The Rotary Club of Ambler
www.rotary.org
– rotary international web site
www.amblerrotary.org – our web
site
www.rotarydistrict7430.org
– district web site
Vol. 81. Edition 48 May 31, 2006
Change-Over will be held on June 21 at 6 P.M
MAY 31 MEETING:
We opened with the Pledge to the Flag,
singing of “
President Tom, after some ribbing, remarked
that we have only 30 more days to make fun of his joke telling. He then stopped feeling sorry for himself
long enough to thank today’s assistants:
On the “I’ve heard that one in the 4th
grade”, President Tom read an “Obit” for Larry LaPrise, (think of “Hokie-Pokie). Seems that they had a difficult time getting
him in the coffin; “they put his right leg in…” Then, out of desperation, followed (from supposedly
from
Chuck Dager making his second appearance
reviewed the June issue of the “Rotarian,” remarking that is a
great presentation of “Rotary for Dummies,” as this issue is a
pictorial showing Rotary in action. Take
a look. It is understood that even those
who graduated from the
GUESTS:
- Anne
Dunnington from
Other guests included:
- Fran
McKenna, guest of Steve Pribis (even though Steve was MIA)
- Fred
Kim, guest of
- Mary
Lee Johnson, guest of Jim Kline (although he called her Mary Kay)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- The Board of Directors thanks
all members for turning off cell phones prior to entering our meeting
room. Your cooperation is greatly
appreciated.
- Rich Lawrence, co-chair of
the Inbound Student Exchange program, is asking for volunteers to host our
two students who will be arriving in September. One student is from
- The
district golf tournament will be held on Friday June 2nd
at the Olde Homestead CC in New Tripoli, PA. Total cost is only $75 and includes
green fees, card, lunch, pot of gold.
See President Tom for further details
- The
District Conference to be held on Saturday June 3rd
at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in
- Blue Bell Rotary is
sponsoring a 5K Run/Walk: June 10 - 9:30
a.m. from
- Liberty
Lutheran Services invites you to the opening weekend of “The Lion
King’ on Sunday June 11, 2006
– 1:00 P.M at the
- Jim
Kline gave a report on our annual club golf outing to be held on
“Change-Over” morning (June 21)
at Sunnybrook CC. Jim has devised a
“new” handicap system that he says will be “fair to all
concerned.” It will be
interesting to see if Jim follows his instructions and actually assigns
himself a valid handicap.
- District
7430 Change-Over dinner will be held on Wednesday 5:30-9:00 P.M., June 28th at the
- Ken
Crest’s annual golf tournament will be held on Tuesday, September 26th at River
Crest Country Club. See
- The District 7430
is raising money through the sale of lottery tickets. Each ticket sells for $25. The money will go to the District
Foundation to support “Adopt a Village.” President Tom has tickets in his
possession.
- District 7430
is also sponsoring a work project to help rebuild
GRAND CLUB UPDATE: Bob the King made a brief appearance today and read the winners names in
today’s first drawing, and asked that Walt West be recognized for his
outstanding work in organizing and administering the Grand Club. Thanks, Walt!
The fourth drawing took place at the
beginning of today’s meeting. The
winners were:
- $50
– Sally Heller, sold by Dave Lightkep
- $50
– Anne Ritter sold by Dan
- $100
– J. R. Warner
The fifth drawing occurred at the conclusion
of today’s meeting. The winners
were:
- $50 – Karen Gerhard sold by John
- $50 – Al and Carol Douglass
- $100 – Kellie Hubing sold by
grandmother, Elaine
Please note that THREE members
have not turned in tickets and money.
The Grand Club works sort of like walking through an antique store and
breaking something, “You break it, and you’ve bought it.” With the Grand Club, if you took tickets, you
are responsible to turning in $100.
Also, none of your tickets can win if they are still sitting on your
desk.
PROGRAM:
Joe Cruice, from Compeer of Suburban Philadelphia was
today’s speaker. Joe defined,
“Compeer” as a person of equal status, a companion, equal, or friend. Founded in 1991 Compeer is one of over 100
such programs in 34 states,
They
need your help. The Compeer program functions primarily with
the help of three important groups outside its national and local staffs.
- Caring
individuals who take an hour or two a week to share friendships with
persons who are recovering from mental illness
- Individuals
and persons in corporations, foundations and other organizations who find
it in their hearts to provide the funding so essential to Compeer
programs.
- Supplier
of goods and services who are generous in giving of their time and talent
either gratis or at less than their normal billing rates.
If you would like to volunteer or need
further information, go to their web site, www.Compeer-SubPhilly.org .
50-50: the
winner with the white tee and $12 was George Carey
**********
UP-COMING
PROGRAMS: (Program Chair,
6-7 – Alan Schmuckler – “Homeopathic Remedies”
6-14 –
6-21 – Change-over Dinner
6-28
– Elaine Caltabiano – “Rotary
Business/Cultural Exchange Program” – a report on 4 weeks in
ASSIGNMENTS: (Chair,
Set-up/ Prayer/
Take-Down 4
Way Test 50/50 Greeters
6-7
– Costa C.
Dager Deragon Craig &
6-14 – Faddis Douglass Geraldino Fleisher & Howard
6-21 **************************Change-over******************************
6-28 – Gerhard Gessner Graham Holteen & Hummel
AFTERTHOUGHT: (Contributed
by Senior Editor-in-Chief, George B. Ditter)
A major pet peeve of your correspondent is
the unconscious use of hackneyed expressions, as for example the phrase
"pet peeve." There is,
however, a considerable difference between consciously employing a cliché and
putting your mind on cruise control and letting the stale metaphors spill
out. One danger being that if you are
not really thinking about the meaning of a metaphor you may employ one
incorrectly. As occurred the other day
when your correspondent had the occasion to sit in on closing arguments in a
case, not one of his, but one in which he was interested. During the course of the argument, one of the
attorneys stated that he wanted to deal with some of the "pink
elephants" that opposing counsel had raised in
his argument. Now it is a serious breach
of courtroom decorum for a spectator to utter a hoot of derision at one of the
participant's malapropism (so we didn't).
At the risk of stating the obvious, the phrase "pink elephants"
refers to the hallucinations of a drunkard in the grip of the DTs and not to
something put forth to distract one from the real issue at hand, which is, of
course, a "red herring." Apart
from the relationship that exists between red and pink, "pink elephants"
have nothing to do with "red herrings." In using a cliché accuracy is everything, if
the phrase is "red herring" then "pickled herring" is
"close, but no sitar," as Ravi Shankar used to say.
The major danger of goofing up a cliché is that your listeners or
readers won't be able to follow your argument.
I am reminded of one of my college chums who was convinced that the
phrase was "take something for granite" instead of "take
something for granted," try as we (me and the rest of his room-mates) might
we could not persuade him that on this he was, to coin a phrase, full of
schist.* In an essay, recommended in this space before, "Politics and the
English Language," George Orwell, after describing the dangers of the
slovenly deployment of stale similes and mangled metaphors, stated as his
number one rule for clear expression to "never use a metaphor, simile or
other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print." Orwell was, of course, right on the money,
hitting that bull's eye right out of the park, but we would add, at the risk of
being a guilty Lily, know thine clichés or else avoid
them, as Graham Parkinson says, like the plaque.
* "Any of various medium to coarse
grained metamorphic rocks composed of laminated, often flaky, parallel layers
of chiefly micaceous minerals." American Heritage Dictionary