GSE Team Photos Added to Photo Album and Downloads Page
I have added my photos and some from Marty of the GSE teams visit to the photo page. There have also been some requests for the photos by members of the team and club, so I have zipped them and loaded them to the downloads page. There are instructions on the downloads page if anyone wants to grab them. If you need help, drop Dan a note at webmaster@pittstonrotary.org
Click Here to See the GSE Team Photos

Click Here to go to the Downloads Page

Special Thanks for the GSE Team Help
There were many members of our club, members of other clubs in the cluster, and local friends that deserve special thanks.

First off, we want to thank the host families. In our club, Leo and Barbara Davison kept Yazctik Guevara and Dan & Tree Bishop kept Edgardo (Chacho) Figueroa and Flor Vela. President Paul Muczynski from the Plains Rotary kept Luigi Chung, and Frank Mattei from the Plains Club kept team leader Heber Espejo. Thanks to all for their tireless work and opening their homes to our Peruvian guests.

We also want to thank the Dallas Rotary Club for sending us a contribution for the GSE Dinner on Monday evening. All the members of the Pittston Club express their thanks to Dallas for their help and support.

We also need to thank those that participated in 'Vocational Day.'

Special thanks to the 3 lovely ladies at Tenenbaum's Travel that giggled the day away with Luigi - It's always the quiet ones that you have to watch out for!

Special Thanks to Brad Elison from the Pa Bureau of Forestry - Brad took a good chuck of his day to drive to Doc's house in Harding and spent a lot of time talking to Flor about much of the conservation work the state does. Brad stayed for lunch and we enjoyed his company and all had questions about his work. Even though Brad is a Mountaineer, we'll consider him an 'Honorary Nittany Lion' for his 'above and beyond the call of duty' help with Flor.

Special Thanks to the Plains and Wilkes-Barre Fire Departments for showing Chacho around and letting him get some hands on time with some of their favorite rescue tools. Also special thanks to Paul Muczynski for arranging a great vocational day for Chacho on short notice. Chacho came home and said -- 'I LOVE Fire trucks' - Clearly he enjoyed himself.

Special Thanks to Geisinger Hospital for letting Yazctik spend the day there seeing the american medical system in operation. We appreciate them taking the time to show Yazctik and answer all his questions.

Special Thanks also need to go to Marty Snyder and Christine Slacktish for taking the team to Philadelphia all day. They had a great time - especially with the shopping - And this time they managed to get there and back without losing anyone. We also want to thank Marty and Paul for giving up their Saturday evening (and a race night) to take the GSE team to the Woodlands. The team all decided it was a 'great american disco'.

Finally - More special thanks go to Marty Snyder for keeping everyone organized about where to go and what to do. As always, Marty took the time and effort to make a schedule, make sure we all had it - and most important, make sure we all actually followed it.

Special Thanks for the 'Score a Goal Against Hunger' Project
Many people helped and participated in the project this year, but there are a few people that deserve special recognition for their outstanding service.

First and foremost, we wish to express our heartfelt thanks to the Times Leader & Susan Kahlau. The Times Leader gave up thousands of dollars in advertising revenue to place large and prominent free ads for the project in the paper. Their assistance brought attention to the project and made it possible for us to help more people. We're happy to see their commitment to the community and appreciate their help.

Noreen Clark & WNEP-16 deserve a special thank you for their outstanding support of the project. For those of you that missed it, Noreen took a full minute from her weather forecast on Saturday morning to talk about the project and implore people to bring food and cash donations to the game. Because of her broadcast, we took the time to prepare cans for collecting cash donations and it made a huge difference in the amount of money we collected. We thank Noreen for the help and support, and hope we can get her to come and visit the club in the future.

Our good friend Joyce Salvo from the Pittston Area School District has again come through for us and gathered 4 students from the Pittston Area High School to assist us in the food and cash collections. Although we have yet to twist Joyce's arm into joining the club, she has been doing club work as if she was a member. We are pleased to call her a friend of the club and thank her for her service to her students and the community. She is a huge part of educating our future leaders and earns 'jewels in her crown' each and every day.

We also want to thank the 4 students that gave up a Saturday evening to help us. The weather was cold and windy, but they toughed it out to be a part of this project. The 4 of them were perfect examples of what 'Service Above Self' means and will spend their lives making a difference for others. We are proud to have Alexander Noll, Santino Ardo, Erin Donahue and Alexander Caicedo associated with the club. They came and worked hard and never complained - And most important, they took joy in being a part of helping others. Our door is always open to our 4 new student friends.

Jim Lewis deserves our special thanks - Jim took the time to have his own mini food drive at his business and came through with 4 boxes of food. Jim isn't just a Rotarian at meetings - Jim lives as a Rotarian 24/7 - and we're lucky to have him in our ranks.

Finally, we need to thank Nicole and the Penguins Organization -- Without their support this project couldn't happen. They were much more involved this year with the project and have gone the extra yard to help us. We're happy to see them so involved in the community and proud to be associated with them. We look forward to working with them for years to come.

Doc, Dan & Marty visit the Wyoming Rotary Club
On Feb. 16th, Dan, Marty and Doc joined the Wyoming Rotary Club for their Valentine party at the Checkerboard Inn.

When we arrived, Dan discovered that the new member to be inducted that evening was John Morris, a classmate of his from Wyoming Seminary. Dan and the Pittston Club welcome John to the family of Rotary, and look forward to him doing good work for them.

Doc spoke to the club about the 'Score a Goal Against Hunger' project that we are running, and their members seemed very impressed with the project. There was also quite a bit of interest in ticket sales, so we hope they can help us out and join us for a fun evening out. Doc also got the biggest laugh of the evening with his blonde joke. You'll have to ask him to repeat it on Tuesday for those that didn't hear it.

FInally, Dan spoke to the membership and their wives about having a web site for the club. He gave them an overview of what is involved, how the process works, and some of the features that they might find useful. The club seemed very receptive to Dan's ideas and seemed to enjoy his talk. Mark Sobeck had some very kind words about our site and and recommended building their own site to the board on the spot.

Rotary Shopping Page Launched
Many of you may have noticed that the web site didn't get updated last week - Because we spent the time getting up a basic version of the Rotary Shopping section of the web site. The area still needs a LOT of work, and we are still getting approvals (and rejections) from vendors in every niche. Today I had to add 9 new sites -- and more come in - almost 24/7. There are HUNDREDS of web sites to choose from, so take a few minutes to click around.

The burden is now on us to do three things --
1) Market
2) Network
3) Add sites and programs

Market
The best thing we can all do is bookmark that page and begin to do any shopping we can through the shopping area. Tell your friends and family about it and ASK for their help. Explain to them that ALL shopping on the web is done through a partner program like we are running -- So anything they buy is paying a commission to someone - So they might as well help their community with their spending. I am in the process of writing a press release for the district newsletter but it will not appear till at least January. Marty will be bringing it up at the Council of Presidents, and we should discuss it with any other club members we contact.

Network
This may be the MOST valuable thing we do. Many of these programs are 2 tiered - What that means is that if we sign up an organization to a partner program - We get up to an additional 5% of the sales THEY generate. They get their standard cut, and we get 5% from the processing company. If we help other clubs, libraries, service organizations and business construct and market their web site., everyone does better -- their organization, our club and Foundation. It's a win/win for everyone involved. We should market the idea to other clubs and organizations for their own use.

Add Sites
This is a way to have input into the shopping area and tailor it to fit your shopping needs. If there is a site you use that is not listed, you should tell me so I can check if they have a partner program. If they do, I can sign up the club and put a link in the shopping area you can use. Those of you that shop online on a regular basis can send me a list of sites you shop and I can work through them. The more you can tell me, the more useful the site will be to you.

CLICK HERE to visit the Rotary Shopping Area.

Make Up Missed Meetings Online
Rotary International has new policies that allow members to make up meetings online. It takes about 35 minutes of time to get credit for making up a meeting.

Click Here to See Details or Make Up a Meeting

Carmen Mauriello Update
Carmen dropped me a note this week with the URL for a gallery of his pictures. Most of the pictures are of activities of the RoterACT club he is involved with in Mozambique.

You can visit the page of pics at this address
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/carmen_mauriello/album?.dir=/db3b&.src=ph&.tok=phwOJMEBjmJc2Q3L

If you would like to drop Carmen a note sometime, this is his E-mail address
carmen_mauriello@yahoo.com

Polio and Rotary News
I found this article on one of the Philly club web sites and thought you might like to read it.

POLIO AND ROTARY - April 12, 2005 Editorial from The Wall Street Journal
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine. Poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis, used to be one of childhood’s most feared diseases. A few years after Dr. Jonas Salk announced his vaccine on April 12 1955, nearly every child in the U.S. was protected. Today polio has disappeared from the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific and is nearly gone from the rest of the world. A too-little known part of this feat is the role played by Rotary, the international businessman’s club, which 20 years ago adopted the goal of wiping out the disease. Rotary understood that medical breakthroughs are worthless unless people aren’t afraid to immunize their children and efficient delivery systems exist to get the vaccine to them. And so it mobilized its members in 30,100 clubs in 166 countries to make it happen. In 1985, when Rotary launched its eradication program, there were an estimated 350,000 new cases of polio in 125 countries. Last year, 1,263 cases were reported. More than one million Rotary members have volunteered their time or donated money to immunize two billion children in 122 countries. In 1988, Rotary money and its example were the catalyst for a global eradication drive joined by the World Health Organization, Unicef and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. In 2000 Rotary teamed up with the United Nations Foundation to raise $100 million in private money for the program. By the time the world is certified as polio-free – probably in 2008 – Rotary will have contributed $600 million to its eradication effort. An economist of our acquaintance calls Rotary’s effort the most successful private healthcare initiative ever. A vaccine-company CEO recently volunteered to us that the work of Rotary and the Gates Foundation, both private groups, has been more effective than any government in promoting vaccines to save lives. It’s become fashionable in some quarters to deride civic volunteerism, but Rotary’s unsung polio effort deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

District Launches Youth Exchange Web site
Rotary district 7410 launched it's new web site this week -- A site dedicated exclusively to youth exchange. It is full of information about the goings on in the district of exchange students, and should be a great way to entice new students into the program.

Click Here to visit the District Youth Exchange Web site.

Natalie Woronochuk from Northeast Regional Cancer Institute visits club.
On 10/04 we were pleased to welcome Natalie Woronochuk from the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute. The Institute is a non-profit community based agency working to ease the burden of cancer in Northeastern Pa. Natalie spoke briefly about the many research, educational and survivorship projects the Institute runs and it was a joy to spend some time with her. Natalie provided all of us with a large packet of information about their projects and the importance of regular testing and early detection. You can find out more information about the Institute on their web site at http://www.cancernepa.org. I have also added their complete contact information to the Rotary Links Page.

Several of the members also talked with Natalie about the possibility of getting the Institute involved with our blood screening project. We should all think of ways we can partner together on this project and provide more help and information to the community.