Weekly Bulletin - June 5, 2014 Meeting

Lotte Diomede’s son was born with hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and spent about 45 days in the NICU.  He was operated on at Boston Children’s Hospital while Lotte was still recovering from delivering him at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He is 13 years old now and has had many surgeries.  He doesn’t talk and is fed with a feeding tube.  He is on a seizure diet so he doesn’t need so much medicine.  He has about 13 specialists.  Lotte started fundraising for Boston Children’s Hospital to improve the facilities for the families.  However, she decided to start her own organization due to Children’s rules about donating money and directing funds.  She approached Sudbury’s Recreation Department about building a handicapped accessible playground.  They asked her to write a grant.  She did and they won the grant.  She raised an additional $240,000 in eight months to build the playground.  After this successful project, she and Susan Brown started Small Miracles in Life Exist (SMILE Mass), a 501 C3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing happy, healthy memories to families living with children or adults with disabilities.  SMILE Mass has donated 100 beach chairs to Cape Cod beaches that make it possible for disabled people to go to the beach.  They have also upgraded several resorts and hotels so that they meet and exceed the Americans with Disabilities Act Access Guidelines.  Now they are raising money to purchase a house on Cape Cod where families with special needs children can go on vacation.  For more information, go to: www.smilemass.org.

Next meeting on June 12, 5:45 p.m. at Emma’s Café, Dr. Al Tatarunis will speak on stress management.

Membership question for June 12: What is Rotary’s 3 part structure?

Hint: go to http://rotary.org/

Guests:

• Dean Benedict, Assistant Governor
• Susan Brown, SmileMass
• Lotte Diomede, SmileMass, speaker

Club Announcements:

• June Board Meeting:
  • New policies for evaluating donations and projects are on our website.
  • We have a placeholder for a district grant to benefit the RFK Children’s Action Corps in Lancaster to help fund a state of the art ropes course.  The placeholder is for the essential parts of the grant.  Other clubs may be interested in collaborating with us on this project, which will raise more money.  Mary Ann told us that there are also opportunities to volunteer at RFK. 
  • Slate of officers for 2014-2015
    President: Richard Simon
    President Elect: Jim Stone
    Treasurer: Ron Bott
    Assistant Treasurer: Jim Stone
    Executive Secretary: Ron Bott
    Secretary: Barbara Myles
    Immediate Past President: Laura Spear
    Director: Carol Toomey
    Director: Bob Johnson
    Director: Nanci Bishop
  • The bylaws were updated for three things: (1) addition of Assistant Treasurer as an officer, (2) removal of the exact amount of dues, and (3) language about one person on the Board has one vote, regardless of the number of positions s/he holds (this will also apply to quorums).
  • Visioning: We will have a three hour visioning session during the evening of September 25 to talk about the goals of our club and planning for the future.  The visioning session helps answer the question, “What’s our club about?”  It also helps evaluate whether we should take on projects that come our way.  Laura, Carol, and Karin are on the District’s visioning team.  Laura has already been to three clubs’ visioning sessions!
     
• Local projects:
  • Wings & Wheels:
    The 2014 season kicks off tonight!  Please sign up for the Nashoba nights (June 19, July 17, August 7, and August 28) online www.SignUpGenius.com/go4090D45AEA823A57-wings, or contact Laura.  BOSE is raffling off an AV20 aviation headset worth $1049.  We get the proceeds.  See the website for rain cancellations, schedule, etc.: www.WingsandWheelsMA.com.  We will accept sponsors.  Contact Matt or Laura if you have a potential sponsor for follow up.
  • RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) Conference: Volunteers are needed to help at the RYLA Conference over the June 27-29 weekend at Worcester State.  Contact Bob to volunteer!
  • Spirit of Hudson is August 16. Nanci reported that $7,500 has already been raised! Contact Nanci to help plan, volunteer or find sponsors for this event.
  • Healthcare Fair on October 20 at NRHS!  It will be a Reality Fair with healthcare providers in attendance.  Contact Jim for more info.
  • Women in Rotary 25^th anniversary bash is postponed to the fall: Contact Natascha for more information.
     
• International projects:
  • We Are One project: See page 14 of the June 2014 issue of the Rotarian for a description of our dental project in the Dominican Republic with the Rotary Club of Santo Domingo Innovador! 
     
• Foundation Minute: Richard showed us a video about the NICU project at U. Mass. Memorial Hospital as an example of what we can do as a district grant.  For more information, go to www.nicviewrotary.org.
   
• Membership Minute: This week’s question was, “What is the mission of the Rotary Foundation?”  The answer is: The Mission of The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.
   
• Member Announcement: Next year Laura will be the District Public Image Chair!
   
• Dues news:
  • To cover RI and district dues, we’ll be increasing dues to $150/year ($75 semi-annually) starting July 1, 2014.

Other Club and General Rotary Announcements (Capitalized events earn points for our club!)

• May 16-18: DISTRICT CONFERENCE – Awards won by our club!
  • Rotary International Recognition of Membership Development Initiatives: Retaining existing members
  • Zone 24-32 Vibrant Club Award – This Award recognizes those clubs in Zones 24-32 that have demonstrated that they have followed and implemented at least 7 of the Best Practices like those suggested in the Rotary be a “Vibrant Club” Leadership Plan and can also document 3 individual unique events/programs/projects that they believe keeps their club vibrant.  Our 3 events, programs, and projects: Reality Fair, Wings & Wheels, Spirit of Hudson
  • District 7910 Youth Service Award
  • District 7910 International Service Award
  • District 7910 Vocational Service Award
  • District 7910 Community Service Award
  • District 7910 Unsung Hero Award: Bob Johnson.  Through Bob’s support, our club has been able to accomplish much this past year.  He truly exemplifies Service Above Self, and we are honored to have him as a member of our club.
  • Rotary International Avenues of Service Citation: Rich Garcia.  Recognizing that the strength of the Rotary ideal is founded on the service carried out be club members worldwide, this citation program provides a means for Rotary clubs to personally recognize a member of the club for outstanding efforts in the five Avenues of Service.  The citation commends the service carried out by an individual Rotarian in the club, thereby reinforcing the importance which Rotary places on personal involvement of each club member in Rotary service activities.
  • Rotary International Presidential Citation with Distinction
  • District 7910 Rotarian of the Year: Karin Gaffney
  • Rotary International Service Above Self Award: Carol Toomey.  Rotary’s highest honor recognizes up to 150 Rotarians each year (this year only 125 winners out of 1.2 million members) who demonstrate their commitment to helping others by volunteering their time and talents.  The nominee must have demonstrated exemplary humanitarian service, in any form and at any level, with an emphasis on personal volunteer efforts and active involvement in helping others through Rotary.  Service rendered by the nominee through Rotary must have been on a continuing basis.  The award will not be given solely in recognition of one’s performance in an elected or appointed Rotary assignment.  Personal financial contributions to The Rotary Foundation or individual project are not relevant considerations for this award.

Non-Rotary/public announcements:

• Bolton Repair Café: Four members of our club, Richard, Bob, Chris and Laura attended the May 31 Repair Café.  We need more people who can fix electric items.  Bob fixed a slide scanner!
• Stow Blood Drive: June 7 from 8-1 at Church of Saint Isadore.
• Bolton 5K Road Race is June 14: Anyone interested in sponsoring, donating items to raffle, or participating go to http://bolton5krally.com/.  Proceeds will go to the RFK Center in Lancaster.  You can Like the Facebook page: Bolton 5K Rally.
• Bolton Conservation Trust dinner and auction: June 22, 5-9 p.m.  For more information contact agaffney@comcast.net.

Birthdays

• Chuck Budnick: June 22

Happy/Sad Fines:

• Mary Ann: Happy for her great Chicago trip!
• Bob: Sad that the rainy weather may cancel Wings and Wheels.
• Jim: Happy about the birth of his third grandson, Atticus, on May 30.
• Ron: Happy about the surprise 45^th anniversary party for his brother that he attended at Papa Razzi in Burlington.
• Barbara: Happy that she hired a new Reference Librarian.
• Rich: Sad because a dear friend passed away on Sunday.
• Chris: Sad that it is raining.
• Richard: Sad he has had trouble sleeping.  Happy that Dean is here.  Happy about his installation in two weeks as president of our club!
• Kelly: Happy about a new book that her organization is in, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries.
• Laura: Sad about the rain and that it will probably cancel Wings and Wheels.  We are getting more sponsors for Wings and Wheels.