The Rotary faithful gathered at Crossroads for breakfast Saturday.  Six AM isn’t too early for some of us (Sean, Terri, Tom and Lin)  We were joined at 7 by Steve, Tim and Mike.  It was looking foggy at first, but we persevered.  The weather man gave us enough of an opportunity to go out to our interchange and do a cleanup.  Someone pointed out that there is a sign amidst our area, giving credit to Fehl’s  Pools and Patios.  Fear not; this is only the starting point for their two miles of the straight and narrow.

As can be seen from our sign, posted on one of the clover-leaf turns, we are given full credit for our efforts.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been at it for over 25 years.  It started up under the leadership of Bill Borda, our recently passed old Rotarian.  Ten years under him and another ten under Lin Seyler.  Sean is ably following, leading us on to pick-up precision and tenacious trash collection.  We’ll have one more opportunity to clean up this year.

Sean will be conducting the meeting on Tuesday, as I will be in Ocean City MD at my son’s wedding.  Final planning for the Wine and Dine event will be the important business to be conducted.  I’m sure we’ll all cooperate and support Tim, Sean and Mike, who do the lion’s share of arrangement for this event.  We’ll see you at Jim Deitrich Park for the setup and the event this Saturday.  No meeting the following Tuesday, but we all should try to attend the District Governor’s official visit on August 14^th.

What a wonderful evening for an outing at Schell’s fast food and Mini-golf!  My wife Kathy and I were sitting around the entrance to the mini-golf to take attendance and perhaps enjoy some golfing stories.  Before he even showed up, there were two women, noticing my Rotary shirt and hat who began inquiring, “Where’s that Garland Bear?”  Garland was the first Rotarian showing up to enjoy the evening.  One of these ladies did reappear later, to consult Garland on “Library business”.  Indeed, he was conducting ticket sales, for those Rotarians he somehow missed selling them at Change-over meeting last week. 

His first customer was John, freshly returned from the shore, where he was buying ice cream for his grandkids every night.  Ask him about it.  John was followed closely by Terri and her entourage, including daughter Jess and budding Rotarian, granddaughter Aria.  Next to show up was Jack, who is busy dog-sitting for his kids this week.

Mike, Linda and granddaughter Emily arrived, although they were waiting until tomorrow to go golfing.  Good to see Mike returned from the Delaware shore, after a well deserved rest.  Then Tom and Sharon rolled up in Tom’s new pride and joy, his new bright red pickup truck.

Last to show was Sean, who visited the lunch counter before sitting down.  Both John and Garland started begging French fries from him immediately.  I liked his line comparing them unfavorably to the seagulls at the shore.

The evening was rounded out when Garland went over to dairy bar and treated all to ice cream, chocolate, of course.

All in all it was a wonderful evening helping to celebrate a great fund-raiser for the Muhlenberg Community Library.  Schell’s deserves a serious kudos for donating their facility for this event each year.

See you all at our regular meeting on July 17^th at Blind Hartman’s.  We will have a drawing for the EREY Piggleman; Rotarian must be present to win. After that, the next event is Highway clean-up on July 28^th (no meeting on July 24^th)

One person’s trash is another person’s rewarding community service?

Sound’s silly to say it like that, but Muhlenberg Rotary does find a certain sense of fulfillment and service by meeting several Saturdays each year to patrol and clean up our own little stretch of highway.

Meeting earlier (6:00 AM) to have breakfast at the nearby Crossroads Restaurant doesn’t hurt.  Good food and better conversation lend themselves to a great start to the day.  Saturday it was project leader Sean, President Terri, Allen and Lin to start.  After breakfast, with the usual impromptu discussions of other Rotary efforts, we met more Rotarians outside at 7:00.  Steve, Tim and Jack were ready to join the cleanup.  Also joining us was Terri’s son-in-law’s mom, Sue Skelly.  She’s joined us at a number of events; can we get her to take the step of officially joining us?

Eight is enough, as the old TV title says.  And it’s true for our efforts.  With four quadrants to our cloverleaf for picking up, small groups are busy doing pick-up, while employing the “Buddy System” to stay safe.  This is always a good idea when playing in high speed traffic! 

Shortly after we began, some guy in a new red Colorado calls out to us, “Hey where are the bags?”  This is Tom Kisling showing up to help.  We directed him to where leader Sean is providing bags and safety vests, so Tom can join the pick-up party.

All in all, it was a most pleasant morning to be out.  Nice temperature and low humidity made the morning walk and stoop a good experience.  We’re tentatively scheduling the next effort for July 28^th, when we’ll find more trash has appeared.  Hope to see you then!

Monday is Camp Neidig commencement.  It’s always a treat to see a gathering of future leaders. We have no meeting scheduled for this Tuesday, as we have both the highway cleanup and Neidig event instead.  The meeting on June 26^th at Blind Hartman’s will center on a discussion by Sean, Tim and Mike on the up-coming Wine & Dine event.

Coming up this week – Highway Cleanup on Saturday, the 16^th.  We will meet for breakfast @ 6:00 at Crossroads. If you can’t (or don’t want to) get up that Early, please join us at 7:00 for the actual clean-up.  On Monday, the 18^th we will be attending the closing ceremonies for Camp Neidig down on the banks of the Manatawny.  If you haven’t ordered your chicken dinner , you can still go down to enjoy these young people with all their enthusiasm.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention our members who received recognition for EREY donations last week. John Alshefski, Tim Bitting, Sean Fitzgerald, Tom Kisling, Jack Krishock, Allen Moyer and Lin Seyler are all looking for a place to hang their new hardware.  Send us a picture of the place of prominence you find for your award.  Surely,  we will need more carved Rotary wheels to honor our other members as well in the future. 

Last evening was a busy one for Muhlenberg Rotarians.  We began by electing Directors for the 2018-2019 year for the Rotary Club of Muhlenberg Charitable Foundation.  By unanimous vote we chose Steve Adams, Sean Fitzgerald, Tom Kisling, Jack Krishock, Mike Lepera, Terri Pfennig and Lin Seyler.

At a short board meeting held immediately after the regular meeting, the Board of Directors approved the budget submitted for the coming three Rotary years.  Spending to the limit of funding in this budget can now be done by the officers without further authorization.  Any expenditures outside of these items, however, will require Board approval.

We had quite a discussion of changes to the fruit sale.  The supplier we used last year has merged with a new outfit, Peejay’s.  Allen Moyer has taken the time to investigate what this means to us, and it has some new, nice features.

The product line is slightly different with the merger, but gives us a chance at new offerings, tangelos (really an old offering), and clementines.  We will also be able to do online ordering and payment, a great improvement.  The new vendor will provide some promotional materials and will subsidize (25%) up to $100 for our promotional materials.  In line with this, Allen has developed a handout for our events, like Riverfest, Wine&Dine and the Flea Market.  No prices yet, but good information to promote sales.

Some discussion about the product line, like dropping juice oranges, was tossed around.  Also, our ability to not order too much fruit “on Spec” was discussed and we hope to minimize any fruit left after the day of sale.  

We need details and definition on some items: How do we sell pecans? How do we include the other clubs?  How will this work for the day of sale, with respect to our loading dock process?  Allen is on top of this, and will get answers as we deal with the new people.