October 31, 2008 Meeting

Guests

In addition to de-facto member Dick Harrington, the Buck ingenues, Caroline and Kathleen came ready to trick-or-treat. William something-or-other, Mr. History, Don Robb and our long lost doc, George Chatson filled up two tables. Cole and Jason, transformed into Athos and Porthosand joined editor Aramis as the threesome named after a favorite Halloween candy bar.

Announcements

Alan Michel is busy writing the application for a District Simplified Grant. The grant is to start an "Early-Act" club at the West and the STOP program at the Shawsheen school. Bill Buck is rounding up pledges with which to purchase 300 turkeys for the upcoming Turkey Drive. Make a pledge and mark down November 21 at Marland Place as the place for the turkey assembly line. The folks at Marland have already pledged 50 turkeys.

If you haven't signed up to read to a Bancroft or West class as part of the STOP program it isn't too late. Just contact Bill. The volunteer extraordinaire also announced that, across the ocean, volunteers from all of Kenya's forty tribes are busy getting the Beverly school ready for students. To follow the progress of the school just log onto www.BeverlySchoolOfKenya.com.

David Lindsay showed off pictures of his new grandson.

Ray Cannon is plowing ahead with the Educator of the Year search committee and a revision of the club's by-laws.

November 22 is another date to mark. Homes for our Troops will be hosting its auction at the North Andover Country Club. Come Spring you will want to set aside date May 1 - 2 for the District Conference in Salem. For the big conference book a flight to England for June 21-24.

The Main Event - Endless Summer Recap

The man behind the big bash, Peter Cotch, recapped our Carribean soiree. Though many in the club pitched in to make the night a blast Peter singled out Helen Nicolopoulos for selling tickets, Jamie Lyman for the tropical party decorations, Matt Gold for the Pulitzer Prize caliber photographs and Paul Brown for taking care of the auction windfall. The entire event netted a cool $10,000 (estimated) with $4000 of that coming from the silent auction. Dave and Diane Sollars will be jetting to the Greek Isles following the drawing of their raffle ticket on Friday.

Honest feedback followed the accolades. Most agreed that Endless Summer could be a model for future fundraising evenings and several proposed the following changes to make it even better:

1. Start bidding with a minimum bid for each item.

2. The $100 cost of a raffle ticket was prohibitively high for some. Some added that we skip the raffle altogether.

3. We needed more lead time to secure sponsorships, sell tickets and organize the evening's activiites.

4. Food was in short supply. Food stations might be preferable to passed hors d'oeuvres.

5. The music was very loud and the acoustics of Old Town Hall exacerbated the problem.

6. The money that we raised did not help out Rotoplast and other key charitable activities.

With a few improvements we can all become bonafide parrot heads by this time next year.

Pledge, Song & Invocation

As a prelude to the night's witching activities Maestro Marie drilled Rotarians through two rounds of her Halloween song. Dick Harrington is the first guest since Rabbi Goldstein to lead us in a terse but meaningful invocation.

Sergeant-at-Arms

With the departure of the intrepid bucaneer trio, the stand-in reporter continued on with the notes, beginning with those offenders who failed to participaate in Endless Summer. Marie Stultz gave thanks for Jim Greeley and the Merrimack students , as well as Helene and Alan Michel and Matt Gold for their support of her Halloween extravaganza.

Matt praised all the organizers and was celebrating that his son Josh has joined the ranks of homeowners. Thanks to Peter Cotch for his outstanding efforts in putting forth the Endless Summer event came from Susan Big, Helen Nicolopoulos, Joan Johnson and Helene.

George Chatson reported that Vince Rubin is making good progress as he recovers from his recent stroke. Vince would very much enjoy cards from his Rotary friends. Address is 625 Great Pond Road, North Andover, 01845.

Peter Cotch praised by name many of those who worked on the fundraiser, including Paula Evans, Cheryl Callahan, Jim Sutton, Richard Brenner. Jim praised George Chatson for being his hero. The usually miserly Paul Brown has become remarkably generous of late, dropping in $10 for the bar at the event closing too soon, and another $5, asking George something about his political aspirations re: the McCain mask he wore on his arrival.

Dave Sollars also added a $10 to the burgeoning bag, recognizing Peter, George, the Pats, and his recent birthday. Alan admitted to having fun at the dance, and Jamie Lyman praised the loud rock & roll, which proves you can't please all of the people all of the time.

A last $10 came from our ever-optimistic esteemed President, David Lindsay for a great event, fun time, good P.R., thanks to all, glad to see George, and Happy Halloween!