District
6040 - Missouri
Dear
Matts,
I
always enjoy the ebulletins from the Rotary Club of New York. Your emails
always entice me to check out your website updates. It's a
great way to stay in touch...and I do hope I can come back some day soon
to visit.
Will
you please add Dr. Susan Dupree, our president elect, to your mailing
list? Susan has similar Rotary interests as the New York Club and I know
she would enjoy and benefit from receiving the information. Her email
address is sdupree@attbi.com.
Your
communications and outreach throughout the world is truly impressive.
Thanks again for your efforts. Your communication system sets the
standard!
Truly,
Pat
Pat Mayfield Consulting, LLC
Website: www.patmayfield.com
P. O. Box 10095
Pleasanton, CA 94588
925-600-0584
Email: pat@patmayfield.com
Thank you Larry and Pat. It is great to hear
from you. I have also added Susan to our mailing list.
I have told you before about our 2nd
Vice President Bill Currie and his work with Gift Of Life that has saved the
lives of many children from around the world. The Rotary Club of New York is a
major contributor to this program.
Last week, I attended a meeting at the Forum
Club, who is also a major contributor to Gift Of Life. They made it possible
for 2 Chinese Children to have life saving heart surgery. At that meeting I met
the two Rotarians Sammy Hsiao and Aldo Frustaci from District 7250 for the
first time in my life. When they saw my Rotary pin, they asked me what club I
belong to. It turned out that they are both Directors of Gift Of Life together
with Bill Currie from our club. Sammy also knows Ivan Polacek, Past President
of the Rotary Club of Shanghai and my fellow board member at The History of
Rotary. These fellowship connections
all happened because I wore my Rotary pin. As you can see, there is a great benefit
to always wear our Rotary pins.
I just received the following information from
Gift Of Life about an upcoming event on March 21:
You can find more information about this event
on the internet at www.skateforlife.org.
Don’t forget to reserve your table for our next
meeting. You can do so via e-mail to our office at ny.rotary@verizon.net, or call Andreas or Ana at
212-633-1311. You can also fax in the RSVP form, which you can download at
www.nyrotary.org/Bulletin/rsvp_02-18-2003.pdf. Our
fax number is 212-633-1954. Princeton Club’s culinary staff will serve us Lamb.
I recommend that you
visit our New York Rotary website every week at www.NYRotary.org.
You can also see a list of future speakers on our website at www.nyrotary.org/Events/events.html.
It is now Monday
morning and I am completely snowed in at my country house in New Jersey.
Fortunately the magic of the Internet makes it possible to send this message to
Rotarians around the world. I only hope that I get out here in time for my
speaking engagement at the Rotary Club of Croton-On-Hudson on Tuesday at 12:00
noon.
Rotary is about having fun
and do good things!
Matts Ingemanson
Internet
Communication Officer
The
Rotary Club of New York
District
7230 Chairman
Group
Study Exchange Committee
Vice
Chairman
The
History of Rotary Project
This
newsletter has also been posted on our website at www.NYRotary.org.
I want to thank our Executive Director
Andreas Runggatscher and his Executive Assistant Ana Rivas for working so hard
every week creating and mailing the Weekly Bulletin. In addition to mailing it
out to our members, they also send me the electronic Bulletin so I can upload
it on our website. They are also working very hard with the administration of
the World Trade Center - Disaster Relief
Fund.
In order to read the
PDF file of the Bulletin-on-the-Web, you need the latest version of the Acrobat
Reader (Version 5.0). If you don't have Acrobat Reader 5.0, you can download it
for free from the web at:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
You can find the
following interesting websites at:
1.
New York
Rotary Club at www.NYRotary.org/.
2.
The History of Rotary at
www.rotaryhistory.org/
3.
Rotary District 7230 at www.rotarydistrict7230.org
4.
District 7230 Group
Study Exchange Project at www.nyrotary.org/GSE7230/
5.
Rotary
Youth Leadership Awards at www.rotaryryla.com
6. Rotary
Radio every Tuesday 5-6 PM EST or 2-3 PM PST at http://12.162.161.64/cart/ProductList.asp?SearchFor=Rotary+Radio&x=36&y=6
7. Matts
Ingemanson, Helen Reisler and Jim Thompson from the New York Rotary Club were
interviewed on Rotary Radio Tuesday July 9, 2002.
http://12.162.161.64/cart/ProductDetail.asp?PR_ProductID=329
You need
Windows Media Player to listen to Rotary Radio. Windows Media Player is
included with Windows Millennium and Windows XP. If you use Windows 95 or
Windows 98, you can download Windows Media Player for free from Microsoft.
Click here to download Windows Media Player