Joe Capita          Aug 26 Ray Pepe            AUG 28 Bob Spicer         AUG 30 Bridget Whitley  AUG 30

PROGRAM:
GERALD W. KOHN, ED.D. August 1, 2009
Dr. Gerald Kohn came to Harrisburg in 2001 from Vineland, New Jersey, to assume the duties of Superintendent of the Harrisburg School District. During the past twenty-five years, he has been a superintendent in five districts. He says that Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is his favorite.

After graduating from Princeton University, Dr. Kohn taught math for seven years in Trenton, New Jersey, during which time he obtained his master’s degree in teaching from Montclair State College. He then worked as the Director of Desegregation for the
Cambridge, Massachusetts Public Schools. After receiving his doctorate in education in 1984 from Harvard University, Dr. Kohn has been a superintendent in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. During that time, he has been a member of multiple national and state level associations for superintendents.

At the time when Mayor Stephen R. Reed recruited Dr. Kohn for the position of superintendent in Harrisburg, Dr. Kohn had several offers from other school districts. He chose to come to Harrisburg because he saw unique opportunities in a mayoralty
controlled School District that faced so many challenges. At the time, the Mayor made it clear that it would be difficult work for the children and families of Harrisburg because so many needed to improve. According to Dr. Kohn, the Mayor also made it evident how personally dedicated the Mayor was to committing his own energies toward reforming the District, and that he was willing to put his own reputation as Mayor on the line. These diverse challenges and the Mayor’s commitment are what drew Dr. Kohn to Harrisburg eight years ago. With the Mayor, he has overseen a complete overhaul of the District. Recent successes have gained national recognition, but much more still needs to be done. Dr. Kohn and the Mayor have pledged even greater efforts in the future.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS / MEETING LOCATIONS:
August 31        Community Service Award
Hilton

September 7   NO MEETING - Labor Day

September 14           Gregory Fajt, Chairman of PA Gaming Control Board and Licensing Analyst
Hilton

September 21           Mehdi Noorbaksh, Ph.D., Associate Professor International Affairs, Harrisburg University     
Hilton Iran after the June election

September 28         NO MEETING – Yom Kippur

For complete programming go to our website: hbgrotary.org and click on calendar.
For meeting cancellations due to inclement weather.... Tune to ABC27-TV
or check your e-mail or call the Rotary office at 234-1208.

NEWS AND NOTES:

• MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
SUPPORT THE R.I. CLEAN WATER PROJECT SEPT. 5th, 6th, 7th KIPONA Weekend
Did you know… a donation of $1.00 can provide about 1,000 gallons of clean drinking water, or the minimum amount of clean water needed for each individual per year?

Jack Huskin, Chair, is heading up our first-time Clean Water Project on Kipona weekend. Come out and volunteer Saturday-Monday, Sept 5th, Sept 6th or 7th in the front of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Front Street. You will be helping thousands of people in underprivileged countries around the world in dire need of clean water and sanitation.  Keystone Rotary members will be selling delicious root-beer floats alongside our booth and will assist in bottled water sales. Harrisburg Rotary Club are encouraged to fill up the Sunday time slots initially with a need for additional volunteers on Saturday and Monday.
Joining with the Carlisle Rotary, our efforts will help bring clean water to nearly 1500 underprivileged people near the Village of Comayagua, Honduras. This is one of many R.I. projects providing safe, clean water and sanitation to those in need.
We are asking each Rotarian to commit to purchase one case of water / 24 District labeled bottles for only $6.00 … that’s only $.25 per bottle!  The Harrisburg Rotary Foundation have already made this commitment and made the same challenge to the Rotary Club Board - many of whom have already committed– now we challenge you to do the same!
Our goal is to sell 35 cases of bottled water during the fun-filled Labor Day weekend.  Water bottles will be sold for $1.00 each. With the help of Rotarian volunteers we can raise $840.00!

Please write your $6.00 check payable to the Harrisburg Rotary Foundation… AND sign up to be a clean water volunteer!
Come out and celebrate this Labor Day Weekend! See Jack Huskin (237-7127) or Linda Freedenberg (234-1208) following the meeting to sign up.

You're invited to Al Baker's Happy Hour Thursday, September 10th 5:30-7:30 PM.
This fabulous event will have a $20 minimum donation the Harrisburg Rotary.

Thanks to the generosity of Al and Joan Baker, you will be treated to wonderful food and drink, have great time and you will receive attendance credit.    Please RSVP to Linda: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with how many will be attending.

October 24th is the Annual Apple Harvest Pancake Breakfast.

• Please send or give Linda your $10 cash or check for the 2009-10 Support the Troops effort.

• HRF 100% participation goal – All Rotarians have received their $100 invoice for the Harrisburg Rotary Foundation.  We have already received 41% of our membership’s contributions.

• The Harrisburg Rotary Club will have a Rotary Exchange Student from Bielefeld, Germany during the next school year.  Lukas Kebschull will be a Senior at Susquehanna Township High School.  We want to make sure that Lukas has an enjoyable and rewarding year.  Therefore, we are asking the members of our Club to provide entertainment opportunities to him over the next year.  If you have Senators tickets, Penn State tickets, HersheyPark tickets, Hershey Bears tickets, Whitaker Center tickets, IMAX tickets, Theater tickets or tickets of any other kind that you can donate to Rotary for use by Lukas and his host families, please give them to Linda at any Rotary meeting.

Lukas will also be available for dinner/other invitations with Harrisburg Rotarians and their families.  We have been told that Lukas is an excellent golfer.  If you would like to invite Lukas to join you or your family, please contact Dave Bedard (Lukas' Rotary Counselor) after August 17th to get on Lukas' calendar.

Thank you for helping to make our Foreign Youth Exchange Program more successful.

Caryn Carr & Ron Guss
Youth Exchange Committee Co-chairs

• DISTRICT NEWS:
1.  Group Study Exchange applications for Rotarian Team Leader and Non-Rotarian Team Members are        being accepted now for the spring 2010 exchange with District 1460 (Denmark & Lithuania).   Team members must be a young professional, age 25-40 who lives or works in District 7390.  For more information, contact GSE Chair Jeff Hines or the Rotary office

1. Looking for Doubles Team tennis players. The District Doubles Tennis Tournament will be held on September 17th at Allenberry from 2:30-5:30 PM with dinner to follow.  Cost to players will be approximately $40 (which includes court time and dinner).  Please contact Linda if you are interested.

3.  Join Rotary District 7390 on Sunday, August 30 at the Harrisburg Senators Baseball game to raise funds to Eradicate Polio! Beyond an honorary first pitch being thrown out by District Governor Connie Spark and the video being aired on Minor League Baseball’s largest videoboard, we’ll hopefully be raising a ton of money for a great cause.  The way the fundraiser works is simple.  The Senators are taking their standard $8 reserve seats and $5 general admission seats and making them available to all Rotarians for the same price.  The catch is, they will donate $2 from each seat purchased using the fundraising option back to District 7390 so we can help cure polio.  In order to participate in the fundraiser, there are two options.

Option one, pre-buying tickets online.  To take advantage of this option, use this link: https://www.ticketreturn.com/prod2/Buy.asp?EventID=34694 type in rotary (in all lower case letters) and then click on “show promotions”.  At that point, special rotary ticket options will appear on the drop down menu.  Rotarians can chose between Rotary Reserve and Rotary General Admission.

Option two is purchasing tickets at the box office.  Mention the rotary fundraiser on August 30th and the tickets can be purchased using the fundraising option.  It’s that easy!!

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me! Invite your family & friends!

1. Check out the District Newsletter: www.hbgrotary.org

click on click on About Us
click on District 7390
click on District Happenings
click on Rotar- E Reporter
or  http://www.rotary7390.org/Portals/0/August%2009%20Newsletter.pdf

ATTENDANCE:
LAST ROTARY MEETING:  8/17/09       59%
Rotarians   78    Active Specials   11           Guests   13      Visiting Rotarians 0    = 102

Minutes by: Andy Rebuck
Wow, it is hot outside!  No, I mean it; if we need a fundraiser let’s host a lemonade stand out front of the Hilton.  That’s a great idea and let’s also sell those cool little hand held fans with a Rotary logo on them.  Yes and why not sell ice cream cones….

What, oh, I am sorry; I did not see you there.  Am I supposed to be writing the minutes of the August 17 Rotary Meeting?  Well sure I can do that but it is hot outside and my good Rotarian friend and I were just….

The facts-you just want the facts and not all this stuff about lemonade and fans?  Well it sounds like someone might have been tossing and turning with a broken AC unit last night.

Okay here goes my little fact-wanting friend.  At exactly 12:14 PM on a hot, sticky, sultry, (oops sorry about that) President Carolyn rang the bell, Rotarian Stewart offered the invocation and Rotarian Alexander led us in a blistering (oops again) club singing session.

Tom Breeze (I mean Breem) blew into the meeting with an introduction of six Rotarians who in turn introduced their respective guests: thanks to Piscioneri, Lick, Jackson-DeGarcia, Stone, Hungerford and Kyzer for ice melting introductions.

“I wanted to be US President” was the lead line of Rotarian Archer-Simons as she offered searing commentary via a Rotary Minute session and how Rotarians make a difference everyday.

Hot on the scoop of good news, Rotarian Wissler-Thomas clipped out some great news that if you missed today you can catch it on our bulletin board.

It was exactly 12:29 eastern time-not sure what that is in Iceland-but at exactly 12:29 our Youth exchange committee stormed the stage.  What, did it start raining?  No, but we did get an awesome introduction of our German exchange student by the fabulous foursome of Bedard (Dave), Grove, Carr (Caryn) and Guss.  We all learned that our young visitor, Lukas, is a hot golfer!

Did you know that the District newsletter is on line and can be accessed via a link at our home site?

It wasn’t getting any cooler outside and Rotarian Hostetter stepped to the dais with the funniest line of the meeting.  If you missed this, make sure you ask him how long everyone has known him.

In his “Hot-Stetter” style Bob showed no sweat as he introduced today’s dynamite duo of Jim Creedon and Ron Naples.

Like lava pouring down a volcano (I really can’t resist myself) this pair of dedicated individuals heated up the room as they answered the question: What is happening with PA stimulus money?

The television cameras were rolling as Jim explained that his mission was to oversee the best stimulus program in the nation: one that created jobs, moved quickly, stimulated over and above and was accountable and transparent.  He noted that there is $16B total estimated impact with $7B on PA citizens programs and $9B funded into government entities.  Of this $9B, almost half went to Medicaid reimbursement and provides a huge assist to stabilize state budgets.  The other half went to items like $2.5 B education and $1 B for transportation.

Jim further dove into the numbers like an Olympian making a back-half-twist, degree of ten, dive and he noted that $27M was earmarked to Harrisburg projects like the I-83 signage program, $5.4 M to CAT, $19 M to Dauphin Area Schools, $15 M to Penn Vest water and sewer and $4.5M to Harrisburg Housing.

We were gasping for air conditioning as Ron Naples cool as a cucumber took over the podium to report on how his role was created to assure accountability and transparency in this most important of efforts.  He urged all attendees to stay inside, go to www.recovery.pa.gov and to take a look at how all PA citizens can see what and how the stimulus funding is and will impact our daily lives.

1:14 the bell was sounded, the four-way test was recited and all Rotarians headed outside to the sultry, hot, steamy day wishing there were a lemonade stand, fans… for sale!

Upcoming Events

• Dr. Gerald Kohn, Superintendent of Harrisburg School District
  August 24, 2009 (12:00 PM)
  (Weekly Meetings)
  
  Dr. Gerald Kohn will speak to the Club and receive the grant money from HRF.
• Pancake Breakfast Meeting 1:15 PM
  August 24, 2009 (1:15 PM)
  (Committee Meetings)
• Community Service Award
  August 31, 2009 (12:00 PM)
  (Weekly Meetings)
  
  The 2009 Community Service Award will be presented to Tom Johnston at today's Rotary meeting.  Please join us as we thank Tom for his "Service Above Self" in the community.
• NO MEETING
  September 07, 2009 (8:00 AM)
  (Weekly Meetings)
  
  No Meeting for Labor Day.
• Rotary Board Meeting 10:30-Noon
  September 14, 2009 (10:30 AM)
  (Committee Meetings)
  
  Rotary Board Meeting 10:30-Noon at the Hilton.

• Taiwanese districts respond after deadly typhoon

  Aid needed after flooding, mudslides ravage villages in southern Taiwan
• Who is your Tommy?

  Past district governor's story encourages Rotarians to make recruitment a priority
• Your Voice, Your Solution for transitioning with technology

  How will you encourage your club to go digital with more of its documents?
• Urban, rural areas require different membership strategies

  Former district extension chair offers tips for club growth
• Extreme Makeover -- Rotarian Edition

  Missouri Rotarian takes the lead on television reality show
• Foundation honors Philippine business leader, philanthropist

  UN ambassador represents friend at Arch C. Klumph Society ceremony
• Banerjee is choice for 2011-12 RI president

  A Rotarian since 1972, he would like to see Rotary blossom
• Leading by example

  District 6900 wastes no time in giving to the Annual Programs Fund
• Taking the pennant

  Rotary club banners have a colorful, checkered past
• New approach vital to membership growth

  Past RI president shares advice on recruitment and retention

Support the Clean Water Project SUPPORT THE R.I. CLEAN WATER PROJECT SEPT. 5th, 6th, 7th KIPONA Weekend Did you know… a donation of $1.00 can provide about 1,000 gallons of clean drinking water, or the minimum amount of clean...