April 21, 2011: Rotary Log (International Day)

Portsmouth Rotary Log from Thursday, 4/21/2011

Today we kicked off International Day by having a live interaction via Skype with our fellow Rotarians Leonard and Waheed in Pakistan.  They are on a Rotary trip visiting different schools and seeing how they operate and what their most immediate needs are.

John Pappas gave our club $100 because he lost a $100 bet that he made during a Board meeting. He said that skype wouldn’t work during our meeting.  IT DID!  Thank you John for holding up your end of the bet.

Dick Seery was this week’s speaker at our 1 minute vocational talk at the beginning of our meeting.  He started off speaking of his family, wife and 2 sons.  For his career he has worked with employee benefits for the past 38 years in one form or another.  

In 1982 Dick joined Rotary in Michigan and then continued being a member in Hartford and in 1993 joined our Portsmouth Club.

One of Dick’s more interesting visits to other clubs was when he went to Alpena, Michigan and he found out that they use the hotel leftovers for their Rotary meal. He encouraged all of us to go out and visit other clubs so we could meet other Rotarians.

The fine master was on his game and he collected some cash with some clever fines.  $1 if you had traveled to Africa, $2 if you are allergic to bee stings, $2 if you have ever stayed in a 4 or 5 star hotel, $2 if you were drinking ice tea at the meeting and a few others.

Remember our Portsmouth Rotary Golf Tournament is June 24^th with a shotgun start at 9 a.m.  In the past we have had a total of 5 large sponsors, but by next Thursday they should have 12 to 15 large sponsors.  The large sponsors donate $1200; $900 goes to the Club and $300 to the golf club.  Nice job from the Sponsorship Committee!

Currently we have 7 Portsmouth Rotarian golf teams and the Dover Club has 2 teams. They are still looking for golf teams to sign up.  We need to get a team together for Dover’s upcoming golf tournament on June 14^th, since they have been so supportive of us.

Next Saturday, the 30^th, from 8am-12 p.m. is our “Slash and Burn” hands-on project at Peirce Island that we are doing with the Seacoast morning club.  They need help so please come and as a reminder this can be used as a make-up. This is a project that you will get dirty, so dress accordingly.

For Our Weekly Rotary Program we heard from fellow Rotarian Bob Herold and his wife Cathy. They talked about the Uganda Bee Project they are involved with through Rotary.

Uganda is near the horn of Africa and since 1989 has been experiencing terrorism from the Lord’s Resistance Army otherwise known as the LRA.  So for 23 years now they have terrorized the people of Northern Uganda.  There have been movies produced that have documented the LRA’s atrocities; a few of the movies are “The Invisible Children”, “War Dance” and “Children of War”. 

To combat the atrocities that the LRA were doing like rape, killing and maiming, refugee camps were formed.  However, the camps themselves created a different kind of problem because of their large populations.  Poor sanitation, disease and malnutrition ran rampant in the camps.

During this time period the LRA were responsible for 66,000 children being abducted and 300,000 people maimed or killed.

To encourage people to move back to their homes, food was withdrawn from the refugee camps. However, going back home the refugees were finding it difficult to provide their basic needs such as providing their own food, healthcare and getting back to schooling.  While in the camps, schooling did not occur, so now they struggle with a large portion of their population uneducated.

So one Ugandan, Robert, had a dream to help his fellow countrymen provide the basic needs for themselves.  He started the Adyaka Rural Project youth development through Club #9200.  The Rotary Club of Lira helped get the project going.  A Club member from Seattle 4, which is the largest Rotary Club in the World with over 700 members, saw the project Robert started and got her Club involved financially and then other Clubs started donating.

In the 1^st year of the project Robert trained 400 bee keepers!  He has had to overcome many obstacles along the way.  A couple of the obstacles to start were no transportation available to bring the honey to town to sell and the lack of proper equipment to help provide the best production efficiency and end product.

That’s where our Club came in with the help of the William Cash Fund. We have helped them buy equipment that made things easier for them and made a better end product.  Our involvement has helped purchase equipment such as airtight buckets, glass jars, honey settler’s, honey extractors, honey presses and refractometers.  The refractometer helps measure the purity of the honey, the more pure it is the more money they can earn. 

When they first started the product was not well produced and did not have the shelf life that it now has.  Bob showed us a jar of honey produced before the new equipment and after, what a difference!

The honey product is called “daisy’s”, named after Robert’s daughter.  Their slogan is “Honey made with love”. 

They have since branched out and made other products from the bees like candles and shoe polish and they have harvested the propolis.  Propolis is what the bees use to plug holes in their hives, but also helps people as an antibacterial, helps prevent tooth decay and other medicinal qualities.  They have also branched out and started other projects, the poultry project and sewing project. 

Robert has recently won the prestigious award “Best Association in Community Development”, he won over 500 other entries.  He is very proud of his award and grateful for all the help he has received to earn it.  Without Rotary participation this project never would have happened.

Robert’s dream is to one day export to Europe.