At the April 21 meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville GRSP student Kate Parker of New Zealand reported on her experiences as a GRSP student this year.   She enjoyed fellowship with her host family who lived on Lake Lanier and recounted her adventures during her year in Georgia.  She experienced fire ants first hand, transitioned from a winter to a very hot summer, attended a UGA game, and managed to work in travel all over the United States, from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Miami and Key West.  She particularly enjoyed hearing Fleetwood Mac on New Year’s and traveling to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon.  She enjoyed her classes and her experience at Brenau, particularly the beautiful campus and the tight-knit community, and celebrating American holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving.  She thanked the Rotarians for the opportunities of this past year to learn more about the U.S. and to make so many new friends.

http://vimeo.com/90706726

At the March 31 meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville the guest speaker was Maureen Downey, Education Reporter/Columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Ms. Downey first addressed the nostalgia she often hears expressed about the “good old days” of education. She pointed out the striking ways in which this era differs:  there was a high failure rate back then but it didn’t matter so much because there were many jobs that didn’t require an education, not so today when kids without a high school education can’t support themselves; only 10% went to college back then, whereas today a college education is more necessary.   The mission of public education has changed: today students have to learn critical thinking and problem solving.  She asserted that the problems we have are not fixed easily or cheaply and that the General Assembly fails each year to deal with the real issues, getting sidetracked with some inane topic like the Common Core issue this year.  She held up Finland as a model; it requires rigorous teacher training and pays teachers well and now has the top ranked education system in the world.  She closed with praise for Gwinnett County’s public school system and credited that success to good leadership over a sustained period of time.

Bob Cowan invited his fellow Lawrenceville Rotarians to look back at the history of this particular club.  He provided a list of the former presidents and the founding members of the club and highlighted memorable events of these seventeen years.   In the 1970s there was one Gwinnett County club, but beginning in the 80s, several communities started their own clubs, Peachtree Corners in 1981, South Gwinnett  in 1983,  Duluth in 1986, Snellville in 1990, Buford in 1994, and Lawrenceville in 1997.  With thirty charter members, the club has generally maintained between 30 and 40 members over the years.  Initially the group met as a Monday breakfast club at the Flying Machine at Briscoe Field but later moved to the Little River Grill and then the Corner Stop Cafe and later to Garden Plaza.  In 2005 they changed the meeting time to noon.   Noteworthy events included the controversy over including women members early on, with the first president, Jo Ann Pinder, being a trailblazer.  Bob remembered the fund-raising adventures at the Concession Booth at the Bell South Golf Tournament.  He, along with Judy McDaniel and other charter members, are working to compile historical information in a format which will be easy to pass along to new presidents and will help preserve the history of our group.

http://vimeo.com/89350436#t=

According to Karen Shields, the Public Information Officer and  Communications Manager of the Gwinnett County Health Department, the mission of her department is to have a healthy, protected, and prepared community.  She spoke to the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville at their noon meeting on March 17.  Their health services include childhood and adult immunizations, travel consultation (particularly about shots needed when traveling), screening at schools, maternal services, and working with the WIC program.  To protect the community, they are involved in promoting tobacco-free environments, inspecting and rating restaurants, providing disease education, and supporting the Georgia SHAPE in-school exercise program.  As for preparedness, the office provides information about planning for all types of emergency situations.  Information on restaurant ratings or on any aspect of public health can be found on the website www.gnrhealth.com.  Healthy guidelines for eating can be found at www.weightforus.com.

It is that time of year again for the RCL March Madness Basketball Tournament.

The entry fee is $10 and all entires are due to Beaty by 10 am this Thursday, 3/20, and all fees are due Monday, 3/24 @ 1 pm.

You can email of fax Beatty with your entry:

• email: beatty51@earthlink.net
• fax: 770-831-7952

Payout:

• First Place: 50%
• Second Place: 20%
• Third Place: 10%
• RCL: 20%

Call Beatty with any specific questions: 770-363-1849

                  Congressman Rob Woodall spoke at the noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville on March 10.  Woodall, Representative for the 7^th District of Georgia, focused his discussion on the future of Social Security, which he characterized as the most clear-cut and manageable of the many problems currently facing the U. S government.  After featured quotations from Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr., he discussed the extreme division between liberals and conservatives in Washington,   D. C., and while conceding that representatives were obligated to support the views of their constituency, he asserted that those in Washington should be Americans first, and then Democrats or Republicans.  He believes  many tough decisions have to be made, some of which may hurt, but they will hurt less now than they will for later generations.

                     Focusing on Social Security, he described the coming crisis with rise in numbers of workers being much less than the rise in numbers of those who will want to draw benefits in the near future. He outlined options for saving Social Security:  increasing the payroll tax 1, 2, or 3% over varied periods of time, eliminating the taxable maximum, raising the years of earning to 68 or 70, and basing COLA on chained CPI.  He solicited responses from the audience on these various options.  A discussion ranging from letting the system fail to means testing of benefits followed.  Woodall concluded his presentation with a call for constituents to push their Representatives to do something really hard, something that may hurt in the short term but that would be good for America in the long term.  He asserted that we should care more about solving our problems than about giving blame.            

                     Rep. Woodall serves on the House Committee on Rules, the House Budget Committee, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  He is the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee’s Budget and Spending Task Force.  He has served as the 7^th District Representative since 2010. He invited constituents to contact him with questions or suggestions for solutions at www.woodall.house.gov and at 202-225-4277.

Chris Reese of the Cirrus Business Group spoke at the noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville on March 3. He works with businesses throughout the world to turn organizations around and help with their organizational development. He emphasized the advantages of a team structure where the outcomes are more than the sum of the individual parts and asserted that companies that are leaders are able to adapt and innovate. He went over the four stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. To develop highly effective teams he proposed the following commitments: 1. create an environment of trust, 2. understand and embrace healthy conflict, 3. seek true commitment, 4. embrace accountability, and 5. focus on the result.

https://vimeo.com/86356816

Lisa Sherman, Director of Economic Development for the City of Lawrencville, described her job and the role of her office in a presentation to the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville on Feb. 10. She, an Events Coordinator, and a Downtown Development Coordinator comprise a team which exists to support the Downtown Development Authority, the Tourism and Trade Association, the Gwinnett Business Bureau, and the City Council. They work to recruit new businesses to the City and to extend current businesses. Working with the local college and public schools, she focuses on making sure that programs exist to provide the skills needed in the work force. Currently they are working to develop a strategic plan and to offer marketing support. A new Marketing Manager will be hired soon, as well as two new part-time staff for the Tourist Center. She said that she loved her job because of the positive outlook that results from daily attempts to grow, build, and develop Lawrenceville.

Members of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville enjoyed a tour of the Gwinnett County Traffic Control Center on Feb. 3, 2014. Guides described the process whereby 695 signals are timed and coordinated using 188 cameras and impressed all with the complexity of such coordination. We learned about maintenance of the many signals and cameras and the challenges when dangerous weather conditions exist.