Rotary Ramblings - January 20, 2009

[SUSAN MILLER]

Rotary Ramblings –January 13, 2009
 
We were entertained by our own Bruce Williams.  The invocation was given by Hack Allen and
Sam Aldorffer led us in “Sing Out A Song of Rotary” and “God Bless America”.  There were not birthdays, but Steve Rich celebrated
his 60th wedding anniversary.
 
Harvey Brown introduced our numerous visiting Rotarians:  Harold Lipvoski from Berrington, IL; Fred
Jones from Rhode Island, Bob Clark and his wife Kathy from Concordville, PA,
and Jay Ackerman from St. Clair, MI.  Lori Garland made up at Delray Sunrise.  Dave O’Connell had his wife, and daughter Suzanne, Donna and Emily (our
speaker) as his guests.  Christina
Dombrowski was with us again today.
 
Fred Bonardi was markedly absent, so apparently the market
was down.
 
Announcements:
Our member, Robin Hogue’s wife passed away.  Services were to be held at 11am on Friday at
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Pompano Beach.  If you
would like any additional information, please call Steve or Bruce Galloway.
 
Our member and District Governor, Betsy Owen is going to India to assist in the polio vaccinations of 135million children with 39 other
Rotarians.  She is requesting
toothbrushes or beanie babies to take to the children.  Please bring these items to the next meeting
as she is leaving soon.  Please also keep
her in your prayers as there are many other diseases that can be contracted –
so much so that they are required to leave any clothing they take with them so
as not to transport diseases back into the US.
 
Opportunities for Service:
 
Thurs. 1/29 – Achievement Center for Children and
Families (we’re back to the last Thursday of the month).  Available time slots are 8-9am; 9-10am; 3-4pm
or 4-5pm.  Please see Bob Teninga to sign
up.
Today and 1/27 – Souperbowl of Caring collection.  Pat Robinson and Sarah Martin will be
greeting you at the door with the soup bowl collecting funds to be donated to
the Caring Kitchen.  Over $500 were
collected last year.  Let’s beat our
record.  The need is even greater this
year.
Mon. 2/16 – Presidents’ Day Celebration at Phillips Point
Club by the Breakers to honor past, present and future governors. Tickets
$65.00 and a sign up sheet will be in the lobby next week.
Sat. 2/28 – Paint up Delray.  Sign up sheet will be posted in the lobby next week.
 
Candace Etzler is collecting new children’s books for kindergarten
thru 5th grade aged children to be donated to Pine Grove Elementary
(one of the schools we deliver dictionaries to).  They are starting a birthday club as many of
their students do not get anything on their birthday.  They are collecting the books so they get
something.  We are collecting these books
at the club.  So when you are shopping, pick
up a couple of books for needy kids.  Not
only will you be providing them with a birthday gift, but also will be helping
them to love reading.
 
Sergeant at Arms – Sid Breman raised $139 from various
sources including Steve Rich’s birthday and Good Luck to the new President of
the U.S.
 
Bob Teninga introduced our speaker, Emily Greene, a teacher
at Poinciana Elementary School who is a coach for
Odyssey of the Mind, which encourages teams of elementary school students to
compete regionally with 1,000 teams in an international problem solving
competition.  It involves teams of up to
7 students in 3-5 grades who have a volunteer teacher coach.  There are 5 subject areas they can select,
and they are given a question/task that needs to be solved (without any adult
involvement) utilizing their own creativity to meet specific criteria of each
question/task.  The categories are
vehicles, technical, the classics, structures and humorous.  For example, one year Emily was with a team
whose question was vehicles – create a vehicle (than can be driven either motorized
or manually) that can perform certain tasks such as hit a golf ball and hit a
tennis ball.  For technical, the question
was demonstrate using technology how dinosaurs became extinct (her group showed
that the porcupine always bother by the dinosaurs came across a genie’s
lamp.  He got 3 wishes.  He wished the dinosaurs would chill out, so
they did and that’s what started the ice age, which started their demise).  There are no correct answers as it is based
on the children’s imagination and creativity.  They are scored on the solutions.  They are also given a budget the must manage and adhere to so it teaches
them money management, and they find very creative ways to utilize or recycle
garbage.  In one problem they even
learned to use a sewing machine.  They
work on this from September to February, which is when the regional competition
is held.  On that day they are given an additional
creative and spontaneous problem to solve, which they have 3 minutes to solve,
to demonstrate if they can solve the problem and how well they work as a team.  The problems can be verbal or hands-on.  On the day of competition, the teacher coach
spends a lot of their time supervising the parents to assure they don’t touch
the children.  If they win the regional
competition they go onto the state competition etc.  Even straightening a collar on your child can
result in points being taken away from their team.  The students receive the benefit of learning
cooperation, respect for ideas, decision-making, money management, leadership
and genuine self-confidence.  You can
find out more information at www.floridaodysseyofthemind.com and the next regional completion is a W.T. Dywer High School in Jupiter on February 21st from 8:30-12:30 – feel free to come see this fascinating competition.
 
 
The green hat is up to $2,109.50 and there were only 2 cards
left.  Ira Fine won the pot!!!
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