March 18th Meeting: OFFSITE-Boys & Girls Clubs-Southside

NOTE: THIS MEETING WILL BE OFFSITE AT Boys and Girls Clubs, Southside (17 Tamarack Buffalo, NY 14220) AND WILL BEGIN AT NOON. A MAP IS ATTACHED. A larger PDF will be sent by E-mail on March 16

In June 2007, the Buffalo Rotary Foundation, Inc. contributed $3400 for library equipment in the new Southside Buffalo Boys and Girls Club located at 17 Tamarack Street in St. Thomas Aquinas RC church. Our Rotary Club also obtained another $2000 for the library through a simplified grant from District 7090.
On Thursday, March 18, the Thursday meeting will be held at this facility to hear about it from Diane Rowe, Chief Professional Officer.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Buffalo include 6 major clubhouses and 9 satellite locations in addition to Southside. This location was an important addition to their program offerings, as the community is a high poverty, low education level area. We have several Rotarians on the Board of the Boys and Girls Clubs. Tours of the facility will be offered.
The Boys Club was established in 1926 by the Rotary Club of Buffalo. The Rotary Club's intent was to create a youth agency, which would provide after school programs and guidance to the juvenile delinquency problems.
Since 1926, Boys & Girls Clubs of Buffalo has been in the forefront of youth development, working with young people from disadvantaged economic, social, and family circumstances. They have actively sought to enrich the lives of girls and boys whom other youth agencies failed to reach and are dedicated to ensuring that disadvantaged youngsters have greater access to quality programs and services that will enhance their lives and shape their futures.
Today, Boys & Girls Clubs of Buffalo serves 8,000 youth between the ages of 6-18. The Clubs are not only a place where youth can come and hang out after school, but a safe haven that allows them to develop into young adults with the necessary skills and sense of self to succeed outside of their buildings.



This meeting will be held Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 12:15pm Boys and Girls Clubs - Southside - 17 Tamarack
Buffalo, NY 14220

Click here for a complete list of upcoming speakers at our weekly meeting. 

If you'd like to attend a meeting, contact John McClive. 

For more information about Rotary Club of Buffalo, visit our website, www.buffalorotary.org.

REMINDER: "Service Above Self" and "Pride of Workmanship" applications due April 1

REMINDER: "Service Above Self" and "Pride of Workmanship" applications due April 1st!

Download Application PDF here

The awards will be presented at the April 15, 2010 Rotary meeting at the Shanghai Red’s.
Applications need to be submitted by April 1st!!!

 Service Above Self: We are looking to honor one or more community leaders who have made outstanding personal and professional sacrifices to serve their profession and/or the community.

Pride of Workmanship: Encourages employers to recognize employees displaying talent and the positive attitude meriting.  Great way to recognize your best employees.

(We should have all Rotarians nominate their employee (s) for this category! )

Please forward your applications to Megan Burns-Moran, megan@citymade.com,
or call Megan at 716-400-9831.

March 11th Meeting: BEERFEST + Irish Famine Memorial, speaker Laurence Shine

NOTE:  This meeting will start with an BEER FEST for St. Patrick's Day at 11:30 a.m. in SHANGHAI RED'S, 2 Templeton Terrace, Buffalo 14202
BRING PROSPECTIVE ROTARIANS TO ENJOY BEER, COURTESY OF BUFFALO ROTARY, AND HEAR AN INTERESTING PRESENTATION.

Our speaker, Laurence Shine is a professor of Anglo-Irish studies at Buffalo State. He was narrator and co-writer of the documentary film: Following James Joyce: Dublin to Buffalo, directed by Patrick Martin. He is also co-founder and host of Bloomsday Buffalo and founder of the Ulysses Reading Circle.
He will discuss the history of the Irish Famine Memorial (which you can see from the Grand Ballroom where we meet).

THE SITE
From the mid- to late-19th Century, the Buffalo Waterfront became one of the world's largest inland immigration points. Many immigrants from Ireland sailed across the Atlantic and continued their journey to the eastern ports of North America and onward to Western New York. Those entering the country through the port of New York often crossed the State on the Erie Canal in search of work. Thousands of Irish settled here at this monument.
The Western New York Irish Famine Memorial is within view of the Old Erie Canal, the grain and steel mills, and other industry that flourished with Irish labor. It is here that the Irish lived, worked and secured liberty for themselves and their families.

DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT
Traditional in character, symbolic in nature, the monument contains elements important in Irish culture.
The granite standing stone from Carraroe, County Galway, is set off center to represent the Irish Diaspora. The well surrounding the standing stone symbolizes "The Great Silence", that period following the Famine when no one dared speak of it.
The biblical inscription in Irish below the standing stone is an expression of a culture and language and a memory nearly lost. It translates "If these walls were to be silent, the very stones would cry out." The circular memorial field, filled with names of Famine victims, those who survived, their descendants and friends symbolically ends "The Great Silence." Those stones left blank honor the unknown who died as a result of An Gorta Mór, The Great Hunger.
32 limestone boulders form the monument's outer ring. They represent Ireland's 32 counties. These rough-hewn stones, a gift of the people of Cork, Ireland, once formed Penrose Quay in Cork Harbor. Upon these, many emigrants walked to make their journey from Ireland, some for the last time.

THE MEMORIAL
In 1995, 26 Western New York Irish Cultural organizations through the Western New York Irish Famine Commemoration Committee and with cooperation from the City of Buffalo, County of Erie, Buffalo Arts Commission, and interested persons from many places, joined with the City of Cork, Ireland, to erect and dedicate this monument in recognition of the terrible cost of "An Gorta Mór", The Great Hunger, and the struggle and achievements of the Irish people in this country.
Dedicated August 23, 1997
From: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9RB

This meeting will be held Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 12:15pm in Shanghai Red's, 2 Templeton Terrace, Buffalo, NY 14202.  Special BEERFEST for St. Patrick's Day begins at 11:30am.

Click here for a complete list of upcoming speakers at our weekly meeting. 

If you'd like to attend a meeting, contact John McClive. 

For more information about Rotary Club of Buffalo, visit our website, www.buffalorotary.org.

Rotary Club of Buffalo Awards Grant to Girl Scouts of Western New York; Funds Used to Build Tent Cabin at Camp Seven Hills in Holland, NY.

The Rotary Club of Buffalo presented a check to the Girl Scouts of Western New York, Inc. in the amount of $5,797.00, announced Rob Eck, chair of Rotary’s Community Grants Committee.  The funds represent the cost to replace one of the deteriorating platform tents at Woodland Way at Camp Seven Hills in Holland, New York with a brand-new tent cabin.
    Girl Scouts of Western New York offers summer overnight and day camp programs at Camp Seven Hills, and serves approximately 3,000 campers each year from May until September. The camp is an American Camping Association accredited camping facility, meeting rigorous safety standards. In its year-round facilities, Camp Seven Hills serves an additional 7,000 campers.
     The council provides camping opportunities to more than 22,000 girl members in Western New York, ages 5 to 17.  Girl Scouts offer camping opportunities subsidized with financial aid for many girls residing in the underserved urban and rural areas of the council’s jurisdiction.
    “Thank you to The Rotary Club of Buffalo. Girl Scout camp is a long-standing tradition in Girl Scouts. It is where friendships and fond memories are made. With Rotary’s generous support, the tradition will continue for years to come,” says Cindy Odom, Chief Executive Officer for the Girl Scouts of Western New York.
    “Rotary is very pleased to be able to help the Girl Scouts,” says Eck. “This organization plays a very important role in the development of young girls in Western New York and, since Rotary is also a service organization, our missions are similar and this project was a good match for us.”
    
About Girl Scouts of Western New York

    Girl Scouts builds girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts of Western New York serves 22,000 girls in Erie, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Genesee, Livingston, Niagara, Monroe, Orleans and Wyoming counties.  The council’s temporary administrative headquarters is located in Buffalo. Program and service centers are located in Batavia, Lockport, Rochester and Jamestown. For more information on how to join, volunteer, or donate, call (716) 837-6400 or go to www.gswny.org.


About Rotary Club of Buffalo
Founded in 1905 in Chicago, Rotary International is a worldwide
organization of business and professional leaders whose mission is to provide service to others, to promote high ethical standards and to advance world understanding, goodwill and peace through its fellowship of business, professional and community leaders. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in 200 countries and geographical areas. The Rotary Club of Buffalo was the 28th club in the world and currently has more than 175 active members serving the local and international communities. For more information about Rotary, contact John McClive at the Buffalo Rotary office at 854-3397 or e-mail jmcclive@buffalorotary.org or visit our website: www.buffalorotary.org.

March 4th Meeting: The Economy - Gary Keith, M&T

Throughout a 26-year career at M&T Bank, Gary D. Keith has provided economic research and analysis support to M&T's executive management and commercial banking business units. In addition to giving frequent updates to M&T customers, business and trade groups and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he writes a monthly column on regional economic trends for the Rochester Business Journal.

Keith has extensive experience tracking the Western New York economy and forecasting regional performance trends. Over the past two decades, as M&T expanded its geographic footprint beyond Upstate New York, his insights have been sharpened by observations on the economic "success factors" that can be applied to our own region.
He holds frequent discussions with M&T commercial customers, who are, in Keith's words, "his eyes and ears," helping to tie together the economic variables that describe the macroeconomy with real world decisions that businesses make every day.
Western New York performed much better than many areas of the country during the Great Recession. With the national economy beginning to expand again, it is better positioned to compete for new growth than in past recoveries.
The area's continuing transformation from an industrial to a service-based economy provides new opportunities for our region. The task going forward will be to capitalize on our economic assets and re-define the breadth and depth of the Western New York economy, both to outsiders and to local residents.

This meeting will be held Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:15pm in Shanghai Red's, 2 Templteon Terrace, Buffalo, NY 14202.

Click here for a complete list of upcoming speakers at our weekly meeting. 

If you'd like to attend a meeting, contact John McClive. 

For more information about Rotary Club of Buffalo, visit our website, www.buffalorotary.org.