Needham Rotary Club Bulletin

August 18, 2009

This weeks meeting was held at the Wingate Nursing home, where Bob Day, a Needham Rotary member, and Bill Swartley, past President of the Boston Rotary Club live.

Opening: Ryan les us the Pledge of Allegiance, while George Hoffmeister led us in  'God Bless America' and led us in Prayer.

Guests: Shelia Pransky, Executive Director of Needham Opportunities Inc, who will be out guest speaker on September 1st; Bill Swartely, guest speaker and his great nephew John Meschner; Bob Day, Needham Rotarian and resident of Wingate;Ann Brennan, Administrator of this Wingate facility, and former Andover Rotarian; Brian Connell of TFA Associates; Steve DeCesare of Needham Bank, Past President of the Sharon Rotary Club.

Announcements:

.October 3^rd will be the Harvest Fair on Needham's town common, which will provide us the opportunity to sell tickets to the Pancake Breakfast which is scheduled for October 17^th!

-December 20^th: The day Needham Rotarians are scheduled to work on the Habitat for Humanity home here in Needham. Hold the date!

-The Bandy-Hefler exchange is still looking for host families for several days in September. Contact our own Karen Wetmore if you would like to host. It is a great experience!

-If you have Rotary flags you have received from other clubs (near or far), pass them on to Karen. She and Miriam will be sewing them together to make a new banner for our club. Sounds great !!

Humor:

  50/50:

Happy Dollars:   While no money was collected, we were all thankful to see how sharp and alert our guest speaker is at 101! Congrats Bill!!

Birthdays:

Guest Speaker:  Bill Swartley, a resident of Wingate and Past President of Boston Rotary, was our guest speaker.

Bill seriously considered going to WesleyanUniversity to become a minister, but ended up going to Cornell where he graduated in engineering. He then started to work at Westinghouse, where he was working/selling electrical generators which were powered by steam. He was literally 'plucked' from the manufacturing floor and became an assistant to a VP, who became his mentor.

Bill was given jobs with increasing responsibility and finally was assigned the project of setting up the TV station, channel 4, back at the start of commercial TV. WBZ was the first station in New England to go on the air in June 1948. In all candor, WNAC, channel 7, went on the air 2 days later. This was right after the war, and government intervention delayed WBZ from getting on the air for about a year.

While with cable today it seems as though one can get as many as 500 channels, back then there was one (count 'em, one) stations. I wonder how many people had a TV back then ?

Bill had a terrific career with Westinghouse. If there was one message Bill left us with, it is that he thinks RI should sponsor more professional training programs for employees.

Bill has a wealth of experiences and stories, and it was great to hear his recollections. Thanks Bill!!

Click on  the 'Photo Journal' 'VISIT TO WINGATE' from the Needham Rotay Website to see pictures of Bill Swartley and Bob Day.