Norwich Rotary Club
April 24th, 2024
Location-Bella Fiore
THE RONE
Presiding: President Mary Richardson
Invocation: President-Elect Rodney Green
Fellowship: Nancy Gentes
Birthday’s: None
Anniversaries: None
Guests: Mary Richardson introduced Sarah Stover & Mike Matera introduced his son Jonathan Matera
Visiting Rotarians: None
Nancy’s fellowship was some trivia questions to try to stump our room full of smart Rotarians. Questions ranged on subjects featuring History, Geography, Sports and Entertainment. Sound familiar? Well many in attendance answered the questions correct! There’s no reason that our club can’t enter a very competitive Rotary Trivial Pursuit team in this year’s Trivial Pursuit Challenge to benefit Madonna Place!
Membership Minute: Ryan Telford stepped in for Stan who is still recovering from throat surgery. Ryan suggested that Rotarians consider inviting people from surrounding towns that do not have a Rotary Club of their own to join our club. Just some of the nearby towns without clubs are Lebanon, Lisbon, Griswold, Scotland, Bozrah and Colchester. Colchester used to have a club, so there may be many there who may be interested in taking a drive on RT-2 East for lunch and fellowship with all of us!
Announcements:
President Mary had the following announcements:
The Whisky, Wine and Cigar event is next week on May 1stat Bella Fiore. Only 20 tickets remain so don’t be left out! Tickets are on sale now $75.00 per person. This event will sell out! Buy your tickets TODAY! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/norwich-rotarys-whiskey-wine-and-cigar-event-tickets-792031346077 Our guest Sarah Stover from the event’s meal sponsor, Ed Muenzner, CPA, delivered a VERY GENEROUS $2,000.00 check to today’s meeting! THANK YOU!
The Rotary “Day of Service” will be May 18th. Last year over 11,000 meals were packaged for the Gemma Moran/United Way Food Center. This year Area Rotary Clubs hope to package double that number! 22,000! Mark your calendar now to donate a few hours of your time at the (NEW LOCATION) United Methodist Church in Gales Ferry. 11 Rotarians from our club have signed up to help out on that day, but there’s always room for more! 8:30am start!
Native Son/Daughter Lunch will be on June 5th. The Norwich Rotary Clubs and the Norwich Woman’s City Club are proud to announce the 2024 Norwich Native Son is filmmaker Andrew Gernhard of Synthetic Cinema International, LLC. Tickets are $40.00 per person and can be purchased here: https://www.norwichrotaryevents.org/event/norwich-native-son-award-presentation-honoring-andrew-gernhard-2/
The New London Rotary Club is holding a Rotary Night at the Lyman Allyn Museum on May 2nd. Contact President Mary if you would like to attend.
On June 20th from 1 to 3pm there will be a meal packing/storing event at the United Way/ Gemma Moran Food Center in New London.
Anyone knows of a Rotarian who has been ill, please let the Sunshine Committee know.
Anyone with spare clean egg cartons please give them to Bonnie Johnson to give to St. Francis Hospital. She brought cookies as an incentive to reward donors. Don’t forget to bring your clean egg cartons when you are finished with them!
Members are encouraged to fill out a donation form and donate to the Rotary Clock Project.
If you know of a speaker for one of our meetings, please contact Kevin Wickless or Alexis Kahn to get on the schedule.
June 19th will be our Rose Garden Luncheon.
June 26th will be our Change of Command Ceremony.
September 4th will be the Annual Golf Tournament! Brochures should be ready next week so you can go get sponsors and golf teams! Mark your calendar now!
The Board has approved the Membership Application submitted by Barry Shead for James Hyman, Director of Employment Services at The ARC of Eastern CT. 1st Posting.
Happy Dollars: Rodney Green
Rodney had some sad dollars to report that 2 weeks ago his great granddaughter’s father died suddenly from liver failure. The gentleman had known he’d been ill, but kept it to himself as to not alarm his family. He died only 2 days after being admitted to the hospital. It was a terrible shock to say the least. He had all his affairs in order. Rodney urged everyone to stop and think of how life can change in the blink of an eye.
Gary Young said he was grateful as while he was doing yard work a stick hit him right between the eyes. An inch either way…. Gary would have lost an eye. He said there will be a putting contest at the end of the meeting. $10.00 for 3 putts!
Kevin Wickless told a story of driving his riding lawn mower for a mile down the road from his house. Further than you think on a lawn mower! He welcomed Sarah Stover to the meeting. He was also happy to have lunch with one of our newest Rotarians Kristin, who also happens to be his wife! He mentioned that Kristin and Stan Lucas have something in common, they both attended UMass! Kevin also said he was in New Haven yesterday and there were tons of police cars about the area to keep the protesters from Yale in order. It was rather upsetting.
Pat Marshall never ceases to have an interesting story to share and today was no different! While she was driving down Interstate 395 she saw that a baby cow was stuck in the guardrails. She stopped her Jeep to give assistance to the poor cow that ended up being quite a difficult matter. With the aid of some other motorists, who were in the traffic jam that ensued, the poor cow was caught in time for the truck that was carrying the cow to return and collect the roving bovine! Our lives are so dull compared to Pat Marshall’s!
Mike Cooney said he was happy to have the news release out about the Native Son luncheon. He has been super busy as of late and is hoping to attend the Whisky, Wine & Cigar event next week. Golf season is now in full swing and he is busy managing 15 golf tournaments throughout the northeast on May 16th.
Andrew Nollman said he and his wife had a great time camping last weekend to celebrate the end of tax season. He welcomed Jonathan and Sarah to the meeting. He’s also excited to be picking what Patriot games he’ll be attending this coming season!
Mike Goldblatt said he was amazed at the number of panhandlers at a seminar he attended in Texas. Most only wanted a dollar and when he gave one of the panhandlers a fiver by mistake the guy asked if he wanted change! Mike is happy to be feeling healthy after a long stretch of feeling lousy. He then told a story of playing football at NFA as a freshman and Stan Lucas was a senior tight end at that time. Stan treated him very well, even when the coach sent Mike out to be cannon fodder in practice being a punt returner for Stan to tackle!
Weekly Auction: Kathryn Tracey will do the auction next week!
Lottery: Pat Marshall
Paul Gaffney, Rodney Green and our guest Jonathan Matera could not come up with the Ace of Spades!
Program: No program today.
The 4-Way Test was led by Bonnie Johnson and the meeting was adjourned at 12:50pm.