President Sandra Lane brought the meeting to order at 12:15 PM at Purkey’s Pink Apple with Norm Werkheiser leading the Pledge of Allegiance and Jon Buxton giving the Invocation.

 

 

Ad Buck – Terri Detrick - Interfaith Board looking for new Board members and volunteers.

 

 

Past President Mike Markovitz gave out the last award from his year as President. Mike commented: “Not only have you taken on the tasks of being a Club Liaison to the Exchange Student Program, handled many aspects of the Fellowship Committee in planning events, covered for officers as needed, not to mention providing a tremendous effort on the Wine Festival Committee and handling the very tedious task of ticket sales, (Big Sigh – Wheew) … but you also handled the daunting task of scheduling all of the numerous speakers for the year.  Having little idea what it took to schedule all those speakers (I sure do now), when I came to you back in June and made the weeee request of ensuring we had the most interesting speakers all year and to avoid “Check Acceptance Speakers”, I can imagine now the “Are you Crazy Markovitz !!!??” that must have occurred after that request.

 

Ann Way can you please come up to the podium?

 

Thank you for an awesome job this year in all that you did!   For those efforts, I would like to honor you with a President’s Award for your efforts this year.” 

 

Ann Way receiving a President's Award from Past President Mike Markovitz

 

 

Kiwanis has put out a request for organizations who can help with their food booth at the Wyoming County Fair (Aug 28 – Sept 2).

 

 

The next Flash Meeting will be Thursday, Aug 15, 2019 at 5:30 pm at Bogey’s Restaurant.

 

 

 

 

 

The next Meeting will be Monday evening Sept 9 at 6 pm at the Tunkhannock Library, due to the Labor Day holiday on Sept 2.

 

Sponsorships will be discussed at next week’s meeting.

 

Rack Cards and posters are available so please indicate where you want to put them up.

 

Northeast Data will donate a pallet of water to give out for free.  Any extra will go to the Fire and Ambulance associations.

 

Wineries and vendors are responding. Maybe 2 new wineries.  Also we will have beer this year.

 

Ann reported that the online ticket sales are average for this point in time.  There has been more interest in the Rotary Lounge tickets so far this year.  Members, who want to sell tickets can get tickets from Susan Kelly at Welch Insurance. Local sites will be available on or before Aug 19.

 

 

See the July 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.

 

 

The District is sponsoring seats at an Aug 11 RailRiders Baseball game. Tickets are $12 each with half going to Polio. We still have tickets, can use them for exchange students and their host families.

Prior to adjournment, Sandra Lane led the recitation of the 4-Way Test by the attendees.

 

 

Norm spoke on his pre Conference European trip today with loads of wonderful photos, anecdotes and interesting facts on what they saw and will postpone the highlights of the RI International Convention until Aug 29.

 

He and his wife Marcia started their trip in Amsterdam and then went to Haarlem, which was 1 hr train ride from Amsterdam. 

They visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam plus another house (book called “The Hiding Place” available at the TPL) that sheltered Jews during WWII. All the people who helped the Jews were rounded up right before the war ended and were executed.

 

They got to see the tulips in April/May.  They were wonderful. Takes 4 yrs to develop 1 tulip bulb. The bulbs are auctioned off at a Dutch Auction where they start with the highest price and move downward.

 

They then went to Rotterdam, which was totally destroyed during the war.  They rebuilt the city after asking for the most modern designs at the time from anywhere in the world. Cube condos for housing & very unique building designs. Bikes are stacked in 2 layers at the train station.

 

They saw the church where the Pilgrims first met before they left for England and boarded the Mayflower for their voyage to the New World.

 

In Delft, they visited a rock star memorial, which had crosses for many deceased rock stars including Jerry Garcia and Elvis, although the stars are not buries there.

 

They also visited a Windmill museum area with 19 windmills that have different purposes and mechanisms.

 

Norm and Marcia then visited Bruges, Belgium. It was a fairy tail type city and very beautiful with gold trim on many of the buildings. It was not bombed as much during the war. They went to the lace museum since Marcia is into that.

 

They also saw signs for the Inner Wheel – a lady’s organization for Rotary, since woman were not allowed in Rotary until 1987. This organization was founded in 1924 in England and still has 100,000 members.

 

They then visited Brussels and the great town square. There is an Archway leading up to the European Union that was made from bicycles.  The visited the EU Parliament.

 

Luxemburg City was next, which was very hilly. People were hidden during the war in dug out cave areas in the mountains. Starting May 2020, all transportation in the city will be free.

 

The American Cemetery outside Luxemburg was their next stop. There are 5,073 soldiers and Gen Patton buried there, mainly were Battle of the Bulge casualties.

 

They then visited Trier Germany with its pre-Roman city gate and spent some time in the picturesque city square. 

 

They also went to the Rhine region, where there are castles everywhere. They did the Rhine River boat tour, where you can see many of the castles along the riverside.

 

They finished their European Tour with the Rotary International Conference in Hamburg, Germany.

 

Norm Kelly