Meeting of August 5, 2015

By John Hammer

Charlotte Shelburne Rotary

 

Wednesday, August 5, 2015, 7:15 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

 

President Trafton Crandall opened the meeting with the Pledge. Kris Engstrom followed with a devotional poem.

 

Guests: Charlie Kofman, Rotary member from the Burlington Rotary Club

Gail Deuso, Executive Director Upstate NY/VT Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

 

Upcoming:

August 12 – Committee Meetings

August 15 – Shelburne Day

August 19 – Wendy Bratt – Charlotte School Mentoring Program

August 20 – Board Meeting (7:30 AM)

August 26 – Doug Bishop – Burlington YMCA and past member of Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary Club

September 2 – Laura Subin – Vermont Coalition to Regulate Marijuana

September 11 – Hands to Honduras – Tela Latin Dance Party

October 3 – Rotary Leadership Institute

October 23 – Car Raffle

October 25 – Halloween Parade

 

 

Light the Night Walk - Charlie Kofman rose for the second year in a row to ask for volunteers to form a team to walk in the Light the Night Walk down Church Street on Friday, September 25 at 6 PM. Meet at Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium. He challenged the club to mount a team as we did last year and to help raise funds for finding a cure to both of these very serious diseases, Leukemia and Lymphoma. Details can be found at www.lightthenight.org

Charlotte Senior Center BBQ – John Hammer reported that a sufficient number of volunteers have signed up for help at the Charlotte Senior Center Annual BBQ on August 21^st. He will coordinate up until the day but will be unable to attend during the event. The Senior Center will have Mike Lynch (non-Rotarian) serve as coordinator on site. John will send an Email within a day to all who signed up with details.

 

Shelburne Day – Linda Gilbert circulated a list to sign up for volunteers to help at the Rotary/Hands to Honduras Tent. Many of the slots have been filled, but there are still a few open.

 

Letters Received – President Trafton mentioned a letter from Katie Mann from Watersheds Vermont inviting all Rotary Clubs to participate in September’s designated Vermont’s River Green-up Program. She is soliciting Rotary clubs to form cleanup teams. Perhaps this could be considered along with the frogbit program.

Louisa Tripp, District Governor is planning a district-wide Polio Plus Event on October 24^th. President Trafton suggested that perhaps the Car Raffle scheduled for October 23^rd might include a Polio Plus component. The Halloween Parade, which occurs on October 25^th, might also provide a great opportunity to advertise the program.

A Rotary Leadership Institute session is scheduled for October 3 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. John Hammer, who has attended all three sessions, pointed out that he had found the RLI better than PETS for understanding the full nature and organization of Rotary International and its foundation. He highly recommends it as a program where one can learn pretty much everything you need to know as a president or a future leader in Rotary. The District is offering to pay the $75 registration fee for at least two members from each club in the district.

 

Bowlathon – Ric Flood reported that checks are still coming in with $400 in the last week.

 

Shelburne Veterans’ Memorial – Sam Feitelberg announced that the brick sales have closed with over 300 bricks having been sold. This was many more than was originally planned. The plans for the dedication service in September are going extremely well. The flagpole is being installed this week.

 

New Members – Ric Flood pointed out that in this Rotary year we have started out with a bang, getting four new members in the last three months – Barbara Comeau (June), Alan Bates (June), Ron Keen (June), Michael Abrams (July) and he hinted that we might get Charlie Kofman in August. He challenged all members to find a new member for each month of the coming year. In a related action, President Trafton presented Lara Keenan with a Member Sponsorship Pin.

 

Sergeant at Arms – Evan Webster presiding. Asked for stories in celebration of the Vermont summer tradition of Creamies.

 

Ric Flood – Spent the last week shuttling between their summer cottage on the lake and Village Scoop for ice cream and Broad Acres for Creamies.

Kris Engstrom – Thoroughly enjoyed her recent Bonnie Raitt concert. Has enjoyed her maple Creamies already.

Evan Webster – Fined for having survived his fiancé’s mobile phone malfunction – it snapped in half. He was not able to describe the circumstances under which the malfunction occurred.

Phil Denu – Has just become a great, great grandfather!

Roz Graham – Waxed enthusiastic about Creamies at the New Leaf. She reported that tonight is the start of Shelburne Farms hosting the Wednesday concert series in the Farm Barn.

President Trafton – Just returned from eight days on the beach. He gave a shout out for his chickens that produced four dozen eggs which were distributed among the members.

Steve Dates – Reported a disaster when upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Unable to return to his old Window programs.

Howard Seaver – Reported on the completion of a wonderful visit by his daughter and grandson last week.

Charlie Kofman – Thanks for such a warm welcome and his invitation to join the club.

Carol Obuchowski – Had a MacDonald’s Creamie (boos heard all ‘round). Not happy that last week she was stopped by a monsoon-like storm near Brookfield. It was so bad that all traffic stopped on I-89 until it passed.

George Schiavonne – Welcome Charlie Kofman.

Linda Schiavonne - Welcome Charlie Kofman

Linda Barker – Helped with the Dragon Heart races on Sunday and praised the event.

Michael Clapp – His boat, Pass Off, did well last Saturday in the LCYC Ladies Cup Race.

Denny Bowen – Had no problems at all upgrading to Windows 10. Offered to help Steve Dates.

John Dupee – Missed last week.

Dennis Delaney – Has been enjoying a visit from his seven-year-old granddaughter. When he asked her if she wanted $5, she said sure. After Dennis counted out four-dollar bills, she caught him and asked where her fifth dollar was.

Lara Keenan – Paid fine because she has already had “Too many Creamies this summer.”

Richard Fox – Just back from a week on the Cape (Cod) where his daughter has now discovered the Red Sox much to her mother’s chagrin.

Alan Bates – Is a new Vermonter and has only just discovered the tradition of the Creamie. Happy to have his daughter visiting.

Bill Root – A BIG fan of Dakin Farm Creamies.

Pat Sokolowski – Supportive of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Charlie Kofman. She plugged Cookie Love Creamies.

 

John Dupee won the draw. Gail Deuso picked the Three of Diamonds. Rollover the $376.50 pot.

 

Speakers. Classification Talk by 14-year member Alan Hathaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan’s introduction was met by a pack of Alan’s great friends getting up and leaving the table at which they had been with Alan. It should be said that they returned immediately, but managed to bring about a lusty burst of laughter from the whole club. Alan began with a story of how he was recruited to join Rotary. It seems that his office was located over that of long-time Rotarian Rae Sopher. When his daughter got a Rotary scholarship fourteen years ago, Alan was not a member. When she came in to be presented to the Club, Alan accompanied her. Rae recognized him and left a Rotary application on his desk. It lay on his desk for weeks. Finally, he took it home and his children saw it lying on the desk with an erroneous category of Computer Engineer (Rae thought he was a computer engineer because he always saw Alan sitting in front of a computer when in fact Alan was and is a consulting engineer.). Alan’s kids called him on it and he joined. As Alan was telling this story about five weeks ago, Lara, who was sitting at the table (The ol’ fogies’ table), told him that this was worthy of a Classification Talk. He agreed and so here he is. So his warning was to be careful what you say if Lara is at your table.

Alan, who is originally from Lynne, MA, graduated from UMass at Amherst (’75) in Civil Engineering. He came to Burlington and GE after leaving Northeastern University graduate school while working at a part time job. Met George Schiavonne and ended up at UVM Graduate School in Mechanical Engineering.

While in Burlington he met his wife to be, Betsy.

After five years, he got tired of working for a ‘big company.’ He moved to Structural Dynamics Research Corporation in Cincinnati, OH. They were a much smaller company, but it had the largest shake table in the world and so it presented a great opportunity for him. Six months after he joined, GE bought a majority share in the company. He lasted there for five years before moving to upstate, New York.

During the two years he spent in Schenectady, NY he worked at the GE R&D Center on all sorts of things from jet engines to dishwashers to light bulbs. It wasn’t long before he got a call from a start-up consulting company back in Burlington. They were engaged in engineering problem solving and worked on everything from baby rockers, hearthstone wood stoves, Dr. Power Equipment, and granite rollers for Rock of Ages (did you know that wet paper won’t stick to granite?). He even consulted with a firm of lawyers who advised him, “Don’t write anything down. Don’t print anything out. Results must remain in your head.” The problem is that good engineers pride themselves on writing good reports.

Another interesting product he worked on were arrows being used by the US Olympic Archery Team. They were not shooting straight. The manufacturers claimed that it was not their product. It turned out that through testing with archers, using both mechanical releases of the nocked arrows and finger nocking, that the fingers did not release evenly and that the flight of an arrow was wildly affected thereby. The arrows were thus stiffened.

In the last five years he has taken up interest in the game of pickle ball. This is a new game using paddles with Whiffle balls. The court is about the size of a badminton court and pickle ball is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. The sport is exploding. 68% of participants are over 60. He acquired a company and now has a hobby/business in which he makes the ‘Whippersnapper’ Kevlar pickle ball paddle. It is slowly being taken up and Alan hopes to break into the big time pickle ball market.

As a matter of note, pickle ball was invented in 1965 out in Washington State. A number of politicians began by playing Ping-Pong with a Whiffle ball and badminton net. Their dog kept retrieving the balls was named Pickles. Shelburne has two courts and Charlotte one. There are 36 in the Burlington area.