On a lovely crisp January day in New England . . . January 15, 2015

New Canaan Rotary Club Bulletin                                         January 15, 2015

 

On a lovely crisp January day in New England a spirited group of Rotarians gathered at the Roger already in the full spirit of 2015.  Demonstrating none of the rust which marked his initial performance of the new year, President Eric hammered the bell into submission and called for the introduction of Visiting Rotarians and guests.  B.T. rose and introduced "visiting guest"  Alex Cranshaw who is attempting to fill the shoes of Camner Rubin at the local Edward Jones office, Lisa Oldham proudly introduced her son Chris who is matriculating as a freshman physics and computer science major at UCONN Storrs, and Amy introduced New Canaan Community Foundation Executive Director Cynthia Gorey as both her guest and dragooned speaker for the day.

 

Apparently our President was sufficiently chastened by last week's rebuff by the Lobstermeister that he totally ignored Rob Avery this week.  He did however, after first taking him to task for his "visiting guest" gaffe, recognize B.T. to expand on last week's thumbnail re Rotary Means Business.  The inaugural meeting of the area group will occur this very evening in Stamford at the fair Alice's emporium under the organizational auspices of Stamford Rotarian Dan Morris with a little guidance from experienced RMB'er Bill Fishman from the Westchester group.   The Club was relieved to know that B.T. would be chaperoned by several other NC members who would attempt to ensure that the May 7 Golden Putter golf competition between the Stamford and NC Clubs was not put in jeopardy by the behavior of the aforementioned B.T.  We eagerly await a report on this interesting endeavor.

 

Next week we will be visited by Assistant District Governor ________ Ricle.  Following his arrogant dismissal of your humble scrivener, who had the temerity to request the correct spelling of her exotic name, Gentle Ben slunk from the meeting without providing guidance on the matter.  Hence, the embarrassing void in today's narrative.

 

Treasurer Tom announced that quarterly bills have been distributed through Club Runner which has created some confusion.  Here is all you need to know – GET IT UP!  Tom will try to get bills to each of us in his familiar format and requests that they be paid tout suite.  There are eight members who have yet to pay last quarter's bill.  Big Ben suggested a Wall of Shame for the recalcitrants, but a week of grace has been granted before that draconian step is taken.  To avoid inclusion on the Wall, GET IT UP!

 

Sergeant Scott, bemoaning the low quality of available material, demonstrated his point by telling a very low quality joke.  We need a more inspiring effort for 2015.  In an extremely quiet fine environment [perhaps a reaction to the joke] only Amy came across with some bucks in anticipation of the New Canaan Community Foundation Annual Meeting, featuring free wine and cheese, next Thursday evening, January 22, at 7:00 at Waveny House.

 

As foreshadowed in the lead paragraph, Cynthia Gorey rose on short notice to address the membership on the remarkable accomplishments of the NC Community Foundation, of which she has been Executive Director for 13 years.  She performed with considerable poise considering that her new boss, the intimidating Leo III, was in the audience.  In her first year the Foundation awarded about $300,000 in grants.  In 2014 that number was $1,200,000.  Their corpus is $16,000,000.  Approximately half their grants come from the Community Impact Fund and go to non-profits either in NC or who service the NC population.  The other half go to scholarships [NCCF awards more scholarships than any other NC organization] largely from the Sapienza Scholarship Fund.  Every donated dollar goes to grants as 100% of the overhead is paid out of endowment earnings.  Cynthia highlighted a number of initiatives including the establishment of a development organization for NC non-profit executive director professionals, a financial literacy for young adults program in partnership with JPMorganChase, a workshop sharing best practices on board leadership in the non-profit world, the Young Philanthropists group which is now in its eighth year, and the annual Touch A Life and/or Spirit of New Canaan Luncheons.  She particularly mentioned the joint sponsorship with the Dorrico family and our Club of the annual Joe Dorrico Scholarship award in memory of the former NC Postmaster and Rotary Club President.  She mentioned that the three honorees at this year's Spirit of NC Luncheon will be Kathy Giusti, Dr. Tom Flynn, and Pat and Hud Stoddard – giants of the local [and beyond] non-profit world.  Informative and inspiring program delivered with conviction and justifiable pride.

 

Andrew Carnegie