August 22, 2008 Meeting

Pledge Song Invocation

President Dave Lindsay led us in the Pledge of Allegiance; Maestro Marie Stultz, on this beautiful day, chose “America the Beautiful” for the song of the day; and Ray Cannon, one of the classiest gentlemen in our club and in all of this beautiful country of ours, delivered an eloquent invocation.

Guests and Visitors

A very distinguished guest, John Dugger, one of the original Charter Members of our club thirteen years ago, joined us from Gloucester.  Guest speaker John Hess; Brian Maneer; the beautiful dynamic duo, Kathleen and Caroline Buck; Robert “Robbie” Evans (one of my all time favorites), who is starting first grade next week.  Grandmother Paula Evans and all of us will miss seeing Robbie regularly; and Leah Spencer, who has grown from the nickname “Fruity Pebbles”, when she first started coming to meetings to an attractive, mature teenager.  Yet another reason for Daddy Mark to worry about boys coming around…Goodness, he will be tearing his hair out…O.K. he has already done that.

Announcements

President Dave proudly and gratefully announced Gail Jackson-Blount has agreed to serve on the Andover Rotary board of Directors, and will also become the Clubs Director.

Ray Cannon had 2 requests:

1. Members to sign up for the “potential” Andover Education of the Year Committee, a low cost non-political proposal that Ray wishes committee input on.
2. The formation of an Andover Rotary by laws review committee.

Sign up sheets were passed around for volunteers on both.

• On the sign up sheet theme, Lazarus House Soup Kitchen workers for the first Wednesday of each month from September 2008 till June of 2009 were requested, and the club, God Bless you all, responded big time!!!
• Pause…drum roll…cymbals… neon lights…’ta da.  Peter Cotch spoke on the Fall Fund Raiser.  There will be a committee meeting immediately after this meeting so the meeting on Friday, September 5^th, will most likely have more finalized details but for your reading pleasure the following are some of the details:

Date:  Friday, October 24, 2008
Time: 6PM-11PM
Theme: “Endless Summer”- I like it!!
Tickets: $50.00 per person
Location: The Old Town Hall-(doesn’t get much more Andover than that)

Other Good Stuff

The band has been booked-eat your heart out Beach Boys

Added attraction this year:

200 $100.00 raffle tickets-Grand prize- A trip to Crete (Thank you Helen Nicolopoulos) or $5000.00 cash. 1 out of 200- a lot better than the 1 out of 17,000,000,000 lottery chances.

Needed!!!
Live and Silent auction items-From everyone!!
Sponsors
Rotarians to Chair and serve on various committees, so contact Peter Cotch or Dave Lindsay A.S.A.P. if you have not already signed up for a committee.

Speaker John Hess

John Hess, an accomplished professional who has served Andover with class distinction and unselfish service, both as a member of the Finance Committee and ten years as a Selectman, spoke on the value of and need for volunteerism and commitment to our town of Andover.

Rather than promote his distinguished record of service to Andover, John chose to salute other examples of volunteerism and commitment including:

1. The Andover Rotary’s (and Mark Spencer and Joan Johnson’s efforts) Citizens Who Care program.
2. The Andover Rotary’s (and Susan Big, Alan Michel and many others) STOP-Stop Teasing Other People anti-bullying program
3. The Conservation Zoning, Library (and many others) volunteer town committees
4. The PTO, the coaches (in countless town athletic programs).  The volunteers at Wingate Nursing Home, etc. etc…  basically John Hess was saluting and thanking Andoverites who take the time to make a difference.

John then asked how the Andover Rotary felt about the town meeting form of government.

Mark Spencer-  As shy as he is, brought up (in this recording secretary’s opinion) the fact that only 40% of the registered voters regularly attend town meetings.

John responded with the statistic that only about 20% of Andover voters actually vote in normal (non-presidential, senatorial, etc.) elections.

After the speech, all of us Andover Rotarians felt strongly that we were fortunate to have John Hess as a leader of our town for the last decade.

Fines and Happy Dollars

Howard Perkins, past president, Vietnam Vet, gentle giant, esquire extraordinaire and all around good guy with the exception of giving only 2 dollars (to be fair that’s all he had) in honor of his 35^th wedding anniversary did a dandy job as Sgt. At Arms.

• For example, he fined everyone not going to the Patriots meaningless exhibition game…which was almost everyone.
• Happy Dollars flowed from:

• Marie Stultz in honor of her Opera company’s upcoming performance on October 19^th at Merrimack College.
• Paula Evans in honor of her and husband Dave’s 35^th wedding anniversary…unlike Howard- Paula sprung for the big bucks
• Donna Lee Rubin, was excited about the reopening (after two years of rehabbing her hip and other ailments) her antique store
• Peter Cotch on his 57^th birthday
• Rick Downey, who announced that him and his bride’s 2^nd child is due on March 18^th.  In honor of the potential St. Patrick’s day 2009 baby (which all Irish Americans like Dick dream about) Daddy Rick gave $20.00.  Obviuosly Paula and Rick are really showing Howard up.
• The Happy Dollars ended with many folks saluting our guest speaker and our charter member John Dugger.

 

No meeting on Friday, August 29^th- Labor weekend

Next meeting –Friday , September 5^th