Newsletter 9-3-13
Needham Rotary Club
Rotary Minutes of Meeting September 3, 2013
Held at the Needham Sheraton
The Pledge of Allegiance was led by our past president, Charles Nelson , Bob Cocks led us in “God Bless America”, and Darrell led us in the Invocation.
Guests: Guests were Stephen O’Brien, a prospective member; soon to be member Marty Lindeman; Rotarian Sujoy Spencer from Phoenix; Chas. Haverly, Rotarian from Seattle, Ken Watson from the East Amherst NY Rotary Cub; and our guest speaker, Ted Staley. Bob Cocks led us in the welcome song.
Announcements: BOD Meeting next week before the regular membership meeting. Reminder, Rotary Music Night Saturday October 19 6-10pm.
-Bill Paulson read an email from Maria Cronin, who is in France as an exchange student from the high school. Sounds like she is doing well!
-Next week’s meeting will focus on long range planning, so, bring your great ideas!
Happy Dollars: Scoot MacFarlane for a great trip to Nantucket, and his 40th wedding anniversary; Marty Lindemann for finally moving into his restored house in Dedham; Ryan for his first (successful) sky diving attempt; who else in the club went sky diving and was not successful? Tom Savino for his son Greg completing a community service project; Roberta Seligman for a Happy Jewish New Year! Darrell for the Pats! A number of ‘Welcome back Sujoy! George Hoffmeister: nice to be back!
Birthdays:
Jim Brown was the lucky recipient!
Rotary Birthday: None mentioned.
50/50: The magic number was 532 and Louise had the ticket, but did not pull the right card. The pot is at $57.00.
Guest Speaker: The Needham Rail Trail bike path which (hopefully) will inevitably connect to Medfield, is now in the money raising stage here in Needham. The path starts near Roche Brothers and will go all the way to Red Wing Bay, in phase 1. Phase 2 will be to get Dover to develop their portion. Phase 3 will be to get Medfield to develop their portion of the trail. Phase 4 will be to replace the train bridge over the Charles from Needham to Dover. All big assignments!
Phase 1 of this plan is at a cost of $880,000. That is $100 a foot from Needham Roche Brothers to Red Wing Bay, which is appx. 8800 feet away.
They hope to be able to raise money to cover the entire trail I n asphalt, but, stone dust is about 10% of the cost. Ted has worked very hard on this for a number of years, and is hoping to continue to make progress. He is open to ideas, and especially donations from individuals, companies, and any organizations as well. Their web site is very good at: http://www.baycolonyrailtrail.org/
Humor: Mary went to Father O’Brien to have a talk. “Father”, she started; my husband Patrick is now among the dear departed.” Father O’Brien replied, “I am so sorry to hear that Mary. I know that you both were having problems dealing with his loss of a job and the resulting financial issues. Did he have any final words?”
Mary replied: “Yes father, he said ‘put down that gun’”.