There will be no meeting on November 11 due to Veteran's Day. The Board of Directors meeting previously scheduled for November 11 has been postponed until November 18.
The Nominating Committee for District 7890 recently announced their candidate for District Governor Nominee Designate for 2024-2025, our own Vin Marinaro. For several years Vin has served as Assistant Governor for Area 1, and has spent a great deal of his involvement with Rotary focusing on Youth. He will be officially voted in as District Governor Nominee at the business meeting to be held at the District Conference in April. We’re proud of you Vin!
With a PowerPoint presentation, Alex Reczkowski at our last meeting briefed the membership on Rotary Club of Pittsfield’s Global Grant with RC Bor (Serbia) and USAID. Through this partnership, USAID and Rotary empower Rotary Clubs in Europe and Eurasia to positively influence their communities by increasing opportunities for transatlantic networking, collaboration and friendship. He introduced us to the Serbian Team coordinating efforts at the Serbian end, and demonstrated how Rotary Club of Pittsfield’s initial investment was matched and parlayed into $65,129:
Rotary Club of Pittsfield $ 10,000
BOR Rotary Club $ 2,000
12 Rotary Club Partners $ 9,400
RI District 7890 Designated Funds $ 14,715
RI Global Grant / World Fund $ 14,715
USAID $ 14,299
TOTAL GRANTED: $65,129
Alex noted his trip to Serbia previously planned for October has now been tentatively moved out to March or April, 2022.
The Club's special raffle, the proceeds of which will support our international "Service Above Self" mission, specifically our "Years of Ascent" (kindergarten S.T.E.M.) program in Serbia, was drawn at our last meeting. 180 tickets (at $20 each) were sold, which raised $3,600 for the project. The prizes were one of three gift cards from Mazzeo's Ristorante: a first prize of $250 (won by Jim Bronson), a second prize of $150 (Josh Healey), and a third prize of $100 (Matt Mallach).
At our last meeting we were introduced to one of our student guests for the month of November: Connor Soltaire (THS). Please help make Connor feel welcomed at our meetings.
Individual donation sheets have been printed up and were distributed to the membership in attendance at our last meeting (others will get them by mail). While this may seem like a waste of paper to some, it is critically important to inventory control that these forms are returned with your items, with blank forms filled out so that donors get appropriate credit. The Auction Committee has targeted our December 2 meeting for an item drive where members are asked to come to the meeting that day with their auction items. There will be a team to take them back to Molari after the meeting.
To avoid those annoying empty staplers, the Dull Men's Club has established FILL OUR STAPLERS DAY, which occurs twice annually the day after the day we change our clocks to and from daylight savings time. [That means November 8.] Fun fact: Rotary Club of Pittsfield's Book Club is a spin-off of the Dull Men's Club.
