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 As a result of the devastating effects of the tsunami in December, 2004, businessman David Campbell headed to Thailand to see how he could help. His intended one week volunteer visit turned into a one month stay, during which he became one of the founders of HandsOnThailand, which, over a 3 month duration, brought more than 200 volunteers and several hundred thousand dollars to assist the rebuilding of five Phuket fishing villages. After hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the US in 2005, David joined with several other HandsOn volunteers to establish HandsOnUSA. One week after Katrina, the team had an operations center in Biloxi, MS, 50 volunteers committed and en route, and dozens of community re-development projects launched. In total, more than 1,500 volunteers helped HandsOnUSA serve the survivors of Katrina during the 5-month deployment. In 2006, this volunteer response model became known as Hands On Disaster Response (HODR), and has since then engaged with large national and international natural disaster events for a total of ten deployments. Andrew Kerr is 26 years old, and current lives in Cary, North Carolina. He joined Rotary at the young age of 22. At the end of his first year of being a Rotarian, the Research Triangle Park Rotary Club awarded him "Rotarian of the Year" and presented him with a Paul Harris for his work as a Rotarian. At the age of 23 he served as VP of his club, then at the age of 24 served as President of the Research Triangle Park Rotary Club. He is one of the youngest individuals to serve as President of a Rotary Club in District 7710. This past December his club awarded him a second Paul Harris Fellow for exemplifying the Rotary motto "Service above Self" when he spent 4 months in 2008 as a full time volunteer doing disaster response work. It was after his 4 months of service as a full time volunteer that he decided to end his 7 year career in the Banking/Mortgage Industry and made a transition into the non-profit sector. Andrew Kerr is the Development Coordinator for Hands On Disaster Response and will be tis week's guest speaker. February 24, 2009  I and the rest of the GSE Team were grateful to be given a warm Bon Voyage last night at the Danversport Yacht Club. We had a chance to try out the PowerPoint presentation we will take on the road in South Africa. A good time was had by all, I hope. The most important thing I learned was that the District GSE team for next year will be going to England! So, fellow Haverhill Rotarians, start thinking about whether you want to lead a team of young professionals to England for a month! Also look around among your colleagues and associates for "young" professionals, ages 25-40, who might be interested in spending a month in England and enriching their international perspective. Certainly, the language will be no barrier. I cannot remember the dates at this time. But I will let you know. Cindy Ryan will be cranking up the distribution of over 650 Thesauruses for all Haverhill 6th graders over the next several weeks. I hope you can make time to help! And thanks for doing this, Cindy. It is a great service to the students and a great way to recognize that March is literacy month for Rotary Clubs all across the world. Ana Gogua, our youth exchange student, is now back with Lucinda and Don Nolet for a few weeks before she moves to her third and final exchange family for the year. We had a wonderful two months with her at our house. It was great fun and very interesting to see our country through her eyes and to learn more about Georgia. We shared a lot of laughs, too. Mary Gale is completing the paperwork and home visit for the next family during this period. Please consider hosting a future student, and consider offering to take Ana or a future student on an excursion to ballgame, museum, the theatre or another event that will enrich her understanding of America and enrich your understanding of being a young person from the Republic of Georgia. Keith Harris, the District Foundation Committee Chairman, spoke about this simple interpersonal exchange to our club a few weeks ago. You will both likely benefit. And the world will benefit. Just think about it. Every year, Rotary sends over 500 group study exchange teams across the world, and thousands more youth exchange students and ambassadorial scholars and others. They are all seeds of peace and understanding, people of different cultures and countries realizing that we are all just human beings with families, homes, everyday loves and cares, just like each other; not faceless enemies or opponents. Especially given the cost and pain of war and other conflict that we still witness so much of, it is surely a worthy enterprise. See you Thursday! John Happy Anniversary Rotary 
The first four Rotarians: (left to right) Gustavus Loehr, Silvester Schiele, Hiram Shorey, and Paul Harris. During the first Rotary club meeting on February 23, 1905 in Chicago, Paul Harris, Gustavus Loehr, Hiram Shorey, and Silvester Schiele met to talk about their personal experiences. Harris then unfolded his general plan for their club meetings. This was the simple beginning of the world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago. It was created because of Harris' wish to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices. Rotarians continue to take pride in their history. In honor of that first club, Rotarians have preserved its original meeting place, Room 711 in Chicago's Unity Building, by re-creating the office as it existed in 1905. For several years, the Paul Harris 711 Club maintained the room as a shrine for visiting Rotarians. In 1989, when the building was scheduled to be demolished, the club carefully dismantled the office and salvaged the interior, including doors and radiators. In 1993, the RI Board of Directors set aside a permanent home for the restored Room 711 at RI World Headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Evanston.  
George Mason was our neighbor here in Atkinson. He was an interesting person to be around. If he were here today he would be well over a hundred years old. He told the story, it happened in Atkinson in the early nineteen hundreds, about a man named John. He lived here with his wife. No children. At that time everyone kept what amounted to a little farm. John and his wife had a flock of about 36 hens. He did the outside things, she did the inside things. Each day John would do his chores, including feeding the hens. If there were any eggs John would bring them into the house. One morning he went into the henhouse and instead of finding about 36 hens he only found 12. There was no indication that a fox had gotten into the henhouse. John didn't tell his wife about the missing hens. He didn't tell anyone around town. He didn't tell anybody. About a year later one of the men in town said,"John, did you ever find out who stole your hens?" "Yes", John said, "I just found out". Proposed for Membership Speakers
February 26 - Andrew Kerr, Hands On Disaster Response Attendance An attendance record of 50 percent is required to remain an active Rotarian. Any missed meeting must be made up within 14 days before or after the regular meeting. To accommodate busy schedules, there are various opportunities to make up missed meetings: Monday 12:15PM Danversport Yacht Club |
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