On a lovely crisp January day in Connecticut the temperature, according to Minnesota native Ed Nordgaard, was like the Fourth of July in International Falls. In spite of the chill a large group of hearty New England Rotarians gathered at the Roger to bask in the warmth of the fire on the hearth and the fellowship in the room. A cocky President Marty arrived at precisely 12:13 brazenly waving his Iphone clock at those foolish enough to believe that he would be either late or absent. As the digital display moved to 12:15 Marty struck the bell, led the Pledge [the noisy group in the buffet line joined in about half way through], and called on Eric for the blessing.
Notice to all new members, the management of the Roger requested many years ago that young and healthy Rotarians park in the First Presbyterian Church parking lot in an effort to leave available spaces in their lot for the walk-in crowd. Ancient and infirm members are exempted from this request. Speaking of which Amy arrived sans cane and appears to be healing nicely .
Marty requested introduction of Visiting Rotarians and guests to which Carolyn, taking a page from Risbridger’s repertoire, replied that she “had nuthin.” Marty then explained a conundrum – two prepared sergeants and only one venue. Scott solved the problem by racing to the front of the room leaving Sergeant Bill still in his seat appearing sad and confused. Scott recounted an educational tale involving the finer points of bear hunting and then passed among us shamelessly separating us from our money. Fred paid for having successfully completed the first session of PETS training; Ed for not being at home in Minnesota; George Baker a sad dollar for the death of the remarkable Beatta Seratta Gordon who wrote the womens’ rights section of the Japanese Constitution as a young American woman on General MacArthur’s staff; Kerchoff the Elder for visiting with Tom Weilenmann on his recent Florida sojourn; Scott coughed up a sad dollar for the unimaginable ass whipping delivered by the University of Miami basketball team to his beloved Blue Devils last night; and, finally, a few dollars from John Engel after consultation with expert Kevin McLaughlin on the finer points of being late. Rob Avery then announced that all bills are correct and distributed, an assertion that was immediately challenged. Whatever you owe – pay it now.
Jim Cole then introduced our speakers, Stacey Hafen and Rogers Harper from the Connecticut/Rhode Island Chapter of the American Red Cross. Stacey, who ran the New Canaan Chapter when there was one, is now the Senior Director of Community Preparedness and Rogers, who was an active Board member of the NC Chapter, now serves with Jim Cole on the CT/RI Chapter Board of Directors. They informed us that the Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton in 1881 and is chartered, but not funded by, the U.S. federal government. They shelter, feed and provide assistance to the victims of disasters; collect 40% of the nation’s blood supply; train volunteers in safety and preparedness skills; and provide support to members of the military and their families. They have a $3.4,000,000,000 budget which they have to raise and 91 cents out of every dollar goes to the mission. Connecticut has approximately 11,000 trained volunteers, of whom about 2,000 are hard core and prepared to be assigned to emergency situations locally, nationally and/or internationally at a moment’s notice. Pre 9/11 the local Chapter had higher capacity and lower demand than appeared to be required. This situation changed after 9/11 and, in 2009 the 14 CT Chapters were consolidated with the RI Chapters into a single more efficient and economical organization. Stacey and Jim Cole explained how NC was the first town in the state to develop and implement a CERT program. The two organizations cooperated in this effort before the NC Chapter was closed. New member and Red Cross Financial Development Officer for the past six months Gerri Goerke then filled us in on fund raising and the need for more and better trained volunteers to deal with the almost continuous need. Stacey and Rogers then fielded remarks and questions from the audience including Mike Hobbs acting as surrogate for the late Ad Tomaselli complaining about having to pay for coffee and donuts from the Red Cross in England during the Big War. While there was a perfectly good reason why this occurred Ad never accepted it and it needed to be said. Thanks to Jim for arranging another timely program. As some clever person [Will Rogers?] once observed, “It’s not what you don’t know that will get you in trouble, it’s what you do know that isn’t so.” I think we all found some of the latter items in today’s program.
Dwight Eisenhower
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