The meeting will be held both in person and via Zoom.
Watch for an email from the Club for Zoom access and
please note we use a recurring ID for your convenience.
Sergeant-at-Arms Report
Rotarians Present: 25
Visiting Rotarians: PDG Joanne Alfieri (Speaker)
Guests: None
Happy Dollars: 49
Raffle Winner:Arnie Goldman
Fines:None today.
Birthdays
None
Happy Dollars
Arnie Goldman gave $10 Happy Dollars as he wanted to explain his recent absences. Arnie is running for President of the American Veterinarians Association. He has been campaigning for the office, which involves traveling to different states and speaking to various state and local veterinarian groups. He most recently got back from Ft Worth, TX and recently was also in Lexington, KY. He also mentioned that there is a real shortage of veterinarians who are willing/able to take care of horses. Only 3% of students who enter veterinary school say they are interested in working with horses which drops to 1.7% by the end of their 4 year training. 4 years later only .75% are still working with horses. The work is difficult and sometimes dangerous, these students have a lot of debt and the money is in small animal work.
Tom Vorhees shared that his daughter, who lives in Ft Myers, FL is okay and her new house only had a few inches of water. Her old house, which she recently sold, is no longer there!
Peter Vignati reported how on how beautiful Elizabeth Park is now with the dahlias in bloom. Thursday he and Susanare off to Las Vegas for a Van Morrison concert.
Jolly Lux gave Happy Dollars twice during the meeting. The first was to talk about a recent donation of sports equipment which will both help keep the adolescents that they work with happy and also sports can be used to teach a number of leadership skills. The second time was to let us know that they medical mission she spoke about last week has been impacted by a recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda as a number of volunteers have been canceling.
Larry Sullivan's oldest granddaughter gave birth to twins last April. He will be getting to see them and hopes to be able to get a 4 generation picture.
Sue Budde just loves the month of October. Her new puppy, Willow, is finally settling in. Brian visited them for a week and has now gone back to CA. Jessica and her husband and their two kids are coming in. All good things happen in October.
Joanne Alfieri gave $10 Happy Dollars, as she was very happy to join us this morning. She mentioned a number of things particularly seeing Jolly again who had been a speaker at her Rotary Club and someone she hopes will come again. She also mentioned that she lives in a neighborhood that is often visited by bears, that she to love Las Vegas, and has 3 grandchildren.
Gary Roman gave 8 happy dollars in honor of the 8 volunteers who worked on the Veterans Base Camp project. The weren't able to finish the project and will be going back on 10/8. Speak to Gary if you can help that day.
Lou Daniels informed the club because of our work with the Veterans Base Camp, he was able to have his church, St. Catherine of Siena, to be going next week to completely renovate one of the camps cottages.
Phil Ferrari had 5 concerned dollars. Don McDonald a former member of our club now lives on Sanibel Island. The bridge is out and they don't know whether or not their house is still there or when they will be able to get back to see.
Gary Miller is heading to Cape May for an overnight and then going to VA Beach to attend the funeral of an old friend and Navy buddy, followed by some sightseeing and bike riding in PA.
Announcements
Calendar
Workday - Veterans' Base Camp - Saturday, October 8 - The work will focus on repairing and painting the deck. Sign up with Gary Roman or Gary Hyde.
Induction of New Members
None this week.
Awards
None this week.
Community and International Service Grants
None this week.
Timely Topic
Peter Vignati
Rotary International Information
Let's start with a few facts: Rotary International has approximately 1.4 million members worldwide, last year 47 Million volunteer hours were given by members, and Global Initiatives were funded to the tune of $333M in 2021. Just this past week, Rotary International President, Jennifer Jones announced a new $150M pledge toward polio eradication. As you know, Rotary members have been at the center of the worldwide effort to eradicate polio for more than three decades. Rotary launched PoloPlus in 1985 when there were an estimated 350,000 polio cases across more than 125 countries in one year. Since then, cases have plummeted more than 99.9%, sparing more than 20 million people from paralysis. Rotary has helped immunize nearly 3 billion children against polio,contributed more than $2.6 billion to global eradication efforts, and helped secure more than $10 billion from donor governments. We should all be very proud to belong to such an organization! As a reminder, World Polio Day is October 24, coming right up. Rotary not only is fighting to eradicate diseases such as polio, our newest cause is to protect our planet and its resources such as providing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene education, which are basic necessities for a healthy environment and productive life. When people have clean water and sanitation, waterborne diseases decrease, children stay healthier and attend school more regularly, and mothers can spend less time carrying water and more time helping their families. Through the WASH programs (stands for water, sanitation and hygiene), which has partnered with USAID, we assist communities and governments to plan, finance and deliver safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, while sustainably managing water resources. A good example is the outstanding work that our own Jolly Lux and her group are doing in Uganda to make a lasting difference in their local communities.
PDG Joanne Alfieri
Membership
Joanne is a member of the Rotary Club of Southington. Joanne maintained a 33 year career in the Financial Services Industry developing, coaching and leading teams in regional sales, for the 5th largest bank in the country. Joanne first joined Rotary in the 1990's but due to work conflicts and a relocation of her area of responsibility to New Haven, Joanne terminated her membership at that time. . In December of 2008, after retiring, she re-joined the Rotary Club of Southington under the classification of Real Estate Sales. Joanne has served as the President of her club in 2013-2014. Joanne was our District Governor for 2021 - 2022 and is currently serving as District Membership Chair.
Joanne brought a lot of material concerning the issue of membership to the club, which is being left with our membership chair, Peter Vignati. She noted that we are one of only 20 clubs out of 56 that have a membership chair. We are one of only 30 clubs that have a membership goal. The biggest concern that she has and we should have for our club is attrition. In 2018-19 we had 76 members, today we have 63. 65% of our club is over 60, with 35% over 70. The club in 2018 was 62% male and we are now 59% male. The district has lost about 400 members since 2018. While we need to actively be recruiting new members, Joanne emphasized that quality is important as we want members who want to be here and an active part of our work.
Members are attracted and remain when we have clubs with strong leadership, an active and intentional members, who are actively engaged in many projects and events with clear goals. An important was to reduce attrition, which can't be eliminated as members die or move away, is a strong onboarding process. She recommended that as part of our onboarding process, which we acknowledge is weak, that we consider an entrance interview as well as an exit interview. this can help clarify for us and the prospective member why they want to join, what they hope to gain from their membership, and learn what we have to offer. She also recommends that we assign the new member to our next service project so the get quickly involved.
One area she spoke about which generated some discussion and controversy was on the topic of the need to remain relevant and to be flexible. She applauded our hybrid meeting but also gave information on clubs that were less traditional in style then our club, including Impact Clubs, that only meet to plan projects and then carry them out, passport clubs where members attend other clubs routinely, interest based clubs, e-clubs, clubs with corporate memberships, as well as others.
We need to recruit at least 10 more active members this year, so we have our work cut out for us.
Special Announcements
None this week.
Mail Bag
None this week.
Photo Credits
Screen Shots by editor
Technology Credits
Zoom platform management expertise by Mike Mezheritskiy.
Editor's Notes
Submission Deadline: Members are kindly encouraged to submit all materials for each week's Early Riser as early as possible. Please note that some editions may be published and distributed as early as the Saturday following our meetings, and during those weeks further contributions to the Early Riser will be included in the subsequent week's edition.
“The FOUR-WAY TEST of the things we think, say or do”:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all Concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
.png)
