President Mike Markovitz brought the meeting to order at 12:15 PM at Purkey’s Pink Apple with Norm Werkheiser leading the Pledge of Allegiance and David Wilson giving the Invocation.

 

 

Laszlo Varga - guest speaker - Family Care Plant Manager, Procter and Gamble Paper Products Company
David Weingust – GEM 104 - guest of Mary Tempest
Andrew and Kike - exchange students

 

 

 

The 5^th grade DARE graduation will take place on Friday May 31 at 1:30 PM at Middle School. Rotary supports the graduation activities by paying for the t-shirts presented to each graduate and providing the prize for the winning essay.

 

 

Pres. Mike will present a $500 check to the Special Olympics on May 31 at 10 AM at Memorial Stadium for their track and field event.

 

 

At the request of Rotarian Cammie Anderson, who is the Drug and Alcohol Prevention Officer for Wyo Cty, please take a few minutes to fill out the Luzerne/Wyoming Co. Prevention Needs Assessment Survey. The link to the survey is: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe06AgDzbU5lwJtY6Kab8YfTZIkfAPe4EY0peZuq3p4-na8_g/viewform

 

 

The next Membership Mixer Event will be tonight May 30th from 6pm – 8pm at Bogey’s at Shadowbrook Inn and Resort.

 

 

The Next Flash Meeting will be next Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 5:30pm at Bogey’s Restaurant. This will be the Last Flash Meeting under Mike’s Presidency.

 

 

Our Officer Installation and Awards Banquet will be Thursday evening, June 20^th, starting at 5:30 PM at Shadowbrook.  There will be no noon meeting on that date, nor Flash Meeting that evening.

 

Please contact Francine Kanyok with any setup questions / ideas / etc.  A sign-up sheet will be started for next week’s meeting.

 

 

Please consider having your photo taken with the I am Rotary sign for Sam to use on Facebook along with a few sentences about youself.

 

 

Kike – attended his track and field senior night and said goodbye to the senior competitors. The team ended at 2^nd in District 2.  He did great in his competitions. He recently attended a 2-day Rotary orientation with all the District exchange students.  Our exchange students participated in a gun shoot at the Gun Club at the invitation of the Wyalusing Area Rotary and Kike won a trophy. He also went to the TAHS prom.  He gave his farewell speech at TAHS and spoke about his experience in the area and at school.

 

Andrew – He attended many of the same events as Kike.  Yesterday, he did his senior speech and also a presentation in Wyalusing. He finished all his finals, even though some teachers didn’t want him to take finals, since he had 100% up to now.  He has been doing karate with his host family. He did not participate in any school sports, but did do lots of computer and coding work this year.

 

 

 

They are currently working on setting up the Late Spring/Early Summer Rotary Trip and upcoming Mixer and Officer Installation and Awards Banquet.

 

 

Next Meeting will be Monday evening June 3 at 6 pm at the Tunkhannock Library.

 

 

This year Founder’s Day will be Sat. June 22. As we get closer to the event, George will need at least 6 volunteers for 2 hr shifts at the Rotary booth and also need help with set up and break down of the tent.  A sign-up sheet will be circulated at the Jun 6 meeting.

 

 

The Fireworks will be Wed evening July 3^rd at Memorial Stadium. Rain date is July 5^th. Harry needs someone to help with simple, brief grant applications to get funding from some local companies to help support the Fireworks.

 

 

Every year, the Tunkhannock Rotary presents $1,000 Academic and Vocational Scholarships to 2 graduating TAHS seniors, who not only excel academically, but also show strong commitment to service to their community, church or school.  On Senior Night May 23, Rotary Scholarship Committee Chair Terri Detrick had the pleasure of presenting the academic scholarship to Marina Welles and the vocational scholarship to Avery Billings.  Congratulations to the recipients and best of luck in their future endeavors.

 

L to R: Marina Welles, Scholarship Chair Terri Detrick & Avery Billings

 

 

See the forthcoming June District newsletter for information on the various events and activities happening in District 7410. Please support our fellow Rotarians at other clubs in our District for their fun upcoming activities/events.

 

 

If you want to gift a Paul Harris Fellow to family or friends using 1,000 of your Foundation points, please let Sam or myself know, so we can send you the points transfer form or fill it out for you.  You will need to sign and send off/email to the Rotary Foundation ASAP to have the materials for presentation for June 20th.

Prior to adjournment, Norm Werkheiser led the recitation of the 4-Way Test by the attendees.

 

 

Laszlo Varga is the Family Care Plant Manager at The Procter and Gamble Paper Products Company. Mehoopany, PA with 2,000 employees. His is very passionate about his family (wife Sylvia and twin daughters), sports (individual races) and P&G. He has been with P&G for 22 years. He rides his bike to the plant in the morning and went swimming in Harvey’s Lake at 5:30 AM before work. He is also into photography and likes to stop to take interesting photos along his route.

 

In 1997, he started at P&G in Budapest Hungary, followed by moves to plants in the UK, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine before coming to US in 2015. It was a difficult political and social time in the Ukraine when he was there, which made his work there more challenging.

 

In his youth, he was part of a symphonic orchestra that traveled around Europe. During his teen years, he got into triathlon competitions. He then went to the oldest University in Hungary and studied chemical engineering and chemical engineering equipment design.  After university, he received a government award as an outstanding student and athlete.

 

Then he got very interested in how the mind works and changes. He and his wife had twin girls, which changed the way they managed their lives, including the challenge of dressing twins.

 

They came to the US in 2015, and he leads most of the Divisions at P&G Mehoopany and he is the overall site leader. 

Some illustrated some of the favorite quotes in his family. “You need to have a good self confidence in order to enjoy life.” and “You also need to be smart to achieve the most with optimum energy usage…..”

 

Laszlo’s compass for a fulfilling life include 5 points that he shares with his plant employees, especially the younger ones, regarding achieving balance in their lives.

 

The biggest challenge in his job is connecting with all his employees, since there are lots of techs to deal with the equipment issues etc. but he is concerned for the individuals in the plant and their issues. With so many employees, it is hard to make contact with all of them to understand their concerns.

 

Laszlo Varga