Come join Niles Rotarians for Fellowship Fridays. Reach out to Sandi Pantages to find out the schedule and if you are interested in hosting one of the evenings at your home. Join us for a great way to get to know our members more intimately and enjoy good food, good drinks and great company!
Archives for April 2016
Social Media and the eClub of Silicon Valley
Would you like to have perfect attendance? Have a busy life? Well, now, especially new members, you can make up a meeting reach your 100% attendance for 3 months in a row. Seasoned members, want to follow Don Amsbaugh’s stellar record of attendance? Here is an easy way to do it.
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
Thanks to Rushton Hurley of the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley and his wonderful presentation at the Rotary District Conference 5170 in San Ramon regarding Social Media & Other Online Possibilities. He shared the power of doing free survey’s using Google Forms, creating open chats between members to discuss events (anonymously or otherwise). Great tools – thank you Rushton!
Niles Rotary Website wins the District Competition for Best Site
Oh the things you can do … On our new website!! Take a look and prowl around. You will be amazed at all that’s there, and it continues to build. Thanks to the very hard work of Paul Andrus and Lisa Stambaugh of Collective Discovery, we have a beautiful, interesting, and very functional website! And kudos to all who helped with this process, from Don Cole who has make the fiscal part work, to many others who provided content and guidance! As was pointed out in our club program on the website, it very much reflects the history and personality of Niles Rotary.
Want to pay your quarterly lunch invoice quickly and easily? Just go to the Members section, log into Clubrunner (our “office” behind the website), find and click on “My Billing and Account Balance” and voila, your invoice is right there ready to pay. A few clicks and you’re done! We will be able to pay our club dues in that fashion.
To register and pay for some of our club events, just click on the Register tab for the event. We registered Rotarians online for the Wine Steward event held April 24. Register for the District Conference, and other events as they are scheduled. There are quick links to Rotary International, the District, or Club Finder where we can easily find another Rotary club meeting to attend. On the front page, who are the people in the Meet Our Members section? And what do you learn when you click on their photos? Very interesting stuff! This changes every two months featuring prominent members, new members and members that have passed on (featured in B&W).
The History page now includes the texts of our two Twenty Five year history books, short articles on the years from 1988-2007, a list of our Niles Rotary club presidents from 1937 to date. There are pages with summaries of our local and international service projects, with some videos of those. The photo gallery links to our Niles Rotary Shutterfly page where our photos reside. On the News/Blog page, you can read about our Niles Community Park cleanup project minutes after it was completed (thank you Paul). Or, find back issues of the Pinion. And so much more … This is a fabulous tool for our club and our members!! Thank you everyone who made it happen. Sandi Pantages
Niles Rotarians Members Wine Steward Event
Held Sunday, April 24th Niles Rotary members enjoyed Old World meeting the New World in wines. Who attended? Niles Rotarians and dear friends. What was it? A mezzanine seat and two hours of fun interaction led by the Wine Steward himself, winemaker and wine educator – Jim Denham – Plus, delicious wine tasting with assorted cheeses, meats and homemade sourdough. It was a sold out event and when Niles Rotarians were asked whether they preferred old world wines or new world wines at the lunch meeting Thursday, April 28th, most said they just like it all! Thank you for your effort and hard work Chuck! Event Flyer
,Event Chair: Chuck Canada
President Lisa’s April Message
We kicked off the month with our Annual Richard D. King Area 3 Speech Contest. I love this event because the content of the speeches and the quality of the speakers never cease to amaze me! I found myself saying after each speaker, “This is the winner!” but in reality, they are all winners. Our Youth Service Director, Dirk Lorenz did an outstanding job in putting the event together. I look forward to seeing the finalist on May 1 at our District Conference and am again prepared to be blown away by the talent!
March 10:
For the month of March I had the honor of naming Rotarian of the Month – Don Cole. Don’s diligence and attention to details when it comes to the club’s finances are a key component of why Niles Rotary runs like a well-oiled machine! I know that the club’s finances will stay “on track” with Don’s eyes on the books!
We inducted new member Kimberly MacFarlane into the club with husband Steve and son Kyle present. It is bittersweet having Kimberly as a new member. We lost member (61 years) Don Amsbaugh last month, but are blessed to keep the connection of Joy Amsbaugh through her son Steve, who is Kimberly’s husband. Kimberly continued the new tradition of jumping right into her new role as a Rotarian by giving her Ice Breaker immediately after being inducted into the club! Another great addition to Niles Rotary!!!
At the request of District 5170, Foundation chair Ray Pedersen announced the Polio Plus “Flash” campaign asking every Rotarian to contribute $30 to Polio Plus, which would in turn be matched 2-1 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation so the total donation would be $90! When Ray asked who wanted to give $30, every hand in the room went up! Another proud Rotary moment!!!
Author Gisele Zebreoski talked about the Berlin Airlift in 1948, which delivered tons of supplies and saved thousands of lives. Ms. Zebreoski also spoke of some of the historical background that led to the Iron Curtain and the Cold War.
And what a surprise it was for me when Dirk wheeled in a huge birthday cake, complete with balloons as a celebration for my birthday! Thank you!!
March 17:
One of the highlights of our next meeting was the Ice Breaker of Aggie Freeman where she recounted her experience of visiting the all men’s Rotary Club of Hasselt Belgium. An enthusiastic Red Badge holder, Aggie made contact with the President of the club and gave them a big surprise when they learned that she was a female Rotarian!
Our program featured Irvington High School senior, Zainab Khan, who spoke of her experience of growing up Muslim in America. Her IHS Quest Project advisor, Jack Weinstein, interviewed her about her project and experience. What a poised young woman!
March 24:
Web designer Lisa Stambaugh, whose company is Collective Discovery, showed us our wonderful new website – it’s excellent! The site is so rich, with articles on our club history, the complete texts of our two 25 year history books, a list of all our club presidents, and more. It shows off very nicely the personality of Niles Rotary! And it is kept up to date with photos and blogs of our projects and activities, sometimes just minutes after the completion of the activity. Kudos to the team, led by Paul Andrus, who has made this website a reality.
And I had the honor of presenting a special acknowledgement pin to Rich Godfrey – Acts of Kindness pin for his helping a club member with house and yard work that she’d not been able to do.
March 31:
For the last meeting of the month PE Angus was at the helm while Audrey Kearns and I headed down to Monterrey Mexico, and from what I have heard of the sneak peak of 2016-2017 we are in for a fun year! Although I missed out on Angus’s meeting, I experienced the trip of a lifetime traveling to Monterrey Mexico with 28 other Rotarians from Districts 5170, 5160 and 5370. We were led by RI Zone 26 & 27 Director Brad Howard of Howard Tours, who has been on multiple trips to Monterrey. Trip highlights included making new friends with wonderful Rotarians from the Monterrey clubs of Santa Caterina, Nuevo Lion, and others in the area, participating in hands-on projects with other Rotarians, and ultimately helping to assemble and give out 350 wheelchairs that our District 5170 provided to those in need. It was an incredibly emotional and heartwarming experience that I hope to participate in again.
When we came out of customs in Monterrey we were greeted by a large group of wonderful Rotarians from several of the Monterrey area clubs. Many of our new friends joined us for dinner at our hotel the first night.
Day 2 – We had a group tour of Monterrey. At 12:30 we arrived for the lunch meeting of Nuevo Lions where we were enjoyed a wonderful lunch and Brad Howard was the guest speaker. Afterwards we were assigned groups and went out to visit some of the different projects that the host clubs were supporting. I visited the Red Cross facility, which the Santa Catarina club initially started to fundraise for in 2004, partnering with several clubs in District 5160 for matching DDF grants to build what was then a vision. Today this Red Cross facility successfully services many people in its district of Monterrey.
Day 3 – My group went to the hands on project at Comun Atie, a center that provides therapy for young adults with schizophrenia. It was a very special place where we learned from the clients how to make recycled paper into beautiful new paper that is used for book covers and invitations among a host of other things. The clients also do silk screening, sewing and embroidery of items to be sold for a donation to help run the center.
Day 4 (Saturday) – This was the highlight of the trip – the Wheelchair distribution. It was nothing short of an amazing experience. The anticipation was high as we rode on the bus from the hotel to the gymnasium to take on the job that we had come thousands of miles to do. We were greeted by many smiling faces and 350 boxes of wheelchairs waiting to be assembled. Brad Howard called us all together to give a quick demonstration of how to assemble the wheelchairs and then we were off in our self appointed groups! It was amazing! We started at 9am and by 10am, with the unexpected help of a dozen enthusiastic Youth Exchange students, all the wheelchairs were assembled in record time! The Rotary clubs of Monterrey were well versed in the distribution process of giving out the wheelchairs. People were called by number, lined up, the wheelchair size determined, and the individual placed in the wheelchair with a Rotarian from our group wheeling them to an are to take a picture in their new set of wheels. There were many tears of joy shed that day. Again, I look forward to reliving this experience and hope that every Rotarian will have the opportunity to experience participating in a project like this. Yet another reason I love being a Rotarian!
Day 5 – Early breakfast and off to the airport to head home! We had a jam packed itinerary and it all went by so quickly.
I can’t believe how much we did this past month and how fast it all went by. The reality of my presidency coming to an end is starting to set in. The count down has begun, 12 more weeks, but I will be in Seoul Korea for 2 weeks for the Rotary International Convention, so I will actually have only 10 more meetings to preside over. We have the Reverse Raffle coming up this weekend, as well as many social activities and community projects, and we will be wrapping up our membership drive, so I am very excited for what the next several weeks have in store for Niles Rotary!
Until next month…..
President Lisa
April 2016 Pinion
April 2016 Pinion
In this Issue
- On Track with President Lisa
- Community Service Activities
- From Chocolate to Icebreaker from Aggie Freeman
- Rotarians of the Month
- Wheelchairs to Monterrey Mexico