Charlene Seward, Guest of Reed Wilcox

Speaker: Mike Kalil

 

Cale bragged for all the previous Sergeant of Arms, as he is finding it a tough job and hard to find lots of fineable material. He had to reach far to find any fines. He then proceeded to fine Betsy Bloomer as wife of Matt Bloomer, who was in the paper...definitely a reach haha.

Jeff bragged for his son because he recently got a call from Leonardo Dicaprio thanking him for his great work under a tight deadline on a movie Leo is working on! Pretty cool stuff.

Tom reminded everyone that they are welcome to the Broc annual meeting, keynote speaker is Patrick Leahy and there will be a 20 piece jazz-ensemble from Rutland High.

Krista bragged that everyone should be wearing their Rotary lapel pins, as she was recently reminded by our DG. He said that when you go in a hospital, most of the doctors are Rotarians and if you are single, could be a great dating tool!

Nick bragged for us for not harassing him about how bad his Yankees got beat up by Boston.

Steve bragged for his 6 year old grandson who is a heck-of-a football player AND he recently bought a 350z for himself to feel young again, per Joan Watson's advice!

Colie bragged about the grand re-opening of Rotary Park and that Will was there to represent our club!

Will reminded Colie that Cindy Wight said they could rename the park Gormly Park.

Charlene bragged for her 14 year old son who completed the Spartan race and carried huge logs/5 gallon buckets of gravel up and down the mountains. He will be doing it again next year!

Joan finally heard laughter and happy voices from Rotary field for the first time in a LONG time.

Barb bragged about Steve Costello's pop-up exhibit that is happening from Thursday through Saturday at The Chaffee.

Nicole is looking for any volunteers for The Really Big Show and encouraged everyone to spread the word to all we know so those with a talent come showcase it.

Announcements:

Nicole briefed us on her father-in-law, Terry. He had his hip replaced and is being a "non-compliant patient at home"!

Lyle said that the Castleton students are now downtown and this is only the beginning of the University's movement toward downtown.

October 15th is the Rotary Leadership Institute. Stephanie and Krista are going, please join them and carpool!

Reed is no longer taking CHIPS, effective ASAP. Someone please step-up.

 

108k net worth. $3,1xx in operating account and $94,xxx in Long-Term account. Only about $768 in known liabilities. 

 

Mike Kalil is the only Syrian that lives in Rutland and has been here for over 16 years. He is a very successful real estate broker and good friend of Joan Watson. He came to the States in 1980 from Aleppo, Syria and studied at Northeastern at the age of 18. His family was upper middle class in Syria, but the ones who have remained and fled have lost everything. Currently his family is scattered all throughout the world, due to the crisis and war. He thinks that the people that would be coming here to Rutland would be well-educated, probably very happy just to be out of harms way. He met a refugee family from Syria recently and they were just elated to be free from danger and in the United States. When he was growing up in Syria, he said no one made a big deal about what religion people were. Syria has Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druids, etc. No one looked at you and classified you by religion. He feels that what has happened is a political and power struggle being masked by a façade of religion. He said that any refugee that comes here will NOT be on welfare. They have pride, are hardworking, and won't give up. They do not do drugs and very little alcohol. He encouraged us to learn as much as possible about them from a cultural standpoint.