Today's meeting had a special feel to it and a cloud . . . 11/2/06

ROTARY CLUB OF NEW CANAAN

BULLETIN FOR NOVEMBER 9, 2006

Today’s meeting had a special feel to it and a cloud. Our good friend and exemplary Rotarian, John Kerchoff was with family at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, scheduled for heart surgery on 11/10. Nancy asked Frank Bernardo to lead us in prayer and he did so with eloquence and hope…the right words and feeling for our collective good wishes to John and family. But where there is grey there is also sun behind thopse clouds: in this case, Ad and the lovely Helen are celebrating a short 55 years of marriage. Ad also shared that his odometer is at 81 years, a birthday this week.

Guests:

Not one, today.

Club Announcements:

Nancy announced that:

• 1143 people had their flu shots because our great volunteers Margo Sisson, Andy Kerchoff, Frank McBrearity, and Ed Nordgaard pitched in last week at the flu shot clinic.
• Katy Fox sent a nice note of thanks for our extending a School Service Award to her.
• We also heard from the Health and Human Services Dept. of New Canaan with appreciation for the clean-up at a senior’s home, pruning, raking, disposal of debris and -Nancy was quick to remind us – that SHE thought to bring mums to decorate the porch as a finishing touch.
• There will be an Oldies Program at Wilton HS on Saturday night, 11/11 at 7:30 PM. Free tickets available from Jim Azzarito or Nancy.
• Please call Nancy if you want to help out at the Lower Fairfield Food Bank collection. Only 2 signed up today.

Program:

John Engel introduced Doug Campbell, entrepreneur and through World Vision, a major part of the Fairfield County Micro-Investors Council. The relevance of this excellent talk was remarkable, coming only a couple of weeks after Muhammad Uris of Bangladesh won the Nobel Prize for micro-credit in his country. The concept is simple, loans are made by organizations like World Vision to individuals or small groups who cannot get support from banks but have marketable products, crafts, skills. This small loans, $200 each in the examples Doug gave, supports one job and 5 people. The profound poverty in the 3^rd World, in this case Ecuador, may seem intractable but micro loans can have a large benefit, to encourage business practices where nothing existed and to contribute hope where little exists. Doug has helped move his organization from $150K in loans to $4 million in 6 years.

Respectfully submitted,

Daisuke Matsuzaka