TODAY IN HISTORY

1986: President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy relight a newly renovated Statue of Liberty.

1973: Cy Young Award-winning pitchers Jim and Gaylord Perry meet for the only time in a regular season game. Gaylord is charged with the loss.

INTER/ROTAR TIPS

To help get your Interact or Rotaract club off to a good start in the 2009-10 Rotary year, consider the following tips:

• Challenge each club member to bring in one new Interactor or Rotaractor this year, and present an award to the person who recruits the most new members.
• Publicize club activities in the school paper and in the community.
• Organize a special event at the start of your school year to attract new members.
• Ask experienced Interactors or Rotaractors to "adopt" new members to make them feel welcome.
• Assign committee responsibilities to veteran members to let them know they are important to the club.
• Maintain a good balance among age levels and among males and females, if the club is coed.
• Look for new project ideas on ProjectLINK.
• Get feedback from club members on the types of meeting agendas they would like.
• Invite Rotarians from your sponsor Rotary club to a beginning-of-the-year event or meeting.

MY KIND OF TRAIN STATION

Is it a miniature jungle or is it a train station? Passengers arriving at Madrid’s Atocha station may be surprised to find themselves sharing the domed atrium of the station with exotic plants and palm trees. But for those having to spend some time in the station, there is nothing more calming that sipping a coffee in a café overlooking the 4,000-square-metre tropical garden.

PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

For about a decade now, a group of friends in south central Kentucky have used the Fourth of July as an occasion to have some fun with electronic equipment that is obsolete or beyond repair. They gather these items all year long, then take them deep into the wilderness of central Kentucky each Independence Day. The components are launched into the air and used for target practice, which is both a sporting event and a way to vent frustration over hi-tech workplace annoyances

TODAY IN HISTORY

1881: Charles J. Guiteau, a rejected consular applicant, shoots President James Garfield. Garfield dies three months later.

1937: Attempting to circle the globe, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific. They and their plane are never found.

MAKING DREAMS REAL

A few miles outside of Naga City in the northeastern Philippines, down narrow one-lane roads and sprawling rice fields, lies a tiny, one-room building. This structure, hardly large or sanitary enough for one person to live comfortably, is home to eight: a father, mother, and six sons. Both parents work at manual jobs every day while their sons attend a public school. Despite their long hours, the family brings home less than the equivalent of US$3 a day. This pays for their daily food, which is always rice. All of the children are sickly thin, constantly on the verge of starvation.

The youngest boy, Christian, reached the point of starvation at six months of age. His parents dropped him off at a local orphanage, and he was immediately taken to the hospital. Christian is not the only child who lives at the orphanage despite having a family to go home to. In fact, nearly all of the children are there for the same reasons as Christian.

While the orphanage is the best alternative to living at home for many of its residents, it is not a suitable place for children to grow up healthy and well adjusted. The orphanage lacks the funding and caretakers to give Christian and the 32 other children what they require, either physically or emotionally. This leaves the orphanage relying heavily on volunteers to keep it running.

Lorenzo Rosales, a respected pediatrician and member of the Rotary Club of Naga East, Camarines Sur, volunteers at the orphanage. During one of his weekly club meetings, he met Rotary Youth Exchange students Josh Babcock, 19, and Lisl Stadler, 17, both from Washington, USA. After hearing that Stadler wanted to assume a more humanitarian focus during her time in the Philippines, Rosales took her and Babcock to the orphanage. The children they met and the conditions they saw left lasting impressions, driving them to volunteer often. With the orphanage so limited in staff, supplies, and care, Stadler and Babcock knew that the children could use their help, no matter how small the resulting change. They spent every spare moment they had with the children, doing anything that required doing, but they knew that the children needed more than what they alone could offer.

Since the end of their exchanges in May 2008, Stadler and Babcock have been able to collect some monetary contributions from people in the United States. The knowledge of the overwhelming need for help has driven them to set up a nonprofit organization to multiply their efforts and continue benefiting underprivileged children throughout the region.

The Bicol Change Education Foundation works to raise money not only to feed and clothe the children but also to send them to school, which will give them the education needed to expose them to greater opportunities. Funds also go toward the education of the staff running the orphanage in health, development, and child care. Stadler and Babcock hope Rotary clubs will support their efforts, pay attention to their cause and, if possible, take on the foundation as a project and assist in fundraising.

30 YEARS OF PORTABLE MUSIC

I just heard that the Sony Walkman turns 30 this week. To celebrate, let’s revisit the first time The New York Times gave it a mention, in an article titled “Stereo-to-Go – and Only You Can Hear”: “Josh Lansing and the young blonde woman had never even met before, but as they passed each other on Madison Avenue the other afternoon, she waved and smiled and he tipped his headphones in salute….What the two well-dressed strangers first noticed about each other was that they were both possessors of the newest status symbol around town: the Walkman, a portable stereo unit (priced in most stores at $200), consisting of an ultra-light headphone set plugged into a cassette player that weighs in at less than 14 ounces, batteries included. ‘It’s just like Mercedes-Benz owners honking when they pass each other on the road,’ explained Mr. Lansing, whose cassette hung from his Gucci belt.”

A NEW USE FOR YOUR CAR ALARM

If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get into your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies. It's a security alarm system that you probably already have and requires no installation. Test it. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down or until you reset it with the button on the key chain fob. It works if you park in your driveway or garage. If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the intruder won't stick around. After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won't want that.

AND I QUOTE

"It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause
of liberty and virtue."-Samuel Adams

FIREWORKS FACTS

The ancient Chinese used fireworks at festivities and to
frighten enemies in battle. Captain John Smith set them
off in Jamestown in 1608, enjoying a bit of English popular
entertainment and impressing Native Americans.


Legend has it that the Chinese made the first fireworks in
the 800s, filling bamboo shoots with gunpowder and
exploding them at the New Year with the hope that the
sound would scare away evil spirits. According to tradition,
Marco Polo brought this technology back to Europe. However,
fireworks may in fact have developed in India or the Arab
world. Fireworks became known in Europe during the 1300s,
probably after returning Crusaders brought them from the
East.


By the 1400s Florence, Italy, was the center of fireworks
manufacturing. At this time fireworks were just one effect
in a celebration rather than its focus. At religious
festivals Italians made plaster figures that spewed
fireworks from their eyes and mouths. The 1533 coronation
parade for Anne Boleyn included a papier-mache dragon that
belched fire.


During the 1700s displays became more elaborate and were
popular with European royalty. French king Louis XV ordered
extravagant displays of fireworks at Versailles, and
Russian czar Peter the Great put on a five-hour show after
the birth of his son. Meanwhile, in the American colonies
settlers used fireworks to mark happy occasions. 

TODAY IN HISTORY

1863: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee leads troops into southern Pennsylvania, starting the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, a Civil War turning point for the Union.

CONVENTION RECAP

At a special appearance at the opening plenary session, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Rotary the heart and soul of the worldwide polio eradication effort and pledged the UN's continued cooperation and support.

During the keynote address at the Rotary World Peace Symposium, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said Rotary has earned the world's respect.

Actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow, who delivered a keynote address during the third plenary session, told Rotarians that they are almost there and to push just a little further. "Polio is a terrible, terrible disease. We are right to be pushing for the end of it," she said

During the fourth plenary session, primatologist and humanitarian Dr. Jane Goodall stressed the goals that her organization shares with Rotary and called for increased collaboration. "We need to join together, to work as a team," she said.

At the second world Peace Symposium, Jan Egeland, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, told Rotary World Peace Fellows that he feels optimistic knowing that a new generation of peacemakers coming out of Rotary's programs will have unparalleled knowledge, technology, and training to do much-needed work..

On 1 July one hundred districts began testing “The Future Vision Plan”. Write to us and share your Focus on the Future and your Future Vision.