President Bruce Rutherford opened the meeting and introduced our guests who included his mother Jean Rutherford. Also present was Karen O’Connell, a volunteer for the car show, and two people from the Town and Country Players; David Swartz and Lynne Anne Donchez.

• Karen Lasorda asked for donations of gift cards for Big Brothers/Big Sisters; $20 gift cards are needed by Thanksgiving. Anyone wishing to donate can either purchase gift cards from major retailers and give them to Karen or can provide the funds to her to purchase them.
• Don Rider announced that the Barbershop Chorus of Bucks County is having their annual fundraiser at Lenape Middle School at 1:30 on Saturday November 14, 2015, the cost is $15 and $18.
• Jim Wagner discussed the membership cocktail party at his house on Saturday Night November 14, at 7 PM; please RSVP. We have 60 people planning to attend so far with 40 guests.  The club will give 100 Rotary Foundation points for each guest you bring up to 5; the guests should be eligible to join Rotary. There will be a sign in for guests with a raffle for door prizes; members should wear their name tags. Keith Cianfranti asked that everyone be as friendly as possible. There will be a videographer present to record rotary moments.
• Ro Molyneux is coordinating our clubs participation with the Argentina Friendship Exchange during in the last week of April 2016. We already have six homes for the twelve people but we will need volunteers to drive them around when they are here. She will ensure an agenda for their visit is ready before January so everyone can plan to assist.
• Josh Quinn told us about next week’s speaker, Andrew Keen from the Rotary Club of West Chester. Andrew will talk about his clubs s project to assist Albino people in Tanzania who are mutilated due to local witchcraft beliefs. The project will bring them to the US for treatment and then return to Tanzania to learn job skills.
• Our December 9th Meeting we will be held at the Doylestown Brewing Company’s Hops Room; the address is 22 South Main St. Doylestown inside the Main Street Marketplace and next door to the Doylestown Bookshop.

Our exchange student Mikolaj Sniegowski gave us an update. He wore a Polish flag in celebration of Polish Independence Day.  Poland was occupied for 120 years between Russia, Germany, and Austria; on November 11, 1989 Poland celebrated its independence. Mikolaj enjoyed NYC last Saturday for United Nations Day with other district exchange students. He met the president of Rotary International and attended a conference on Polio and Women’s Rights.  He met some exchange students from Canada who know the exchange student that is staying with his parents in Poland.

Our program was a skit by the Town and Country Players of New Hope, PA.

Bruce Rutherford provided the skit outline to David Schwartz of the Town and Country Players who provided updates. The original skit was performed by the Ambler Rotary’s Flask and Twig players.

 

Bruce served as the Narrator and began with “Chicago, 1904, Paul Harris, You are there”. What followed was a very loose adaptation of the history of Rotary with the following players:

• David Schwartz as Paul Harris
• John Halderson as Abraham Lincoln of Springfield Illinois
• Chuck Pressler as George Washington
• John Halderson (again) as Admiral John Paul Jones
• Chuck Pressler (again) as Ben Franklin
• And Lynne Anne Donchez as Dolly Parton. 

The skit ended with the narrator commenting that “So from humble origins Rotary International has grown from one man’s idea to an organization that is dedicated TO HELPING EVERYONE, You are There!”

Thank you Bruce, John, Chuck and our special guests David Schwartz and Lynne Anne 

Donchez!