Rotary's Theme for 2019-20   Centerville Rotary Club Meeting Aug.15, 2019   Official Greeters for the week:

 

08/15/2019 Deb Dulaney and Jim Briggs

08/22/2019  This is an evening dinner meeting to thank Sponsors of the Pancake Breakfast. Time is 6 to 8 p.m. Spouses welcome. 

Greeters: Wayne Davis and Kim Senft-Paras

08/29/2019 Arnie Biondo and Doug Bockrath

09/05/2019 Jack Durnbaugh and Bob Fry

 

Our official greeters were Deb Dulaney and Jim Briggs. Here you see Deb greeting

John Callander. 

 

And here Jim Briggs greets John.

 

Here Jim greets our Vice President Brian Hayes.

 

Sury Peddireddi has joined the Pancake Committee before the meeting.

 

Deb greets Ron Hollenbeck and Jim Harris

 

Lee Hieronymus hasn't been seen for a while. Sally Beals is to his left.

 

Tom Broadwell has been in and out of the hospital for weeks, all over a hammer toe that

caused many additional problems after the first surgery.

 

 

Kim Senft-Paras comes in just before Gerry Eastabrooks, our club treasurer.

 

 

Harvey Smith, Gerry Eastabrooks, and Brad Thorp have a chat as they arrive.

 

Joyce Young is looking good after her long recovery from double knee surgeries.

 

Do these men know where to shop, or what? Two Greg Norman golf shirts purchased at

Sam's Club, where the great bargains in men's shirts always are. And they didn't even

shop together. Jim Stuart and Jim Briggs...first names the same too,

D

 

See that guy in the back middle of this picture in the blue suit jacket?

Dan Johnson has left Merrill Lynch after seven years and opened his own agency,

Birchcreek Wealth Management.

Being a CEO and President is a new gig for him, he said. He is a certified plan fiduciary

advisor and does financial planning and investment management,

and is a family financial advisor.

Ram Nunna said today was his daughter Nithy's, and his "daughter" Yok"s -- our exchange student from Thailand -- second day of the new school year, so Ram's by himself this day. The Nunnas are Yok's host family. Yok is the nickname of 15-year-old Jareonrat Chinpathirunkul.

 

Ram found a seat with Tom and Jim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Centerville Rotary Club met at Yankee Trace at noon for the weekly meeting. President-Elect Frank Perez led the Pledge of Allegiance; Harvey Smith gave the prayer, asking for God's blessings on the people who suffered from the recent rash of tornados and those killed or wounded in the mass shooting in the Oregon District of Dayton. The singing of God Bless America seemed to have been started by Vice President Brian Hayes.

 

Menu this week: Half a sandwich with chips and fruit, and a variety of pies.

Menu next week: Sponsor thank you dinner from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. To be catered by Carrabba's.

 

Guests this week: Our exchange student from Thailand, Jareonrat Chinpathirunkul, otherwise known as Yok,was not here this day, but we need to learn her name; our guest speaker, Beverly Horstman; Washington Twp. Fire Chief Scott Kujawa.

 

 

President-Elect Frank Perez presided over the meeting.

 

 

President-Elect Frank Perez thanked our greeters, Deb Dulaney and Jim Briggs.

 

He said he visited with Don Overly recently and learned that his wife Dottie is not doing too well, though she's been doing activities at St. Leonard.

 

Adam Manning is heading up the Pancake Breakfast Committee and said the next meeting will be in two weeks.

 

President-Elect Perez said volunteers are needed to help stuff envelops with the tickets members need to sell for the Pancake Breakfast. 25 to a packet. Adam Manning was among several others who remained after the meeting to help Harvey Smith stuff the envelops. 

Frank said the Boomerfest was a big success with Rotarians helping with the handicapped parking and manning the Rotary Booth, with several prospective new members, and lots of good music.

Frank asked people to sign up for the Aug. 22 dinner, so they know how many will be coming. They want to thank the sponsors and encourage them to stay with us. Adam Manning will be arranging the dinner, he said.

Frank said the District Trilogy will be Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. at Normandy Church. Topics will include the Youth Exchange, Membership, the Foundation, etc.

He reminded everyone that Sept 16 will be our next social mixture.

The next Board meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Park District Headquarters

 

Our first service day will be Tuesday, Sept.17 with BOGG.

Frank mentioned that the ceremony that will make Sofie Ameloot a new U.S. Citizen takes place at 2 p.m. today at the Courthouse in downtown Dayton. She will have a dual citizenship, one from her native Belgium, and one from the U.S. Congrats, Sofie. And welcome to the crew.

 

Frank reminded a number of times that August 22 will be the Sponsor Thanks dinner at Yankee Trace from 6 to 8 p.m. Sign-up sheets were on the tables to see how many members plan to attend. Spouses are welcome.  

 

President King noted at a past meeting that on Sept. 12 we will have a visit from District 6670 Governor Sigrid Solomon.

 

 

HAPPY BUCKS go this quarter to Operation Warm, which provides new coats to area needy kids. Hannah's Treasure Chest works with us to provide the names and sizes for the coats needed as gathered from area social agencies.

 

Challenge Alert: From Erich Eggers last week..He said: I wanted to give an update on Project Warm.  We collected $505.00 on Thursday which is good progress toward our goal but we are running behind.  One of our members approached me after the meeting and offered a challenge to our Club.  He is willing to match up to a $1000.00 of our happy bucks next week.  Lets see if we can get a $1000.00 in happy bucks next we so we can add a total of $2000.00 to Project Warm. How's that for a great challenge!

 Gerry Eastabrooks started the giving and Brian Hayes followed suit, saying his coat was for his youngest child going off to college, which would probably drain him of future loose change.

Coats came from many, with oohs and ahhs came when multiples were mentioned as Terry gave for 5 coats and Doug gave for two, and Dan gave for five, and Dale Berry gave for two and Ron Hollenbeck gave for five, and Arnie for two and a half, and Sury for two, and Dick Hoback for five, and Joyce Young for five, and Kitty and Irene for two. Many single coat buyers added to the challenge bringing the total to more than the $1,000 challenge...Great job all. This Rotary shows it can be done, Many have already given for multiple coats, and this certainly adds to the number of coats that can be purchased. We thank the challenger for his/her generous gift, and the children that will be warm, especially if we have a winter like the last cold one.

Some members said they were just happy, and others lauded their offspring, Sally saying she has a grandson starting college in Florida, Dan talking about his new independent financial venture, Ron mentioning a story about some Rotarians being visitors to a Rotary meeting, with one from Brazil, with whom they ended up exchanging flags, etc...and none knowing how to get to the meeting they were going to. Several gave for Sofie becoming an American citizen and for our guest speaker.

Harvey gave for his oldest granddaughter getting engaged and asking him to come down and perform the wedding ceremony. Someone asked if they offered to pay his way, and he said no, and that he was actually helping pay for the wedding. Brad Huffman said his youngest was now off to kindergarten, and Jeff Senney mentioned someone opening a law practice in Troy, while Tom Groszko mentioned a Michigan 106 mile charity project that brought in more than $30,000 and had some other good news about his daughters achievements.

 

 

 

Vice President Brian Hayes introduced our speaker, using notes she prepared, noting that Better Angels was launched

in September 2016 in response to the polarization that seemed to be growing significantly 

as we moved toward the November elections. This small, bipartisan group felt the need to try

and open up communication between Red and Blue citizens.

 

As we look back now on the last presidential election as well as the mid-term elections, many

of us are fearful that we are becoming two Americas, each angry with the other side and neither trusting in basic humanity and good intentions. Better Angels' goal is to help us see each other as human beings and try to break down the barriers that are leading to this polarization.

The first Better Angels Red/Blue Workshop was held in Lebanon, Ohio, in April of 2017. The goal was to see if seven Reds and seven Blues from deeply divided perspectives could go through a communication workshop to help build a better understanding of each other. Based on that successful experience, a bus tour began taking the mission of Better Angels to other states.

As a bipartisan citizen's volunteer movement Better Angels is now working in all 50 states with more than 8,000 members.

 

Beverly said she retired in 2018 and wanted to do something that made a difference. She said she's from Springboro, and first became a moderator for Better Angels and is now a coordinator.

She said the name Better Angels came from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address in 1861.

He showed that people needed to look at one another as individuals. Her goal is to triple the

membership of Better Angels in 2019.

 

She talked about the need to fix the incivility of humanity.They hope to unify the United States again starting on the ground floor level, she said. There is a need to build community, she said.

They have workshops to get the Blue and Reds to communicate with one another and see

how much they have in common. The goal is to create tighter community relations, she said.

They try to build local alliance groups that meet monthly. There are alliance co-chair leaders.

One Red and one Blue, she said. They focus on community issues. They try to break down

stereotypes and build trust.

 

To get more information you can use www.better-angels.org

The state coordinator is horstman.bev@better-angels.org

A workshop will be held Aug, 20 in Columbus and another Aug. 24 in Lebanon.

 

 

The Rotary meeting was adjourned with the reciting of the Four-Way Test