Kiwanis Club of Historic St. Augustine

Newsletter – 26 March 2009

President’s Message:

This is the week of our membership drive. Don’t forget to get a good crowd here to make me look good (and you too). Remember our current projects that we are working on. Skeeter’s Any Solder Project, in which you bring .bring any toiletries, etc to be packed in a small box and sent to our troops overseas. Also the Hats and Hugs project is about to wind down.

Coming Events: [Advise the editor of events of interest at 797-4332]

28 March 2009: Uptown Saturday Night, check out the local galleries uptown on the last Saturday of each month, and taste their food and wine.

3 April 2009: First Friday Art Walk, check out the local galleries downtown and taste their food and wine.

1, 2, & 3 May 2009: The annual Gamble Rogers Folk Festival. Sign-up for working there, and we are hoping to get our Key Clubs involved too.

7 May 2009: Our annual Geography Bee will be held at Sebastian M.S. and will start at 7:00pm. (That’s for non-members since we will need to be there at least one half hour early. Bob will have sign-up sheets soon

Guests: None this week. (I guess everyone is saving up for the membership meeting today).

Programs: (Check the website for your speaker assignment date.)

LAST WEEK: Rudy introduced Jerry Cameron, the Assistant County Executive. He felt that times weren’t all bad. At least this time gives us the opportunity to re-evaluate the core business of government. He indicated that the county was using attrition to meet the cuts required in the budget. He also explained the Save Our Homes was a typical government program which included the unintended consequences that comes with so many such programs. He told us that it would mean that taxes will go up as the valuation goes down. I don’t think Jerry will be with the county too much longer, as he told us that he had been offered a job as a tail-gunner on a school bus in Duval County.

THIS WEEK: This is our membership day, and Art Runk, Jr. is going to have a very good program for us and our prospective members..

NEXT WEEK: Monthly Board of Directors meeting.

50/50 DRAWING WINNERS: The big winner last week was our Treasurer, Frank Nemec. It waa a good sized pot considering we were down a little in attendance.. Mix those tickets real good, and make sure mine is on top.

NEWS OF NOTE:

Paul Linser gave us the first of many reminders of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival. Put this on your calendar and do all you can to help. This goes toward are service project points.

Skeeter is directing, from our end, the project of the Flagler College group that is preparing care packages for soldiers. Bring personal care items and he will get them to the school so that the students can put them in the care packages. (I’m sure he going to do that, unless he is filling his larder with shave cream and toothpaste.) I believe that Webmaster Jerry has put a list items that they need on our website.

Bob Braden was missing in action last week, and we had Tim Chiu leading the song. As I always say at times like these, “Where is Kate Smith when you need her to lead ‘God Bless America’?”

For FSU and Florida, the basketball season is over. FSU is out of the “Big Dance” and Florida is out of the NIT. Better luck next year.

On another note, we are coming up on the NFL draft, and that takes up the time of many people. Who picks whom and why?

Also baseball is cranking up and Boston will be without Schilling, and some other players won’t be there either. A-Rod is out for a good while due to surgery. That will give time for his other issues to cool down.

O.K., you’ve heard about them a lot lately, but what exactly is a “toxic asset”? And what about those AIG bonuses? Maybe we could have a little less hypocrisy if Obama, Dodd, McCain, et al. gave back their bonuses from AIG. Dodd’s wife even served on the Board for a while.

Quotes You Can Use (or Not):

"To model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.” Alexander Hamilton

“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” —C.S.Lewis

“Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.” —Thomas Carlyle

“The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe’er contented, never know.” —William Cowper

“I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.” —William F. Buckley

“Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.” —John Adams

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” —Albert Einstein

“I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word ‘fair’ in connection with income tax policies.”—William F. Buckley Jr.

“The grand paradox of our society is this: we magnify man’s right but we minimize his capacities.”—Joseph Wood Krutch