President Joe unveiled this year’s Rotary International theme of “BE THE INSPIRATION”. He talked about his vision of doing more service work instead of club meetings so we will be offsite a lot. With that said, READ THE TACK WEEKLY or you might be sitting at ROTM alone having lunch while we are putting together back packs somewhere else or holding a scholarship review committee meeting. Consider yourself warned! Please read his President message in the TACK for more information.
Observations from the Peanut Gallery:
While Karen Chasse is ably reporting all of the club news that is fit to print I figured I would weigh in from time to time with some random observations.
Incidentally, while I am sure Mark Nahorney knows this, the term “peanut gallery’ dates back to the vaudeville days. The peanut gallery was typically the highest and cheapest seats that attracted the rowdiest patrons. Those patrons typically heckled the performers and threw peanuts at them and hence the name. Howdy Doody later adopted that name for his live kids audience though I prefer to think of myself as a heckler so I will continue to use the term in its original context.
Change, few people carry any in their pockets anymore, and yes, it is inevitable. Heraclitus (no, that is not a STD) once said: “There is nothing permanent except change.” Maya Angelou observed: “If you don’t like something change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
So, every year a new club president comes in and attempts to make changes. For example, yesterday we had Joe’s first meeting outside on the patio at Run of the Mill. Nothing like having a meeting outside in the midst of dozens of other restaurant patrons who don’t care too much about our cultish four way test or the pledge of allegiance to an invisible flag while they are nibbling on their fish tacos. There’s nothing like welcoming our new Sergeant at Arms, Matt Simmons who none of us in the peanut gallery could hear so of course we could not heckle him … yet.
For those of you who missed the meeting yesterday Joe also changed up the order a bit doing the 50/50 a little earlier; he did not recite his own prayer; and he spoke before our food came. He also announced that we are going to do some hands on projects on Wednesdays instead of lunch so remember to dress accordingly if we are going to paint a school one Wednesday. Nothing like getting paint on your tie. Bill, change your attitude.
The fact is that change is good. It keeps things fresh. It keeps us guessing. Joe emphasized that Rotary is not about attendance any more. It is about service. Of course, Rotary has always been about service, but for way too long it has been about attendance too. Now it is more about service and less about whether you can make it to lunch on a particular Wednesday which should be a huge relief to about half our club. Let’s not give up on lunch because that is where we will be able to heckle Simmons and find out what is going on with our fellow Rotarians, but let’s all try and make things more about service as well. That is a nice change and one I hope to embrace.
Sure, we will have to put up with other changes too. A president who wears a pink shirt or alleged burgundy paints. A president whose teeth are simply not as white as his predecessor. If you can’t change Joe’s changes, change your attitude.
Finally, I will leave you with this random thought. The State Fire Marshall’s office determined that the fire at the sheep barn at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds was caused by an electrical issue. Everyone knows that if you rub wool together you get static electricity. If you have a bunch of sheep in a barn you’re going to have bolts of static electricity flying everywhere, so clearly it was an electrical issue. We did not need the Fire Marshall’s office to make that finding.
Respectfully thrown by a member of the Peanut Gallery.
