Benches, Boards and Members

Our latest bench on the Zim Smith Trail was put up this morning by Al Schmidt and Miles Cornthwaite, using a grant from the Town of Malta/GlobalFoundries Foundation. Those two plus Paul Sausville put in the concrete slab last week.

Last night, at Andy's Adirondack Grille (which did a fine job), we inducted Tom Disinger as incoming club president, plus new and returning board members, all of whom were elected earlier this month. There is no Thursday meeting this week. Our next meeting will be July 5, when Barbara Conner will give a presentation on her church's medical mission to Uganda.

At last night's dinner, Al Schmidt and Doug Martin confirmed they will not be returning as members for the next Rotary year. Their many years of hard work have helped this club do a lot of good things locally and around the world. They (along with Arlene Schmidt, who left earlier this year but was with Al at Andy's) will be missed, and we hope they stop by to see us in the future.

Virtual Reality

Eileen O'Connor, shown with club President Bob Conner, was our speaker this morning. Dr. O'Connor, an associate professor at Empire State College in the State University of New York, gave us a tour of virtual reality, including its darker side.

Scholarship Winner(s)

Our speaker at last week's meeting was Sarah Pritchard, shown here with club President-Elect Tom Disinger.

Sarah is this year's winner of the Malta Sunrise Rotary Scholarship for $1,000. She is the daughter of David and Denise Pritchard of Malta, will graduate soon from Ballston Spa High School, and plans to attend Wheaton College in Massachusetts in the fall. Sarah will pursue a career as a physicians assistant.

We congratulate Sarah and four additional graduating Town of Malta seniors who were recognized as Commended Finalists in the Malta Sunrise Rotary Scholarship program. These four students will receive textbook awards for $125 each. They are Rachel Fowler and Andrea Carroll from Ballston Spa High School, and Claire Merkle and Brendan Barrow from Shenendehowa High School. 

New board elected

At last week's business meeting, officers were elected for the 2018-19 Rotary year.

The new board will be: President, Tom Disinger; president-elect, Mike Williams; vice president, Larry Levine; immediate past president, Bob Conner; treasurer, Cynthia Young; secretary, Kathy Eitzmann; Finance Committee chair, Steve Ames; Membership Committee chair, Miles Cornthwaite; Foundation chair, Bob Brilling.

Board members will be inducted at the June 26 changeover dinner (no morning meeting that week) at Andy's Adirondack Grille on Route 9. They take office July 1.

Al Schmidt is stepping down from his board post as Foundation chair after many years of excellent service. He continues to be engaged in other club business, such as installing benches this month on the Zim Smith Trail (where he and Miles replaced one last week).

In other business, we've set Aug. 28 as the date for us to assist a Red Cross blood drive at Malta Community Center.

Dogs, and upcoming events

Our speaker this morning was club member Chris Luhn, who talked about his participation in the breeding, raising and placement program for the Monks of New Skete in Cambridge, NY. (See: https://newskete.org/our-dogs to learn more.)
Tom Disinger also requested volunteers Friday evening and (especially) at 8:30 Saturday morning to help set up for the 1 p.m. Saturday ceremony near Malta Town Hall to inaugurate the new veterans memorial.
And club members will be participating Friday and Saturday at the District 7190 day of service and conference in Schenectady.

Engineers

Justice Williams, a graduate of Ballston Spa High School and a former recipient of a Malta Sunrise Rotary Scholarship, stopped by on Thursday to update us on the next step of his career path. Justice recently completed a master's degree in industrial engineering and will soon start a job with United Technologies in Indianapolis. He shared the speaker's stage for a while with fellow engineer, longtime Rotarian and former club President Larry Levine, who is receiving a Life Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, Mohawk Hudson Chapter.

Chamber President, Then a Parade

Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, was our speaker Thursday, discussing, among other things, the possibility of GlobalFoundries constructing a second chip fab plant in Luther Forest.

He also talked about how the planned aquatic center at Exit 12 will fill hotel rooms, and the need for public transportation on Routes 9 and 67.

On Saturday, quite a few Rotarians were in or were watching the Armed Forces Day/first responder parade, despite the rain.