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Service Above Self
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We meet Mondays at 12:15 PM
Palmetto Club
1000 South Beach Street
Daytona Beach, Florida 32114
United States
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| Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 21, 2012
There will be no Club meeting May 28th in honor of Memorial Day.
Memorial Day: Its Origin and History
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.  | General John A. Logan
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-B8172- 6403 DLC (b&w film neg.)] | | | Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies. | She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it. Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country. There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years. To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps." | | Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 18, 2012
Meeting May 21, 2012 Membership Chair, Diane Larsen presenting a program about Rotary Membership Development. Diane Larsen is the Business Development Coordinator for Team Volusia Economic Development Corporation. Team Volusia incorporated in August 2010; Diane began her role as Assistant to the President in March of last year. Team Volusia is actively working to attract and recruit new business to the area in order to bring new money into the local economy. Prior to her role at Team Volusia, Diane was Director of Membership at Sunset Harbor Yacht Club for 8 years. As Sunset Harbor’s first employee, at the Club’s inception, Diane assisted with setting up the Yacht Club’s operations and developing the Membership base. Diane has been married to her husband for 35 years! They have two grown children, Kenny, who is a recent graduate from University of Central Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, and Michelle who is a Registered Nurse at Florida Hospital Memorial. Diane has a 7 year old Granddaughter who calls her “TuTu” because she’s too, too young to be a Grandma! Diane has been a Rotarian since 2003, and was sponsored by Bud Ritchey. Diane is a member of the Basilica of St. Paul in Daytona Beach, where she serves on the Parish Council, Basilica School Board, is a Eucharistic Minister and a Reader. Diane resides in Ormond Beach and considers herself a proud resident of Volusia County for the last 15 years. | | Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 17, 2012
Illinois Rotarian has won five Emmys for public television series by S.A. Swanson
The Rotarian -- May 2012
In 30 years of working in documentary films, Martha Foster, a member of the Rotary Club of Wilmette, Illinois, USA, has organized festivals at museums and colleges, won five Emmys for a public television series, and served as an expert for a U.S. government program that screens documentaries in countries such as China, Myanmar, and Singapore. In 2005, she founded Living Earth Television (LETV). 
Martha Foster Rotary Images/Alyce Henson
| | Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 18, 2012
Always carry toothpaste by James R. Petersen
The Rotarian -- May 2012
Everything I know about travel I learned from a PBS program called The Last Place On Earth. A century ago, Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, and Robert Falcon Scott, a British naval officer, each set out to be the first to reach the South Pole. The two had completely different approaches to travel. Amundsen had studied the Netsilik people on previous Arctic explorations. He dressed his men in animal skins, and they traveled on skis and hauled supplies on dogsleds. Upon arrival in Antarctica, he reportedly said, “We do not know this place. … Every step is unknown terrain. We have much to learn.” His men wintered in a hut, refining their gear. He didn’t let an initial mishap – a too-early start before winter ended that resulted in frostbite and the loss of several dogs – throw him off. Instead, Amundsen regrouped and waited a month before heading out again. He took only two pictures on the whole trip – one of them of his team standing at the Pole.
Scott, meanwhile, arrived with three motor sledges, along with ponies and dogs. His men wore wool and oilskin windbreakers. They brought along a complete china table setting, a tea service, and silverware. One heavy sledge broke through the ice as they were unloading it from the ship; the other two wouldn’t run in the cold. (The one person Scott had failed to include on the expedition was the engineer who had developed and serviced the machinery.) The ponies floundered in the ice and snow. Scott used his crew as beasts of burden, adding a fifth man for the push for the Pole without providing extra rations. Dehydrated, suffering from scurvy, and starving, the entire team perished – while hauling 30 pounds of rock samples – 11 miles from a supply depot. The Scott expedition took hundreds of photos – of men sitting down to tea, the icebound ship, Scott’s birthday party, ponies pulling sleds, men pulling sleds, men trying to fix the motor sledges, a cook baking bread, Scott in his den, a dog listening to a gramophone, one man’s sledding rations for a day, the group standing around the tent Amundsen had left at the Pole. Don’t be that guy. | | Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 18, 2012
Several of us had the opportunity to hear Deepa Willingham speak at the RI Convention in Birmingham, England a couple of years ago. She is an outstanding speaker with a wonderful, heart-warming message. There is going to be an opportunity to hear her locally in May. This would give your club members the chance to hear the type high caliber speaker usually seen only at Rotary International Conventions - and right in our own back yard. I strongly urge you to consider attending this event, you will not be sorry. Please share this opportunity with the members of your club. We could come together as Rotarians from our many local clubs and truly make a statement. | | Posted by Joyce Shanahan on May 18, 2012
Born to serve by Claudia Kolker The Rotarian -- May 2012 
Three years ago, on a drizzly night in Atlanta, several hundred Nigerian immigrants strode into a motel ballroom looking as if they belonged at a party on Mount Olympus. The men wore skullcaps and long, gleaming robes of brocade. The women looked even grander. Swathed in lapis, coral, or golden silk, they balanced huge whorled turbans that towered several feet above their heads.
These revelers, most of them U.S. citizens, were members of the Ibo tribe. And they had gathered, as they did each year, to decide on the next way they could improve life for their village back in Nigeria. I’d come to the motel to learn about their inspiration for this work: a distinctly Ibo concept for community service called an ogbo. A sort of lifelong team, an ogbo – sometimes translated as “age grade” – doesn’t treat service as a chore, or even much of a choice. Instead, members of an ogbo approach it as a social habit, one cultivated from babyhood that’s as fundamental to full personhood as friendship, education, or work. Foreign as ogbos may seem, the idea of service as a social skill could deepen America’s own traditions of volunteerism. In the United States, mutual aid societies historically channeled the ethnic bonds of minorities and immigrants into assistance for individuals within those groups. Today, Americans of all ethnicities join service organizations focused on the whole community: Junior League, college fraternities and sororities, church missions, and clubs for professionals, such as Rotary. |
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Speakers
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Jun 04, 2012
“Reality House: The Therapeutic Community that Turns Lives Around”
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Jun 11, 2012
“The New Kid in The Town of Ponce Inlet: What’s new?”
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Jun 18, 2012
“Volusia County Economic Growth: The Future”
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Jun 25, 2012
“The Difference that Makes the Difference in Students”
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Jul 02, 2012
Independence Day Holiday
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View entire list...
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