Marge McCabe – she opened up our Happy Dollar portion of the meeting by giving a dollar bill, she and Wayne both attended a meeting of the Vernon Rotary club “by mistake”. The meeting proved to be a great time and there were a lot of ideas for club activities and fund raising that were exchanged. They had gone up to the George Inn in McAfee having been erroneously told that the Wallkill Valley Rotary club was holding their installation of officers that evening. Marge and Wayne will be attending that event as well on JULY 13th at the same restaurant.
Todd Lattig – handed in a $1 – for having given Marge and Wayne the wrong date.
Jim Taylor – one dollar for the rain that finally was reaching the parched ground.
John Frank – TEN dollars for the beautiful ladies that he was so fortunate to be able to sit with during the meeting today.
Buz Tomasino – a dollar for the donation of flowers from Stonehenge Nursery. The flowers will be distributed around our booth at the Farm & Horse Show.
Carolyn Ottenbreit – a dollar for her son who received his FIRST paycheck in his new job. (Editor’s note - I remember my excitement when I received my first check when working at my first planning department job upstate NY in the summer of 1969.)
Denise Current – a buck – for the fact that she is alive, apparently contrary to what a couple of her friends had heard about her passing away. Thank GOD that it turned out to be just a bad rumor.
John Frank – passed in a buck because his granddaughter, who is a junior in high school, just passed her national EMT test and will soon be riding a rig while serving in that capacity. She is now awaiting receipt of the paperwork to formalize the test results.
Announcements
Annual Garden Party – Marge spoke about the Annual Garden Party event that will take place on Saturday, June 24 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm.
This event will be upon us before we know it !!!
It will be held at the Stillwater Community Center, on the rear of the former Swartswood Firehouse, just outside of the historic, beautiful and quaint village of Swartswood. The theme for the party is A Toast to Summer. The cost is a pittance – only $25 per person. The event is going to be catered by Dominick’s in Newton, with club members bringing deserts.
Flyers for the event were again placed at every place setting for lunch today.
Since there was no time to get tickets printed up, Marge said that it was decided to email an announcement to all of the members and ask them to send in their checks so we know we don’t have to do follow-up calls to see if you are going to be joining us. Checks can be mailed to Marge McCabe at 125 High St, Newton, NJ 07860 and be made payable to Newton Rotary Club.
Since the event is this upcoming Saturday, June 24th - NOW is the time to confirm you will be joining us.
The 2023 County Farm and Horse – It is that time of the year again – the County Farm and Horse Show is fast approaching us. Todd noted that the event will run from Friday, August 4 through Saturday, August 12.
Steve Wescott and Jim Taylor will be heading up our efforts this year.
Steve also passed around a sign-up sheet for work shifts at the fair.
These sheets will continue to make the rounds for several weeks – until we get as close to a full compliment of people required to run each and every shift. SO – CHECK YOUR CALENDARS AND SEE WHEN YOU CAN TAKE ON AT LEAST 2 SHIFTS DURING THIS FAIR WEEK.
The Farm and Horse Show Committee has been meeting recently and has asked for feedback from the club members. At the bottom of this newsletter, the committee has asked that you fill out and return the brief survey form. The committee is looking for any suggestions from you on what improvements we should consider making to the booth – either physical improvements, staffing issues, scope of types of food offered, or general programmatic changes.
Remember – your suggestions can play an important role in the future of our one major fund-raising event each year.
Deadline for returning the survey forms is Friday, June 23
Scouting Event in 2024 – Mike Hanifan spoke about a scouting program that is going to be held at the County Farm & Horse Show property on Saturday and Sunday, October 28 and 29, 2024. He noted that the scouting organization is presently estimating between 2,500 and 4,000 will be attending the program. He also said that Troop 180 will be involved in the program. Mike said that he will be providing more information as we start to get closed in time to when the weekend program will be going on.
Polio Plus Program – President Todd again reminded us that the mason jars on our tables are there to collect your loose change and folding green backs to help eradicate polio around the world, Remember more than 20 years we succeeded in beating back this vile plague on humanity. The problem arose that several national leaders in third world countries in Africa decided they did not want to have the resident of their country receive inoculations. This left literally millions of people susceptible to contracting this disease and starting this whole cycle once again.
So – consider what Al Jolson said to his audience one evening during a performance – come along my friends – open your hearts, open your wallets – remember, it’s only money.
Programs for next week and the last Wednesday of the month are:
On Wednesday, June 21, we are going to have the installation of our new officers and Directors for Rotary year 2023 to 2024.
Wednesday, June 28 – our guest speaker will be Gayle Carrick, Executive County Superintendent of Schools for Sussex County.
Program of the Week –
Jon Connolly is the President of the Sussex County Community College, and has serviced in that post for roughly 7 years.
Jon began his talk by addressing the problems the college encountered after the COVID pandemic had passed. Apparently, while the college buildings had been closed down during this., they had developed mold spores in them. Spores were eradicated by the installation of UV lights in the classroom ceilings. These lights were left on after these students left the individual classrooms in order to effectively eliminate the spore problem.
Another problem associated with the COVID pandemic was the fact that classes were taught via zoom or similar electronic program. John said that it was the universal agreement that this was definitely not the best way to provide students with college level instruction; because of the pandemic, they were not very many options otherwise available.
John also spoke about the addition to Building A which will provide additional and larger classrooms than the building had before. Further, there will be a lecture hall which will provide for the ability to teach a large number of students in a single subject at one time, and not have to break the classes up into 15 to 18 students there would be crammed into a small classroom
One of the programs that John spoke about that was new is the culinary classroom facility in the former Maguire automobile dealership building on Main Street in Newton. He said that there had been some problems with scheduling the second-year students to run the facility as an actual restaurant. They had originally figured on three days a week to have the restaurant open to the public for lunch and dinner. However, that has now been cut back to two days a week. The faculty is trying to determine how best to increase this schedule back to the original three days per week.
Another issue that Jon found surprising was that when the culinary program was starting, they had determined that they may get a certain number of students to sign up for the program. However, they found that there was a very large demand and they ended up being overwhelmed with student applications.
Originally, they were not sure if the culinary program would financially break even. However, the director of this program has continued to project the cash flow that indicates they will actually end up making money with the program, especially when the restaurant is functioning as planned.
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