Newburyport Rotary - Newburyport Clipper

Our opening song today, August 10, was "America the Beautiful" played by Ted Shepard. The invocation was given by Fr. Ray from Honduras. After lunch of steak tips or baked manicotti we joined Zack and Scott Vandersall in singing "In the Good Old Summertime".

Guests and Visiting Rotarians

The guest book was read by Mark Audette - Wendy Smith from Simply Sweet, Fr. Ray Richard from Honduras, Denise Callahan, Kate Hughes (daughter of Jim), and Hy derBogosian from Haverhill Rotary.

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Happy Birthday to Hack Pramberg (8/11) turning 75 years young. Win Damon has been happily married for seven years.

Happy Dollars

Claudia paid a happy dollar to have the "real" Geri Dorr stand up. Today Geri was fining people who did not wear their name badge; so Kent Allen was wearing a badge...guess who? One other person seen wearing an alias. Joe Welch was happy that his friend Hack was older than him. Arlene Santa Fe was pleased that the YWCA won third place in the Bed Race.

Badge Fines

Geri assessed a $2 fine for each person seen not wearing a name badge. She's been told that in the Nashua Club, they fine people $2 for leaving early and call it a scooter fine... so watch out.

Paul Harris Fellowship

George Cashman was asked to speak (again) about Paul Harris. He's worried he may be fined for speaking. He told us all the good programs funded by the Rotary Foundation - International Scholar Program, Polio Plus, Planet Earth, Rotaract, and Interact - to promote world understanding and peace throughout the world. Liz Cullen is the District Chairman and she presented a Paul Harris Award to Jim Hughes and his daughter Kathleen.

Program

Three years ago our Club started gathering hospital supplies to send to Honduras. With the help of Scott Goodspeed of Anna Jaques Hospital, several items were donated; but not enough to fill the container, so we kept adding to the collection. Mike Lagasse was able to provide a storage site for us.

Denise Callahan from St. Louis DeGonzaque Church heard about our project, and with help of volunteers they spent 100 hours taking inventory and packing the supplies. The packaging was donated by Packaging Specialties and four computers were donated by a computer company. The church, because of its closing, was able to donate many religious articles and furnishings. Denise praised Rotary for all their efforts in making this project work.

Fr. Ray then spoke on behalf of San Marcos Hospital in Honduras, who was the recipient of all these goods. He was there when the shipment arrived; and within hours, the items were on their way to the hospital and put to use immediately. There were pictures passed around of both the start and the finish. He read a letter from the hospital thanking us for our donations ... and he's asking us if we would be willing to do it again! They are in need of an autoclave. Presently all the instruments have to be sent to another hospital for sterilization.

We thanked our guests and presented them with Rotary mugs.

Canoe Raffle

The winning ticket was pulled today, and the winner was Jack McCrae of Newbury.

Raffle

$30 was won by Scott Eaton