Rotateller Rotary Club of Owego, NY
Tuesday, AUGUST 7, 2007…a great day to go to Rotary! Gary Williams, Editor

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Life is hard when you have to face it on your own. Together, we can achieve everything. Imre Kovacs, one of the Budapest Rotary Club founders

VISITORS AND GUESTS:

Teresa Saraceno, Stella Reschke, Lindsay and Kathleen Adler.

BIRTHDAYS:

We sang for Mark Dixson and Stella Reschke, for their birthdays on the 12th. Happy Birthday also to Gwen Smith on the 11th.

FINES:

Ann Lowdermilk traded tickets with Orv last week so she became the winner and resultant finemaster today. If you read the Rotarian magazine carefully you might know the answer to the questions she posed. The name of the hospital ship that will be anchored off Liberia is the Africa Mercy. I missed the follow on, but Ann made lots of money for the club with her fines! The lesson here: trade tickets with Orv and read the magazine. ;-)

THERE WERE MANY HAPPY DOLLARS TODAY:

Judy in hopes of a ride home; Mark because he’s getting back to his love again: coaching cross country; Carole - an unhappy dollar for the poor skunk that didn’t make it in a Have-a-Heart trap, and a very happy dollar for the outstanding display of schools in Tioga County at the museum; Carolyn (for Orv who couldn’t be present) for the 3-0 win the senior men’s tennis team had against Buffalo over the weekend. Owego will represent western NYS at the next level of tournament in Schenectady in September; Laura for the safe arrival of Suzanne in Netherlands. Matt went on to tattle about the overweight luggage, describing how he, Kevin and Suzanne pulled bits out of the suitcase in the middle of the airport…Annette was happy that Stella and Teresa were able to attend Rotary; Bob Kingston was very happy and mighty relieved that his 30-something-year-old sister-in-law could get a shoulder replacement following her diagnosis of bone cancer and that she’s doing well in the extremely long recovery process; Ann gave a dollar to say how happy she was to be affiliated with the Owego Methodist Church children’s musical. She zipped to Rotary right from there but reported that the production, started Monday, developed and put on by the kids on Friday, would be outstanding. Harry wound up the long list of happy dollars with his wishing dollar: if he could lose weight as easily as he could lose at golf he would be happy!

MUSIC:

Carl and Carolyn lead us in “Smile.” We did a stellar job of singing that one!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Youth Services meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, 8/8/07, 7:30 AM.
• Matt talked about the exciting Owego Rotary trip planned for December through the efforts of Matt and Richard Schaal (Tioga Travel). On December 9th, Rotarians will board a Coachmaster (=comfortable and really nice) bus to Lancaster, PA for an American Music Theater production, shopping and eating. This will be at a really good price. There will be more info coming soon but mark this date on your calendar for a great Family of Rotary outing.
• Next week’s meeting (August 14th) will be held at the Links golf course. Reservations: contact Carolyn Wright or Fred Strauss. Golf is available at a good price, too.
• The August 21st meeting will be devoted to the Youth Exchange program, which is such a large part of Owego Rotary. Come and learn what’s going on and what’s different.

PRESENTATION OF FUNDING AWARDS:

This year President Matt is trying to make each donation made by Owego Rotary Club to the recipient organization in person. Recipients of two awards were present today. 1) Stella Reschke, of Tioga Tourism, and Teresa Saraceno, of Tioga County Economic Development and Planning, accepted a $1,000 check to support the “Lights on the River” project in downtown Owego. From November 1, 2007 through January 6, 2008, there will be displays of banners, decorated illuminated light poles, big lighting displays, and a lighted bridge and courthouse. There will also be a spirited contest in a residential lighting program. 2) Owego Rotary has been a sponsor of Little League and its offshoots for many years. This year we continue to support Little League, Teener League and to sponsor a billboard at the fields. Greg Poffenbarger, Owego Rotarian and also an active part of Little League, accepted the award check on behalf of Little League.

PROGRAM:

President Matt proudly introduced his daughter Lindsay, a senior at Syracuse University. She is a terrific presenter and did a superb job of telling members about her chance to study fashion photography under Jeff Licata (who shoots for Valentino and Calvin Klein among others) in London and in Prague over the last few weeks.

In the formal part of their study they looked at the old masters’ artwork to figure out how fashion images were treated. They also discussed the morality issues of fashion photography and fashion photography as an art. Lindsay showed some of her photos and helped us see how “finding” the light is what makes a photo work.

Very successful fashion photographers can command $35,000 per day. Catalog photographers get around $3,500, while the back of the magazine cover photographer gets only around $350 per day – and only on the days they work.

The wonderfully amazing part of Lindsay’s presentation was seeing the magic of today’s camera and photo tricks for retouching. President Matt was a great sport as he was shown in the “before,” un-retouched photo -not that Matt looks bad, by any stretch, and he’s a lot younger than many of us. We could see some flaws, though, - sorry, Matt. Lindsay showed us right on the big screen that she could nip here and erase there, to produce an even more handsome, younger Matt, with whiter teeth, darker hair, no wrinkles, a slimmer neck area…all the things done to every photo you ever see in a magazine or in any portrait, in order to make the person look their absolute best. Very tricky, but now we know. Let’s not strive to be anywhere like those pictures that are in front of us all the time because they are not real.

Great presentation! You know if you were there, and you missed out on a cutting edge talk if you couldn’t make it.

50/50: Birthday guy, Mark Dixson

NEXT WEEK:

For a different pace, meet at noon at The Links golf course on Marshland Road, off Route 434. Lunch: $13.50. Golf following at a really great price. Call Fred Strauss or Carolyn Wright for info.

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