Bennett & Merrill Take Jabs
It was an entertaining meeting at Sunrise Rotary last week. During the "changing of the guard", Jeff Bennett presented a light-hearted recount of his year, citing great accomplishments by many club members. Jeff thanked a number of people for stepping up to help the club accomplish its goals:
Andrew Wittenberg - Chair - Service Projects - Andrew and his committee coordinated our Christmas shopping project, Food Bank Packing Day and Crim 7 mile water station project.
Mark Alexander - Chair - Scholarship Committee - Mark and his committee marketed, identified, screened and selected two outstanding candidates who were each awarded $1000 each for college tuition.
Mike Heberlig - Chair - Rotary Foundation - Mike provided a very insightful overview of the Rotary Foundation during the year aptly called "Rotary Foundation 101". We finally know what the Rotary Foundation is all about.
Kay Schwartz - Chair - International Service - Kay and her committee spearheaded our Haiti response efforts by raising $1855 (via member and club contributions) for Aquaboxes. Their committee also awarded $1500 to the Avoidable Blindness project, spearheaded by Burton Rotarian Brad Habermahl.
Harold Grant & Carol Hartley - Chairs - Golf Outing - Harold & Carol, along with their subcommittee chairs, have done a great job of organizing this year's golf outing and keeping all of us on track to ensure a successful outing.
Ginger Virkler - Chair - Grants Committee - Ginger and her committee reviewed over 30 applications from area children/youth related non-profits and awarded $13,000 to 11 non-profits.
Tom Crampton - Past President and Chair of the Nominating Committee. Tom's steady hand provided great guidance to President Jeff.
Stacy Merrill - President Elect, Membership Chair and club "Techie" - he saved our speakers many weeks from a technology disaster.
Jamie Gaskin - Chair - Literacy Program - Jamie did a super job coordinating the club's efforts with the other Area 7 Rotary clubs.
Al Tucker - Treasurer - Al has been our "Money Guy" for 5 years and will be passing the checkbook over to Mark Schwartz - great job Al!
Karl Olmsted - Secretary - Karl has finished another "stellar" year as our Secretary, sending in our attendance records, membership reports, etc. on a regular basis.
Gloria Dehart - Chair - Public Relations - Gloria rose to the challenge and did a superb job organizing the 1st Annual Area 7 Awards Night! She also kept Connie and Ginger in line as members of her committee (a tough job but somebody's got to do it)!
Connie Peters - affectionately known as "Miss Publicity" - the club got great press this year due to Connie's diligence and great follow-up.
Ginger Virkler - Club Bulletin - Ginger has agreed to continue as Editor for another year.
Ashoka Rau - Chair - Club Administration - Ashoka had a tough job - lining up speakers for 50 weeks this past year; she did a great job in bringing in a variety of speakers.
Jeff wrapped up his remarks by stating that the club received the District Governor's Award and the RI Presidential Award this year and ended by commenting on the fact that the club, along with the other Rotary clubs in Area 7 have worked closer than ever this year (Literacy Project, 1st Annual Awards Night, and Pub Crawl).
Stacy Merrill took to the podium and continued the energy and humor as he presented a "Look Back on Jeff Bennett" slide show. Stacy had great photos of Jeff's earlier days - 1 - when he had hair and 2 - when he was taller (he sure looked a lot taller than his fraternal twin - whom we just found out about - hummmm). Stacy presented Jeff with a beautiful "Rotary blue" vase for his year of service and a book entitled "S...t My Dad Says". I think we need to hear more excerpts from this book throughout the Rotary year.
Stacy introduced his incoming Officers and Board of Directors:
Jamie Gaskin - President Elect
Jim Murdock - Vice President
Mark Schwartz - Treasurer
Karl Olmsted - Secretary
Al Tucker - Service Projects
John Sundwick - International Service
Ashoka Rau - Public Relations
Gloria DeHart - Club Administration
Congratulations to Jeff on a great year and Best Wishes to Stacy on a successful Rotary year!
Thanks....for the memories! GREAT PRESENTATION!