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Three Region 1 clubs help bring IV warmers to Greene County

Every Rotarian can make a difference, but when we work together, the possibilities are endless. For example, three clubs in Region 1 (Cairo, Greenville and Coxsackie-Athens) partnered with Greene County Paramedics to bring “cutting-edge medical technology” to every area of Greene County.

Cairo, Greenville and Coxsackie-Athens’ Rotary clubs raised nearly $10,000 to purchase five IV warmers, and Greene County Paramedics added an additional $8,000 or so. Cairo Club President Beau Loendorf stated, “Originally our goal was just to raise enough money to purchase one. We knew that even one could save lots of lives. After lots of fundraisers and a multi-club support initiative, we were able to raise enough money to get all five squad cars one."

Thanks to the work of these clubs and partners, Greene County is the first in seven counties in the region to own IV warmers, which is the newest technology used to treat patients being transported by paramedics to a hospital.

According to an article featuring the collective effort in the UpStater, Chief of Operations for Greene County Paramedics, Steve Near, explained that, “When patients are given IV (intravenous) fluids, the liquid is significantly cooler than body temperature, so warming it up would be beneficial.”

Near told the UpStater that the IV warmers will be valuable when responding to, “skiing accidents, hypothermia and major traumas, especially in colder weather,” while adding that they can be beneficial for just about any situation.

The idea for this effort was introduced by Cairo Rotary Club, who raised $4,000. They also reached out to neighboring Rotary Clubs, with Greenville raising $3,000 and Coxsackie-Athens jumping on board, raising $2,500.

Kudos to our friends in Cairo, Greenville and Coxsackie-Athens. To read more about the effort, visit https://theupstater.com/greene-first-in-region-with-cutting-edge-technology.

Pictured above from left with the IV warmers are Greenville Rotary Club Past President Cecile Plattner, Cairo Rotary Club President Beau Loendorf and Coxsackie-Athens Rotary Club President Sam Pigeon.

DG Larry's August Message

August is Rotary Membership Month. We made it through the first month of the Rotary year, July successfully. For the first time in over ten years, we started the year with a net increase in members, 67 compared to the beginning of the prior year (July 2021). This is largely attributed to the great work of Membership Chair PDG Tony Marmo and our Membership committee along with each individual clubs’ hard work. As clubs became more comfortable meeting in-person, members helped recruit new members. This year, already, we have increased membership by 13 new members. That’s a great start. Traditionally, at the end of each Rotary year, clubs would drop members from the rolls as a result of member’s non-payment of dues among other reasons. This usually results in a negative annual growth. Our district was one of only three districts in our Zone of 22 districts to have a positive membership growth for 2021-2022. Great work! Also, at the end of last Rotary year, thanks to the Walden club and the Rhinebeck club, we have added two new satellite clubs in Ellenville and Rhinebeck evenings.

For August, let us all think about how our own clubs can maintain members and grow Rotary. First, look around the room at your next meeting. Is your club a reflection of your local community? Are you diverse and inclusive? Are your members a representation of the businesses, professions, and community organizations within your club’s geographic area? If you regularly support a local non-profit or community group, does that organization have a member in your club? Is your meeting location accessible to differently abled individuals? Are there steps that may prohibit an individual with a walker or wheelchair from accessing the meeting room and making it equitable to all?

By now, new club presidents are probably comfortable with running their meetings and establishing a rhythm that works for them. I encourage each club president and membership chair to look at Rotary’s “ Membership Assessment Tools” available on MyRotary.org.

There are helpful assessment tools included for:
• Representing Your Community’s Professions: A Classification Assessment
• Diversifying Your Club: A Member Diversity Assessment
• Finding New Club Members: A Prospective Member Exercise
• Improving Your Member Retention: Retention Assessment and Analysis
• Enhancing the Club Experience: Member Satisfaction Survey
• Understanding Why Members Leave: Exit Survey
It is suggested that in addition to an “exit survey”; conduct an “entrance survey” with your new members. Ask them what they are expecting from Rotary. Whether it be volunteering for service activities; or social activities; or just that wonderful feeling of knowing that we are doing great things in the world and locally. Show them you care about them as a member of your club. Remember RI President Jennifer Jones’ concept of “comfort and care” for each of our members.

You should have heard about the recent case of polio in Rockland County. The county of Rockland, along with several health centers have been conducting vaccination clinics within the county. We have been in touch with the Rockland Health Commissioner and are awaiting a meeting to ascertain how Rotary and the District can help.

Lastly, please sign in to ClubRunner and update your personal information, most importantly your correct birthdate and a correct email address. Quite a few current members’ emails get bounced back because some business email servers do not recognize the mailings through Clubrunner.

Let’s have a great last month of summer and get ready for our “helping the Hudson Valley keep warm” coat drive in October/November.
Thanks, DG Larry Palant

Rockland Rotarians mean business

Within the Rotary International umbrella are many fellowships and action groups uniting us across the globe through common interests and goals. One of the currently existing fellowships is Rotary Means Business (RMB), which encourages members to support the success of their fellow Rotarians by doing business with them, and by referring others to them.

Here in District 7210, Rotarians in Rockland County have put this model into action, holding monthly networking meetings at a business or residence of one of their members.

Possible members must be in a good standing of a Rotary club, with benefits including:

• Becoming part of the Members Directory and being able to openly advertise services and products.

• Enroll in email notifications about upcoming events and announcements.

• Being able to modify their account and notification settings directly from within their profiles.

• Make connections so they can track the activity of others and focus on the people they care about the most.

• Post text, images, videos, and links directly on the activity pages of the site.

• Talk to each other directly and in private. That’s not just limited to one-on-one discussions, messages can be sent between any number of members.

• Can set up and manage groups.

• Access to global, personal, and group activity streams with threaded commenting, direct posting, favoriting and @mentions, all with full RSS feed and email notification support.

• Groups allow members to organize themselves into specific public, private or hidden sections with separate activity streams and member listings.

• Can create full-powered discussion forums built directly into groups to allow for more conventional in-depth conversations.

• Can enter events directly to the Events Calendar and enable bookings if required.

Seraphim Wood serves as Rockland’s liaison to RMB Fellowship International. While they are registered in Rockland County, Rockland County RMB invites anyone in the district to join. In fact, Seraphim has attended meetings at clubs across the district, sharing information about RMB.

For more information, visit rocklandrotarymeansbusiness.org or email Seraphim at seraphim@seraphimwood.com

Satellite Club established in Ellenville-Rondout Valley

After several months of recruitment, Walden Rotary has succeeded in establishing a Satellite Club in the Ellenville and Rondout Valley areas of Ulster County. Eight individuals from that area who are a mixture of business owners, self-employed and retired persons, have come together to plant a new club of their own.

The group meets at the Ellenville Public Library, located at 40 Center Street in Ellenville, on the second and fourth Mondays each month from 4-5:30 p.m.

Under the mentorship of Keith Hunter and DGE Peter Sullivan of the Walden Club, and PDG Tony Marmo of the Highland Club, the eight individuals have done the following:

Received Rotary 101 training.
Elected Officers: Chair – Helen Kaminski; Vice-Chair – Jonathan Falcon; and Secretary – Bob Mansfield.
Applied to Rotary International for recognition of the Satellite Club, and added eight names to the Walden Club roster as Satellite members.
Met five times with occasional speakers, including PDG Bill Bassett and Family of Ellenville Program Director Tiffany Santiago and Assistant Program Director Domnic Pidone.
Sponsored a RYLA student: Amelia Dunphy of Rondout Valley High School.
Joined the Ellenville Chamber of Commerce.
Purchased a booth for the upcoming Ellenville Blueberry Festival on August 13.
Started providing regular food pickups from the Regional Food Bank drop site in Monticello to the Family of Ellenville food pantry location.

So, quite a good start for this club, and a very promising future is at-hand. The Satellite club’s goal is to continue to grow to 20 members in the next 1-2 years, after which point they will apply for their own club charter from Rotary International.

The first informational meeting of the Ellenville-Rondout Valley Satellite Club had a nice turnout.