Welcome new member Bridget Herzog to the Centerville Rotary Club!

 

Thanks to these newest Paul Harris Fellows from the Centerville Club! We appreciate your generosity!

 

 

 

 

 

Rotary's Theme for 2015-16

 

The GREETERS​​​: ​​​​​​​

​​​​​​

01/21/16 Phil Raynes and Dave Wolf

01/28/16 Mitch Biederman and Dan Sortman

02/04/16 Vas Appalaneni and Raj Grandhi

​02/11/16 Bridget Herzog and Jim Hester

02/18/16 Sivaji Subramaniam and Rand Oliver

 

If you cannot greet on the day assigned, contact Kitty and she will schedule a replacement.

 

 

Forty-two people showed up at club's first meeting of the new year. President Brad Thorp opened the Centerville Rotary Club meeting at The Clubhouse at Yankee Trace by leading the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Harvey Smith gave the prayer, and Brad led the singing of God Bless America. 

 

 

 

Our Greeters at the next meeting will be Jeff Senney and Matt Kuhn.

 

 

PDG Harvey Smith began the announcements by sharing with the members the news of the passing of one of our past club presidents, Dick Flagel. His memorial service was held Monday, he said. The Dayton Daily News carried his obit and noted in it that Flagel was a past president of our club.

 

President Brad Thorp began by calling Bridget Herzog to the podium for her induction as a new member to the club. Brad served as her sponsor.

 

Bridget noted that she is employed by St. Vincent DePaul downtown and has a degree in the Humanities from Antioch. She has a son who recently separated from the U.S. Air Force and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Welcome, Bridget!

 

President Brad called Ron Hollenbeck up to the podium to help recognize those who had new Paul Harris Fellow donations made at the end of the year, but were not at the Holiday dinner in December where members received their new pins. Brad noted that Ron, who was voted the Rotarian of the Year, should also be recognized for his work behind the scenes in setting up and organizing the Holiday dinner program.

 Harvey Smith was recognized as a major donor level one, now working on his second level. Erich Eggers is now a Paul Harris Fellow-Plus two; Dick Hoback is a Paul Harris Fellow-Plus three; Rand Oliver is a Paul Harris Fellow-Plus 4; Kim Senft-Paras is a Paul Harris Fellow-Plus 4; and Fred Weir is a Paul Harris Fellow-Plus 4.

 

Kim said the Interact Club at Centerville High School is working towards helping get a presidential citation. The New Generations criteria includes our sponsoring an Interact Club and having mentors for three Interacters. The club will mentor four. The Interacters and their mentors are listed below.

 

They are Martin Palovic; with Arnie Biondo as mentor; Shravan Kalahasty, with Ram Nunna; and Kaarthika Thakkar and Casey Swoboda with Kim Senft-Paras. 

 

 

 The Interact Club not only helped out the Eastmont School in Dayton with their book drive and reading program, but also is:

 

• Visiting Wright Brothers Elementary and Dayton Early College Academy to give them K-8 books and to read to the student sometime by the end of this month. In total, they have distributed over 8500 books to date.

• Developing their international project with Design Outreach

• Enlisting interested students for RYLA

• Ordered T-shirts for Club members and those shirts will be delivered next week.

• Co-Presidents Thakker and Swoboda will undertake to receive a 2015-2016 Presidential Citation for their club.

•  

Last year our club paid for T-shirts for the group, but the group said they want to buy their own T-shirts so the money can go towards those in need, Kim said.

 

 Youth Service

•  

   Educational Foundation Committee  

• A Scholarship applications were sent to the high schools in December.

• A The annual Meeting will be held on January 20 at 5:30 p.m.

​ Arnie Biondo thanked Harvey Smith for taking over as Youth Exchange Officer while he hosted Mato. He was not allowed to do both at the same time, he said. Now that Mato has moved to be with Kim's family, Arnie is back on the job and also learned that the southwest district might have eight to ten students applying to go abroad, as some of the original 11 have dropped out. There are eight right now, but two more, with one from DECCA, have submitted applications, he said. Thus far there is no one from Centerville High School, he said. He said the club has requested a girl for next year, and, oh, yes, he also found that he is now Outbound chair for District 6670 for Rotary. Good job, Arnie. He said his daughter is an exchange student in Brazil and is now on vacation for 30 days in Rio de Janeiro.

 

Boyd Preston passed around some thank you cards from recipients of our club's Adopt-A-Family gifts as part of the Centerville school program. The program helped 142 families and 327 children this year, he said.

 

Kim said Dick Hoback has offered to step up an take on the Education Committee's leadership and oversee the applications for scholarships from our club. 

Kim said she got a letter from a past scholarship winner, Aditi Singh, via e-mail thanking the club for the scholarship and detailing some of the many activities she has been involved in at the University of Pittsburgh. Kim said Eric Eggers contributed a check for $100 through a donation from some of his clients, which will help buy books that the club honors the scholarship winners with. 

 

Boyd said the club's community project involving giving books to Habitat families about managing and financing a home, and repairing a home, etc., working together with Project Read, is helping the needy and was well received when books were delivered last week.

 

Brad said he hopes to see 100 percent participation in March when the club holds its service day March 19, with an alternative day March 26 for those who cannot make the March 19 day. Club members will get to sign up for one of the numerous options, including Daybreak, House of Bread, Habitat, Hannah's Treasure Chest, the park district, St.Vincent dePaul, etc. Most will take three to four hours of service that day. 

 

Brad said the club is working to get a presidential citation for meeting certain Rotary standards, and part of that would mean bringing in an additional female member this year. 

 

Brad showed two videos with the help of video master Peachy Metzner on the work being done on the international level by Rotary. One showed the efforts Pakistan Rotarians are making to help rid that country of Polio and one was a one-minute report from Bill Gates thanking Rotarians world-wide for helping contribute to the eradication of Polio. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has offered to triple every dollar donated and has already contributed several million dollars in the effort to rid the world of Polio.

 

 

 

Sgt.-at-Arms Erich Eggers had no time to collect for Happy Bucks, but John Beals won the 50/50 raffle.