Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary - Newsletter

Haiti faces a bleak future. Its people need manpower, medicine, food and clean water. The impact of the earthquake is devastating, but the emotional and physical reverberations will wreak even more havoc if we don't increase humanitarian aid now. The international outpouring of help displays humanity's better angels -- a global sense of grief and sympathy.

And remember the people of Haiti in your prayers. May God give them strength in the days, hours, and months ahead.

He drew an analogy to Rotary’s involvement in Africa, India, the tsunami, Honduras, polio… We are in for the long haul…

Charlotte Shelburne Rotary will be focusing on how our club can best make a donation that will get to the people that need the most help.

Announcements

Jan. 27 – Annual meeting
Feb. 3 – Speaker Mary Alice MacKenzie
Feb. 10 – Michael Howregan on brain surgery

We have reappointed our honorary members, a formality we go through every year. They are Father Leo Bilodeau, Ben Brown, Irv Rose, Ray Cooley, Randy Longe, Larry Williams and William Wissell.

We received thank you notes from Hinesburg Food Shelf and the Howard Center.

We need a chair for the Ski Challenge which will be held on March 5.

Steve Dates announced that the Double Match for Polio Plus has reached 16 of its intended 20 participants.

John Dupee had a request from someone who was collecting donations of jeans and bed linens for Haiti. Anyone who would like to donate should contact John.

The Rotary Speech Contest will be held on Feb. 4 at CVU with judges from our club.

Sergeant at Arms

Don Condon invited happy fines and began with his own – his new appreciation of the word “change” – as seen in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Eric Hanley – Lauren is having her 10th birthday
Dennis Webster – new offices have sensors for the lights – and he now expects all rooms to light up when he enters
Linda Schiavone – their grandson is 10 on Wednesday
Dave Jonah – UVM Women and Men success in basketball
Ric Flood – he’s going away to St. Martin
Mal Parker – visiting Japan with his family
Michele Lash – welcome to Steve Taubman – military training begins next week
Russ Blodgett – a scoot fine
Elaine Dates – hearing a great concert with saxophone
Steve Dates – UVM hockey
John Hancock – just glad
Pat Sokolowski – Happy her kids are back at school
John Beal – the numbers for the club are up for attendance, breakfasts and Sergeant at Arms
Terry Kennaugh – friends have been visiting – and are leaving

Lucky draw: Steve Taubman drew Michele Lash’s number but she chose the wrong card.

Program

Dr. Taubman and Eric Hanley

Michael Lash introduced guest speaker Steve Taubman, a chiropractor, magician and hypnotist who speaks to groups for entertainment or to empower people to achieve greatness and embrace a state of freedom in business and life.

After surveying his audience’s professed skepticism or belief in magic or hypnotism, Dr. Taubman caught everyone’s attention with several card tricks (including asking Eric Hanley to name one card in a deck, and then magically finding that very card on top of Eric’s head.

Dr. Taubman said that many of us create an invisible wall for ourselves, barriers we set up that keep us from following through to reach our goals. He talked about the transformative power of magic and the power of magic and hypnosis to focus our energy and remove those invisible walls.

The power of magic has also been harnessed by a group called Magicians Without Borders who take magic shows to people of the third world, unfortunate people who are living in extreme poverty, to use the power of laughter to remove some of the stress of their lives.