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by Terry Reed, Immediate Past President
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| Rotary Year 2008-2009 in Review |
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I said it at the beginning of this Rotary Year and I'll say it again - we have an amazing club!
I am so proud to be a member of the Rotary Club of West Reading/ Wyomissing, and I am honored to have served as your president for the past year. I want to thank each of you for giving me the opportunity to serve. While we didn't get done all of the things I set out to do during the year, I think we accomplished most of them, and that's a lot.
Our Club has a well-respected and accomplished past that we can be proud of and can build on. We think we built on that reputation this year. We do many great things in our community and also support Rotary International projects. We live the Rotary motto of Service above Self .
Through the year at weekly meetings, we attempted to provide a little Rotary education so that our members could gain a little knowledge of the Rotary world. We must constantly educate ourselves about how Rotary works and the good that it does.
Four of us, along with some family members attended Rotary Day at the U.N. in New York. Fantastic experience! I hope more will go this fall.
We held some social activities: Holiday Party (Thanks Hilda) and 76ers Basketball Trip (thanks Dave) to name a few, and we got Keith Kauffman started on developing a social activities team and organizing more frequent social outings for the coming year.
We brought in 6 new members since the beginning of the Rotary year - Pam Stauffer, Dottie Mattioni, Tim Malloy, Carol Wakefield, Gail Landis, and Tammy Claypoole-Smith. Welcome to all of you. While many service organizations are shrinking or having trouble maintaining a critical mass to do anything meaningful, we continue to attract people who want to serve. I am grateful for this. Looking to the new year, it looks like this trend will continue. We have a number of people in the membership pipeline. We are so fortunate to have Terri Simmons in the role of Membership Chair. Her talent is recognized around the District as she has worked with many clubs to boost membership.
Past President Dave Meas chaired our Fundraising Committee, and did an outstanding job in light of tough times. Through car washes, solar flashlights, and Rotary wheel print sales, as well as our annual chicken BBQ, we were able to raise enough money to continue our traditional projects and add some new ones.
We started the year with an amazing international friendship program Open World. Past President George Shoop led a committee that managed the logistics of hosting 5 Russian Judges and their interpreters here in our community. We thought that our club would be contributing several thousand dollars to this effort, and it turned out that we actually made money. The Russian visitors stayed at Alice Kutz's hotel. We held a special Rotary meeting to honor the judges and we entertained them at baseball games and a picnic.
We leveraged our club resources with those of The Rotary Foundation. First, we contributed $7500 to The Foundation through individual contributions and our club treasury. This contribution met our commitment we set at the beginning of the year. Norm Bailey and his committee did a remarkable job despite our difficult economic climate in directing our Foundation efforts. Thank you to everyone who contributed to Every Member Every Year. As you know, your Foundation contributions come back to our club in the form of grants that we use to do projects in our community and internationally.
With the help of Tom Schreck and Brittany Tranquillo, we applied for and were awarded a District Simplified Grant in the amount of $4000 to help the Borough of West Reading build and furnish a playground. We will be working on that project later in the year as the Borough secures additional funding through other sources. I set a goal of beginning an effort that would turn into a multi-year community project. We are hoping that this park project will turn into one which we can add to annually for years to come.
Through the leadership of Patrick Valekei, we worked with the Rotary Club of Reading in winning a Matching Grant to help children in South Africa. Our contribution was $1000.
And lastly, we were awarded a grant from The Foundation to carry out a multi-village project in India. With the help of The Foundation, we will be using $330,000 over 4 years to bring improved sanitation facilities to 15 villages, as well as provide nighttime illumination using stored solar energy, improve villagers' health and nutrition, develop, improve, and diversify the villagers' skills to earn a better livelihood through literacy and vocational training, and provide microcredit for starting and growing businesses. Sanjay Deshpande is leading the effort and will be organizing visits to India in the coming years to witness how well the project is working.
We continued our long history of supporting many community service projects, such as our Adopt-a-Highway Cleanup efforts along Paper Mill Road, led by Tom Frebel.
We continued our annual winter coat drive with Circle of Friends. Deb Evans picked up where our friend Don Weidner left off, championing this project that we renamed in honor of Don's years of work on this Rotary-sponsored program. In addition to the coat collection efforts, we contributed $600 to Circle of Friends.
We continued our annual support of the Hawk Mountain Counsel of the Boy Scouts of America through the sponsor of camperships by contributing $500. The club also committed $1000 for a Boy Scout program to provide character building, citizenship training, and personal fitness experience for elementary youth residing within the Reading School District. We are fortunate to have staff and board members in our club - Dan Adams, Bob Besecker, George Shoop, Darnel Daley, and Barry Schultz.
We did a project for troops at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Sam Ally and his wife Nancy headed an effort to supply a book to each soldier and their families, a book that dealt with the problems and issues associated with troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Our club contributed $1000 to the effort.
Karen Dewalt headed an effort to support the Children's Home of Reading in their summer camp program. The club gave $1000 and Karen is helping with the program.
Once again our club was the sponsor of the Reading Symphony Orchestra Youth Competition. The winner received a $1000 award. Rodger Krause coordinated.
In its second year, our Interact Club at Wilson High School is thriving. They continue to grow and have taken on some interesting and rewarding projects. And, we got them involved in some of our club projects. You must check out their website to see what they are up to; you can link from our home page.
Under the guidance of Terri Simmons and Don Moll we continued our support of Rotary's Camp Neidig, a leadership experience for high school students. Our club contributed $2400 to the program.
Hilda Letman attended and presented our annual high school scholarships (Allen Rank and William Kutz Awards) to seniors at Wyomissing and Wilson, respectively at their awards banquets. Each student received $500.
And we once again sponsored a team in the West Reading Summer Basketball League, our contribution was $285.
Jim Huber and the Vocational Service Committee continued our Vocational Service Tours to our members' place of employment. We honored 20 high school students from Wilson and Wyomissing Area high schools with our Student of the Month awards and a check for $50 to each student. We provided college students from our high schools with scholarships ($750) to help them defray the cost of textbooks (Peter Stralo Book Award).
With the leadership of Len Marrella and Kit Fegley and the support of many club members and in cooperation with other Berks County Rotary Clubs, the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, and the Center for Leadership and Ethics, we once again sponsored and managed our two leadership conferences at Penn State Berks, the New Generations Conference for middle school and high school students and the High School Ethics and Leadership Conference. Governor Bill Weber attended and spoke at the High School Conference.
For the second straight year we purchased a ShelterBox for $1000. We tracked our box as it was sent to a family in Congo who lost their home during a flood.
Once again we continued to support Rotary's PolioPlus program by contributing to help meet the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation's challenge to Rotary. We contributed items and services to our District Online Auction and earned our contribution to PolioPlus through these contributions.
So you can all clearly see that you Made Dreams Real for people in our local community and around the world. We helped to fulfill Rotary President D. K. Lee's dream of a happier, healthier, and more peaceful world.
One thing that I got started but we didn't have time to complete is the purchase and installation of Rotary signs at the entrances to West Reading, Wyomissing, and Spring Township. This will be a joint project with the Spring Township Centennial Rotary Club. I'll keep working on this in the coming year.
In the meantime, you'll want to watch the local billboards for Past President Tracy Hoffmann's smiling face, part of a Rotary promotion funded through a grant that the District received from RI.
Half way through the year, we asked Brad Dengler to fill the role of Vice President vacated by Brittany Tranquillo. Brad did a remarkable job taking over as Programs Chair. He stepped in, not missing a beat, and helped us continue our tradition of great weekly programs. And, without much prep, Brad took over the management of the Chicken BBQ and guided it to a successful conclusion. I'm so glad we agreed to serve.
At the District level this year, Sanjay Deshpande and I served on the Matching Grants Committee, Brittany Tranquillo and I served on the District Simplified Grants Committee, and Terri Simmons chaired the Membership Committee. Tom Frebel led the Reading Phillies Strike Out Hunger project. We had members attend a number of District-sponsored training sessions including the Foundation Workshop, the District Assembly, and the District Conference.
There are so many thank yous to be handed out, it's hard to know where to start. The Board of Directors - what a talented group of people!, the committee chairs, those who worked during our weekly meetings to make them run smoothly, the tedious jobs handled by Secretary Kit, Assistant Secretary Bob, and Treasurer Rodger, and everyone who pitched in. You all made my job easy.
I ask you all to give Hilda Letman our new president the support that you gave me. I am confident in her abilities and dedication to Rotary. She has some great ideas about how to make our club even better and she has my complete support.
As Immediate Past President, I will be working side-by-side with our Membership Chair, Terri Simmons and focusing on member retention. It is so important that each of our members feels a sense of self-fulfillment as a member of Rotary. And so, part of my job will be to make sure that you are doing what you would like to do, and in particular getting new members involved from the start. I encourage each of you to get involved as much as you want to be involved. Don't wait to be asked. Just jump in. The more you do, the more satisfaction you will gain from being a Rotarian.
On another note, I have accepted a larger role in District 7430. I am taking on the position of Assistant Governor and will be working with the six clubs in Area 4 which include Reading, Spring Township Centennial, Shillington, Conrad Weiser, and Mt. Penn, as well as our club.
Again, thank you for your support and encouragement, and I look forward to all of us working together to build an even stronger club in the years to come.
Yours In Rotary,
Terry
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