Here’s what happened this week at Rotary….

Guests: Jack Hodges, visiting and potential Rotarian, Gretchen Boock (here to see husband Mike’s induction to Rotary), Roger Kuhlman, visiting early bird Rotarian.

Announcements: Thanks to Denise Bacon and Dawn McClard who will be doing the newsletter while Leah Griffith is off on vacation for the Sept 30 and Oct 7th meetings. Deborah Cathers Seymour announced her newest grandchild. She and her husband have 17 grandkids between them!

Suzanne Miller thanked many for their help with the International Day of Peace last Saturday.

Did you sign up for the Rotary’s Facebook page. Do it now. www.facebook.com/Newbergnoonrotary You can keep up with Rotary this easy way.

Duck, Duck: Congrats to Ray Simonson on his 61st wedding anniversary.

Congratulations to our newest Rotarian, Mike Boock. He was inducted today and he’s already on Grant Gerke‘s list for the Pancake Breakfast. Welcome Mike and we look forward to getting to know you and your family.

Program: Anne DeLano is one of the organizers of the monthly Contra Dance at the Chehalem Cultural Center. Contra dancing is all about community building and that’s a good fit with Rotary’s principals of fellowship and community as well.

Mary Harwood is her co-organizer for the monthly event and she and her baby joined us. Contra dancing is social dancing, you don’t need a partner. You dance with anyone and everyone. The basis is English country dancing but you don’t have the fancy dresses and you don’t even have to know how to dance, they’ll teach you and there are callers (like in square dancing) that tell you what to do. One of the great things about it the live music, that is a key attraction.

Anne shared a couple of videos that showed a beginning lesson and then a group in Portland dancing. One thing was clear in both videos, it’s ok to not know what you’re doing and in fact, that seems to add to the fun.

With that introduction, Anne got 20 Rotarians in formation and she put us through a few steps. We laughed, we stepped on toes, we bumped into each other, but we had fun! And that’s what contra dancing is all about.

If you’d like to try it out yourself, go to the 3rd Wednesday Contra Dance at the Chehalem Cultural Center from 7 to 10 pm. It’s $8 (only $7 for seniors or members of the CCC) and lessons start at 7 pm. That small fee helps cover the live music, and many of those musicians are coming from the Portland area. Also check out their facebook page at at Newberg Contra Dance for more information.

Thanks Auggie Gonzales for the photos.

Send news to Leah Griffith, Newsletter Editor at newbergnoonrotary@gmail.com.

Here’s what happened this week at Rotary….

Everyone is challenged to sign up for the club Facebook page. www.facebook.com/Newbergnoonrotary This is a new way to keep up with what’s happening with the club.

Mike Boock was here in one of his last times as a guest. He’s approved for membership and we’ll be inducting him soon. Welcome Mike.

News from Nepal: Laura Tilrico reports the dental equipment from Adec has arrived in customs and is sitting in boxes while it goes through the process. Apparently there are still curfews and the authorities that have to release it aren’t available most days. Bishnu Subedi, our Rotarian partner, is on top of it. This photo was taken by Nepalese customs security to confirm the shipment as the Rotarians weren’t allowed to go in. It should be released long before Rotarians Eric Bergquam and Jenni Ferrell (along with their team of dental professionals) get there in late November (they’ll be spending Thanksgiving in Nepal).

International Day of Peace is this weekend, Saturday, September 19th. Start the Peace Walk at Francis Square at 1 pm and then end up at the GFU Amphitheater for the free Peace Concert. Plus booths, displays and lots of fun! For more info contact Suzanne Miller at 503-538-7947. The day is sponsored by Rotary and George Fox University.

Duck, Duck: It’s fall so there was lots of football talk, but it was nice to hear that GFU won their first game. Jim Hirte and John Kerkanich returned from a hunting trip and Jim’s new knees served him well as they were clambering over the lava fields.

Program: Korie Buerkle and Mary Lynn Thomas, children’s librarians at the Newberg Public Library, shared the early literacy activities and reading programs they do to encourage the love of reading in children.

This summer, with the help of a Rotary Club Foundation grant, the summer reading program expanded out to weekly visits to the summer lunch sites and added programs which helped to sign up 1,958 kids who each received a book to keep. Over 5,300 kids and their caregivers attended 53 programs and kids read 40,890 days this summer which worked to encourage a daily habit of reading. The program is designed to help fight the “summer slide” where kids don’t retain their reading skills. Participating in library summer reading programs like Newberg’s really makes a difference.

Another program to encourage reading is Growing Readers which provides a book to every baby born at Providence Newberg Hospital (over 600 annually) and provides a library card and book to every kindergarten student in our region.

Mary Lynn and Korie provide four storytimes a week for babies to preschoolers. Mary Lynn related how important it is to read to babies as reading affects their brain development. They concentrate on the five early literacy practices; Read, Write, Talk, Sing and Play. This isn’t flash cards, but simply reading aloud, talking to kids, doing fingerplays which supports fine motor skills for writing, singing which shares words and sounds, and playing which supports learning letters and more.

Outreach services includes delivery of books (donated and purchased) to 20 child cares as well as waiting rooms, doctor’s offices and even the NHS suspension classes. This program, Turnaround Books, is being supported by a Rotary District grant written by Laura Tilrico. The grant is especially helpful as it will provide the bilingual and Spanish books that are tough to get as donations. Rotarians will be recruited to help with the delivery of these books as part of the Rotary grant, so you’ll be hearing from Jeff Lane, Community Service Chair later this fall or early winter.

They do hundreds of programs each year that all support reading and learning. This even includes a monthly Lego challenge program that encourages creativity and figuring out how to accomplish a task like building the tallest tower that Paul Jellum‘s grandsons won one month.

You can find out more from www.newberglibrary.org and sign up for the Facebook page as well as a weekly newsletter.

And I’ve got to add that these two professionals are so passionate about what they do and the kids and families of Newberg are so lucky to have them sharing reading with children. I’m pretty happy to have them working for me.

Thanks Auggie Gonzales for the photos. Library program photos courtesy of Newberg Public Library.

Send news to Leah Griffith, Newsletter Editor at newbergnoonrotary@gmail.com.

Here’s what happened this week at Rotary….

New Member: Mike Boock has submitted his application and the Board has approved it. According to our bylaws we need to notify the membership and provide an opportunity for comment to any board member. After the comment period is over (Sept. 15th), we’ll officially act on Mike’s application. Thanks for your interest in Rotary Mike.

Announcements: Esther Frank, from the Early Birds, stopped by to invite us to the 4th Annual Newberg Oktoberfest in Newberg and our pals in the Early Birds are getting ready for the big event, THIS WEEKEND. I didn’t get a chance to stop by, but I heard it was pretty successful. Hopefully many of you were able to attend.

Dick Stenson from the Hillsboro Rotary was here to sell Raffle Tickets for their Choose Your Cruise with tickets for $20 and you can win a cruise and $1,000 cash.

Grant Gerke announced It’s Auction Time! We start meeting now and the auction is April 23rd (sorry, I had it as the 16th before, but it’s the 23rd), so mark your calendar.

Tony Lelack has ordered the dictionaries and we’ll soon be putting on those stickers. We’ll need Rotarians to deliver them to the 3rd graders in the schools which is always fun.

Ray Hillman announced a Peace discussion series. If you are interested, contact Ray or Mike Caruso.

Guests: Dawn McClard’s daughter Theresa Hill joined her mom for lunch

International Day of Peace is just a week away on Saturday, September 19th. Start the Peace Walk at Francis Square at 1 pm and then end up at the GFU Amphitheater for the free Peace Concert. Plus booths, displays and lots of fun! For more info contact Suzanne Miller at 503-538-7947. The day is sponsored by Rotary and George Fox University.

Program: Art Harvest Studio Tour of Yamhill County is coming up the first two weekends in October (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 9th, 10th, and 11th) from 10 to 6 pm each day. Artist and Early Bird Rotarian Kathleen Buck shared the artists for this year and insider information. She’s been part of the Art Harvest for 19 of its 23 years.

30+ artists open up their studios for the public to come and see them work and their art. It is a juried show and the quality of the art is very high. These are working artists and they have to have a level of professionalism to be selected. Watercolor, acrylic, jewelry, wood crafting, metal crafting, found objects, bronze, papercarving, drawing and clay are all the mediums that are shown in the tour. Many of the professional artists in Yamhill County do participate in this event, if not every year, every few years. There are always new artists to see.

You can pick up your $8 admission button at the Chehalem Cultural Center, Cusick Picture Framing and Pulp and Circumstance here in Newberg. Also at the Chehalem Cultural Center see two works from each artist to decide who to visit or to just see a great art exhibit.

When you are on the tour, watch for the Art Harvest Studio Tours yellow signs.

Art Harvest also exposes kids to art and many of the artists come to the Chehalem Cultural Center to do hands on teaching and the students can experience the arts show as well.

Al Herriges commented that he owns one of Kathleen’s paintings and enjoys it tremendously.

http://artharveststudiotour.org/

 

 

Thanks to Auggie Gonzales for the photos.

Send news to Leah Griffith, Newsletter Editor, at newbergnoonrotary@gmail.com.

Here’s what happened this week at Rotary….

Guests: Kathleen Buck, Early Bird Club and Robotics Advisor; Terry Coss, NHS Robotics teacher; and Michael Boock, who’s turned in his membership application!

Announcements: Reminder, get your sticker for your car so you can park on campus. Also be sure and sign in at lunch and note any makeups (meetings or service projects) on the sign in sheets.

International Day of Peace activities are planned for Saturday, September 19th. At 1 pm join the Peace Walk at Francis Square. You’ll end up at 2 pm at the GFU Amphitheater for the free Peace Concert with Oregon’s own Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Rand Bishop and award-winning artist Aaron Nigel Smith, founder of One World Chorus and inspiring teacher to children of all ages. Plus booths, displays and lots of fun! For more info contact Suzanne Miller at 503-538-7947. The day is sponsored by Rotary and George Fox University.

Duck, Duck: Jeff Lane announced the birth of his first granddaughter, Payton. Fred Gregory is heading to Laos for OHSU to look at establishing a research center there. Mike Caruso welcomed his new grandchild this week too. Ralph Koozer celebrated the 50th anniversary of getting his draft notice. Grant Gerke reminded us it’s already time to start planning for the auction!

Walter Want almost choked to death on a pea! But President Jim did the Heimlich. Now that’s Service Above Self!

Program: The NHS Robotics students, Brandon Takahashi and Drew Thrasher showed us just what a robot can do. They are part of an eight member team (there are five teams at NHS) that competed statewide. They had to build a robot that could complete a set list of tasks. Designing, machining and programming the robot took them many, many hours. They made parts from donated pieces of metal (provided by adec).

Their team received an award for motivation because they were helpful to other teams, which is a great lesson to learn. Their goal is to make it to the world championships next year. where they’ll be using a smart phone to control the robot.

These are great kids who have learned a lot and will be doing many amazing things in the future.

 

The Rotarians were fascinated by the robots. I think they wanted to join the team.

 

Thanks Auggie Gonzales for the photos. Send news to Leah Griffith, newsletter editor, at newbergnoonrotary@gmail.com.