President's Message

Dear Rotarians,

If you missed last Thursday's meeting, you missed a "SPIRITual" event! Many learned the difference between gin, vodka and rum from Bob and Carol Ryan of Ryan & Wood Distilleries of Gloucester. Congratulations to Bonnie Michaleas and Raleigh Buchanan in winning a bottle of vodka and gin respectively. I hope the full bottles made it home that night for happy hour.

It's hard to believe that four months have gone by since our very successful first annual Duck Regatta. That can only mean that it's time to think about our second annual Duck Regatta! This Thursday John Cuneo will jumpstart the planning for next year's Regatta with the showing of a documentary made of our first Regatta by Haverhill Community Television. From our experience in 2009, we know it takes a lot of planning and a lot of work. However, we also know that it was very fruitful. It generated a lot of funds that we could return to the community. In fact, we will begin to distribute $41,900 this week to the many non-profits that requested a grant this year. Some non-profits earned a supplemental grant by participating in the "Buck-a-Duck" campaign and selling dozens, even hundreds of ducks.

In the world of Rotary, January is Literacy Month. In Haverhill Rotary we are celebrating it by distributing nearly 750 thesauri to every sixth grade pupil in every Haverhill public and private school. In addition each sixth grade teacher will receive one for use in the classroom. I&39;m just returning from delivering them to the sixth grade classes at the J. G. Whittier Middle School. The excitement on the children's faces is impossible to describe in words. The exuberance they felt is following me throughout this day. Thanks to Cindy Ryan, our Literacy Chair, for making once again organizing this project and again to Chuck Marvin for securing a district grant to help make it possible.

As president of our club, I receive a lost of e-mail from Rotary International and from District 7930. Except for Foundation Day (which we observed on December 17th) and an occasional update on the Polio Plus campaign, we rarely receive specific directions on how we might be able to get involved in any regional or international project. Next year, however, Ray Klinginsmith will appoint "Rotary Coordinators" when he becomes Rotary International President for the year 2010-2011 this July. Realizing that Rotary Clubs can be involved in more projects when there is a strong base of Rotary leadership in the community, the purpose of the new Rotary Coordinators will be to offer guidance and tools in three areas: Rotary International programs such as the youth programs, Rotary Fellowships, and Rotarian Action Groups; best practices that strengthen clubs and districts such as strategic planning, effective public relations, and leadership development; and building membership through stronger clubs and districts.

At our Board meeting last week, your Board of Directors voted to assign every Haverhill Rotarian a seat on a Rotary committee. This will help set the foundation for more activity in either a Rotary International project or in a project that we wish to begin here or abroad. Making use of the Rotary Coordinator will help us achieve greater goals.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday!

Rotarily Yours,

Ira Korinow

Tickets are Available for Comedy Night

A comedy night is being planned for Friday February 12th featuring Juston McKinney. Tickets are $25.00 per person and includes hors d'oeuvres. A limited menu from the Phoenician Restaurant will be also available for purchase. Doors open at 7:30 PM. Show starts at 9:00 PM. If you have any questions contact Steven Goddu.

Tell your friends to save the date. A flyer is available at http://www.godduprinting.com/Nairator/RotaryComedyNight.jpg. Attach the flyer to an email or copy the link into your email for them to view. Also you can visit the web site for our featured comedian Juston McKinney

Past Presidents

There will be a brief meeting of all past presidents after lunch this week.

Community Meals

Save the date. Our next opportunity to serve Community Meals is Monday February 8th.

Updating Records

Please take a moment to help us update our records. A copy of the MS Word document is available by clicking the following link: MEMBERSHIPDATA.doc. Bring the form to out club meeting or email it to Bonita Michaleas our club secretary.

December District News

Download a copy of our December district newsletter and keep up with what's going on.

Upstaged!

I live in Atkinson, New Hampshire. From time to time I get invited to visit Atkinson Academy, the local school for grades 1 through 5. Usually it is on a Monday morning at their assembly in the gymnasium. There are about 300 or more students sitting there cross legged on the shiny hardwood floor.

Recently, as we were nearing Flag Day, the Principal called and asked if I would speak to the children about flags. At our house we have a white flagpole on our lawn and quite a few flags that we can display along with the United States flag. So my wife and I packed up flags for Canada, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Hampshire, Ireland, Scotland and of course the United States.

As I would be holding a microphone in my right hand and one side of the flag being shown in my left I asked Martha my wife if she would help by holding the other side of the flag being shown. The students seemed to enjoy the display and the last one shown was the U.S. flag. With this a big cheer went up.

I then explained that we had shown all of our flags. Without warning my wife took the microphone and announced that we had one more flag. I KNEW that we shown all of the flags that we had brought. Wrong. Not known to me, she had packed a Red Sox flag which she then pulled out and displayed. This brought the biggest cheer of all.

Poor Fred, upstaged by his Red Sox fan wife.