ROTARY CLUB OF APPLETON

Service Above Self GUSTO

February 12, 2008 Upcoming Programs February 19 Empire Room Great Lakes Water - Who Has It/How Wants It - Patrick Planten    Thumbnail: Kevin Eisemann Thought for the Day – George Detweiler February 26 Empire Room What’s New at the Appleton Public Library - Barbara  Kelly Thumbnail: Jim Dobinski Thought of the Day – Jeff Werner Officers 2007-2008 President Jeff Schulz Vice President Shipra Seefeldt Past President Jeff Werner Secretary Curt Detjen Treasurer Tom Berkedal Directors Ron Altenburg Dawn Doberstein Gail Enke Peter Kelly Dan Nisler Gail Popp Matt Rehbein Dave Willems Sergeant-At-Arms Dave Aardappel RYE Student Alek Kozak - 830-7939 Admin. Assistant Kathy Dreyer Phone/Fax 731-4427 kdreyer1@juno.com Rotarians of the Year Mark Harris/Gail Popp Downtown Gusto Kathy Dreyer, Editor Dist. 6220, Club 2656 P. O. Box 703 Appleton, WI 54912 www.appletonrotary.org Meets Tuesday Noon Radisson Paper Valley

INDUCTIONS Today, the Rotary Club of Appleton inducted Lee Allinger, Jill Beck, Theresa Lauer and John Nygaard. Lee is the Superintendent of the Appleton Area School District, Jill is the President of Lawrence University, Theresa is a Tax Manager at Grant Thorton and John is a Vice President at First Business Bank. Welcome! RYE STUDENT – ALEK KOZAK Alek is from Poland which is considered part of Central Europe. Poland has a social democracy with a President as Head of State. The government centers on the Council of Ministers that is lead by a Prime Minister. The current President is Lech Kaczyński. After WWII, Poland was under the influence of the Soviet Union and officially considered part of the Communist Bloc. Poland’s economy began to fall. Price increases needed to be announced by the government and wages were not increasing. In 1980, the labor union called “solidarity” stood in opposition against the communists. Union strikes appeared across the entire country causing a loss of government control. Since the country was unstable, it was in danger of intervention by the Soviet Union Red Army. This drew support of the entire nation toward the solidarity movement. Lech Wałęsa, a Solidarity candidate, eventually won the Presidency in 1990. The Solidarity movement brought about the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe. The school system in Poland consists of kindergarten (ages 1-7), grammar school (ages 7-13), middle school (ages 13-16) and high school (ages 16-19). Students don’t choose classes and they are with the same students in every class. They don’t have hall passes, substitute teachers, punishment for skipping classes or homework. Their grades are based only on exams. School is much more work leaving no time for part-time jobs and sleeping 4-6 hours per night. Alek is from Bydgoszcz which is about 650 years old. Warsaw is the capital of Poland and the largest city with a population of about one million. Some of the other cities in Poland include: Cracow (City of Artists and Poets), Zakopane (Capital of the Polish Mountains) and Gdansk (the Medieval City by the Baltic Sea). Steve Taylor, Chair of the Rotary Youth Exchange Committee, introduced next year’s outbound student Jessica Ford. Jessica will be going to France. He also presented Rejoice, our inbound student from Africa, with a Wisconsin sweatshirt.

WAYNES’S HISTORY MINUTE Rotary spread from its founding in Chicago in 1905 only after news of their second service project (installation of indoor toilets in the City Hall building). At first, Rotary spread along the routes of commerce and industry. In 1908-1909, Rotary clubs were established on the West Coast (San Francisco, Oakland Seattle and Los Angeles) and on to the East Coast (New York City and Boston). In 1910, Rotary began to spread throughout the Midwest (Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit) and the first one in a foreign country (Winnipeg, Canada). Clubs formed overseas in England and Ireland. The first club in Wisconsin was established in 1912 in Superior because of the iron ore mining. In 1913, clubs were then established in Milwaukee and Madison. By this time, there were 123 clubs in the world. In 1915, the International Association of Rotary Clubs decentralized governance by forming Districts. In 1917, five more clubs were established in Wisconsin: Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Green Bay and Appleton (the 288^th club in the world). In 1924, our club hosted the District Conference for the first time (749 Rotarians from 42 clubs). In 1945, all District Conferences in the United States were canceled because of the government ban on all meetings not directly connected with the war effort. ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE UPDATES Do you know of someone between the ages of 15-19 who is interested in traveling overseas this summer? The student would live in the home of a foreign student for four weeks and learn about the culture of another country. Then they would bring that foreign student back to the United States for three to four weeks to visit. For details regarding costs and other requirements, please contact Adalia Jansen at 968-0040 (w) or 687-0620 (h). The application deadline is February 29^th. GUESTS, VISITORS AND MAKE-UPS Guests today were Jessica Ford, Alek Kozak, Rejoice Ngesi, Frank Rippl, Robb Beck with Jill Beck, Greg Vandenberg with Alan Blake, Julie Nygaard with John Nygaard, Travis Andersen with Barbara Stack, Mark Logemann with Roy Vaitchka and Maria Curran with Robb Waugus. There were no visiting Rotarians today. Making up this week was Linda Dejmek, Marta Karlov, Lisa Kewley and Tim Reich on e-Club and Rick Hilsabeck at Appleton West.

FOX CITIES ROTARY MULTICULTURAL CENTER

The Rotary Club of Appleton Board voted to commit up to $29,000 in funds to match gifts made to the Fox Cities Rotary Multicultural Center to reduce/eliminate the debt due to the renovation costs. We are helping the Multicultural Center complete the project we helped them initiate as part of Rotary’s Centennial Celebration. If you would like to participate in this match, please make your checks payable to the Fox Cities Rotary Multicultural Center and specify that it is for debt reduction. This matching program will end on March 31 or until the funds are used up.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

· Each year, the Rotary Youth Exchange students attend a summer trip to the east or west coast at their own expense. Alek and Rejoice come from poor families who are unable to provide the $1,700 each to go on one of these trips. Alek’s family had to take out a 2^nd mortgage for him to come to Appleton and Rejoice won a South Africa Airlines contest for low income students. Since the Board was unaware of their situations, the money is also not budgeted. If anyone would like to help defer the cost to send Alek and Rejoice on one of these trips, please contact Kathy Dreyer or send your checks to: Rotary Club of Appleton, P. O. Box 703, Appleton, WI 54912 before February 28^th. So far, we have collected $600 and need $2,800. Thank you!

· It is January and that's typically the time to re-set priorities and begin working toward a successful year. Our Club is no exception. We all want the Rotary Club of Appleton to be as vital as it can be. Think about your friends, colleagues and co-workers who would benefit from being part of this great Club and who have something to add to it. Our club has a tradition of steady growth every year, and you're encouraged to nominate future Rotarians by March 4th so we can welcome them in the current Rotary year. If you have any questions, please see Shipra, Curt or Kathy. Thanks for doing your part to keep our Club strong.

RYE STUDENT UPDATE – Haley Domnick

So it’s been a really long time since the last time I wrote to you all. But I am happy to tell you that I am keeping busying and having fun.

I think you all know that I was living in a different town last month. A town called Pinamar, (one of the tourist spots here.) and it was amazing. We went to the beach everyday, even on the bad days. But it was still fun spending time on the beach which I can’t do there in the U.S. But living in Pinamar was 100% vacation. All we did was relax. And it was funny because we did mostly the same thing everyday. We would wake up at about 1:30-2 in the afternoon (yes in the afternoon...) and eat lunch. Then we went to the beach until about 8:00, and came home took showers and relaxed some more. We ate supper at about 11:00-12 at night, watched a movie or went walking for the center of town. And we went to bed at about 3:00-4 in the morning. And this was everyday... So that as quite an experience!!

Now I am back in Madariaga and starting to organize things for school and for my next Rotary trip to the North, which will take place the 22nd of February until the 7th of March. I am really excited to go and learn more about Argentina and reconnect with my other exchange friends again! But until then I have been doing a lot with my friends here and keeping busy so I don't get too bored. This weekend to come I actually have a birthday party for my host parents. So that should be fun.

I find myself improving so much with my Spanish. I have had so many interesting conversations now that I can speak and understand so much more. For example, with the elections going on there in the U.S, everyone seems to start conversations about it. Also I also like explaining more things about the U.S to people now that I can explain more in depth. Overall I am very happy with the progress I have been making. And I think other people are noticing it as well!

Well not much more to say. Still here and having the experience of a life time. Knowing that it is extremely cold there, I send warm wishes to you all from my summer here. Hope all is well!! 

My friend Ana and I with shark eggs which you can Haley boogie boarding for the first time.

find everywhere on the beach.