Pledge/Prayer: President Bob Chase
Song: Bill McLaughlin
Brent's Flim/Flam: Low hand tie between Bob Antoniac and Bill Bernhart, Bob won the tie.
Guests: Teachers and 'Student of the Month' from Old Lyme.
Raffle Winners: Bill Bernhart, Bob Chase and Charlie Polka.
Happy $: Many happy dollars for our guests. Chaley Polka happy for the turnout at
Founder's Park, Bob Hester happy for the outcome. Andy happy to beat
Bob Antoniac and Mike Velgouse happy to have made a makeup in Georgia.
Announcements:
Next week's speaker will be the first Selectman of Westbrook.
Charley Polka reported on the work at Founder's Park. He thanked all those that
helped out and that they pulled a lot of tires out.
Mike V. indicated that anyone working Saturday can consider that a makeup if needed,
good for a two week period before or after a missed meeting,
Marty kicked off the Wine Tasting fundraiser by passing out tickets to the members. He
also had a short meeting of his committee after our regular meeting.
President Bob indicated that our October 29th dinner meeting will be at the Pavilion,
signup sheet next week.
Brent announced that our Black Hall golf outing was off and that we'd try again next year.
Brent suggested we might consider having a local arttist do some prints for us of Old
Saybrook scenes. These we would sell/auction as fundraisers. Many of us will
remember the Roger Epply prints we did several years ago. Food for thought.
Student of the Month:
Bill McLaughlin reflected on the fact that this program started in October 1991.
Westbrook wasn't represented due to a mixup and our Old Saybrrok student went home
ill the day before. Old Lyme was represented by Anna Sidner, sponsered by the English
department. Anna is an exemplier student also proficient in Latin and Spanish! She has
recieved many awards, is VP of the National Honor Society and active in Amnesty
International. Congratulations Anna!
We'll try to have our missing October students here in addition to the November winners.
Member Bio's:
Bill McLaughlin kicked off this new concept of having members give a brief bio of
themselves. Hopefully the first of many interesting talks. (Your editor's home club has
done this for the past several years and is very intersting and entertaining). Bill grew up
in a small town in Wisconsin, went through secondary schools there and attnded the
University of Wisconsin, graduating with a BS in Mining. He worked for a time for
Anaconda in the mines in Montana but discovered it was too hot, dirty and possibly
injurious to his health. He did a short stint in the navy and joined Ingersoll Rand after
he was discharged. He and Rosemary were married in 1961 and started a family, all
girls. They now have lots of male grandchildren. In the mid 60's he left Ingersoll Rand
to work for Joy Manufacturing in their rock drill division. In the late 80's he left them to
work for Sol Air who had a similar product line. Bill was now in Old Saybrook and went
into the rel estate market. He left real estate to head up the O.S. Chamber of
Commerce. Under his direction we started the Concert at the Point programs. The
first was with a military band that came to us on a barge from halfway across the
country. It was like a collapsable orchestra shell which was moored next to the
Pavilion. In 2001 Bill and Rosemary got the travel bug in earnest. They've been
RV'ing ever since having hit 49 of 50 states, some many times. He's also heavily
involved in Habitant for Humanity using the RV to get to the many places where
they've built homes for the needy. He had lots of stories and comments on how big
Texas is. All in all an intersting and entertaing discussion, thanks Bill!
asl
