Make Dreams Real

Rotary International President-elect Dong Kurn Lee addressed incoming district governors today at the 2008 International Assembly, urging them to use their resources to help curb child mortality. Lee said he was in disbelief when he learned that 30,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable diseases such as pneumonia, measles, and malaria.

The theme for the 2008-2009 Rotary Year is Make Dreams Real. (Read More) or here to watch the speech.

Topeka is a Great Arts Town

Kathy Smith of Arts Connect spoke today on the state of the arts in Topeka. Without question, the arts in Topeka are growing rapidly. With programs like the First Fridays Art Walk an increasing number of galleries throughout the city and a new publication titled City Arts, Topeka's Art Guide, there is much to be excited about. For more information, visit http://www.artsconnecttopeka.org/.

From the Editor

The Measure of a Year

The song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent begins with the following verse:

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure - Measure A Year?
In Daylights - In Sunsets
In Midnights - In Cups Of Coffee
In Inches - In Miles
In Laughter - In Strife

Exactly, how do we measure a year? Is it four seasons? Twelve months? Three hundred sixty five days? Or as the song says, five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes?

The end of the year and the beginning of another offers a logical opportunity to look back on the successes and failures of the past year and to contemplate those “resolutions” for the upcoming year. It’s easy to write some simple goals on a sheet of paper, yet it is hard to make meaningful changes. Here are my resolutions for 2008.

Read. I’m not talking the sports pages here. I’m talking about the classics, history, words that define the richness of our society.

Listen. There is much to learn by listening to others, even if you disagree.

Write. I have found few things I enjoy more than sitting down at the computer and writing. My mind is full of ideas. This is the year to put them on paper.

Help. Our community has needs and many of those needs can be addressed by volunteering.

Finish. It’s difficult sometimes to follow through on something to the very end. My resolution this year is to leave no task incomplete.

Develop. Like writing, my mind is full of ideas. Like a chess game, I have spent this past year moving pieces into place for what I hope are some fun and exciting projects ahead.

These may not seem like monumental goals, but by achieving these six things, I feel like I will be a more complete person living life to its fullest. For me, the daylights, the sunsets, the midnights and the cups of coffee are pleasures of life, not measures of life. The miles run and the laughs are things I am thankful for and fortunate to have.

I welcome 2008 with its challenges and its rewards. I can’t see the future. However, if I can read, listen, write, help, finish, and develop for the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, I will have a wonderful story to tell on the eve of 2009.

--Greg Hill

Topeka Rescue Mission - Reaching Out to the Homeless of Topeka

Barry Feaker has served as the Executive Director of the Topeka Rescue Mission since 1986.

“The homeless picture was very different in those days,” Feaker said. “At that time there were about fifteen to twenty people staying with us a night. Now we have about two hundred plus who are with us.”

The Topeka Rescue Mission is a Christian ministry dedicated to providing food, shelter, clothing, training, and hope to homeless and impoverished men, women, and children.
The facility is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At the Topeka Rescue Mission no one is ever turned away because of race, national origin, religion, sex, or age.

“It has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life to live in a community that has such a benevolent spirit as we have here in Topeka, Kansas,” says Feaker “Today the numbers of women and children are about the same as the men. This changed a number of years ago. It used to be that the average age of the homeless was 55 years old, now the average age is 32 years old and that does not include the children. We have anywhere from 300 to 500 children that come to use each year.”

To learn more about the Topeka Rescue Mission or to volunteer your services, visit www.trmonline.org/ or call 785-354-1744.

Message from the President

Actually, we’re six months through the Rotary year which ends June 30. Part of my duties as club president are to make sure we are on track with our club goals which were set last Spring.

Our board members have been hard at work on priority projects and we have more to roll out this Spring.
We keep recruiting new members, and I’m pleased to report that 5 new members were approved this month, with only one resignation. We’re making progress. If you know someone who should be a member, invite them to attend as a guest of the club.

Attendance is improving but there are still 3-5 members every week that don’t sign in. Don’t forget to mark the book when you attend committee meetings or do other projects for Rotary. They count toward your attendance. We are finally achieving the 50% mark we need for club attendance.

Dues statements just went out. I hope you were able to add a little extra as a donation to the Rotary International Foundation and/or the Topeka Rotary Foundation. The Every Member Every Year campaign is designed to build the RI foundation. By adding just $25 to your dues statement each quarter, you can easily meet this goal. These funds from the Rotary Foundation have made possible the last two years of polio reconstruction project in India. This project has done (or will have completed this winter) surgeries for more than 300 children, allowing them to walk after contracting polio. Our club has been able to work in conjunction with the Mumbai India Rotary club, thanks to the connections of some of our members with other Rotarians and family members in India. Many of the projects you read about in the Rotarian magazine are made possible because of funding from the Rotary International foundation.

The board is beginning to take a good look at some other International Service opportunities. One of our members, Rehan Reza has proposed a project in his hometown in Bangladesh to assist a local hospital, founded by his family, with the purchase of an ambulance. The board voted to form a committee to work with Rehan and Larry Dimmitt, our past District Governor who is working on foundation projects this year. They will investigate further and see if the project will fit within Rotary guidelines, and if so, make a recommendation to the board for how to proceed.
Our local foundation has also been busy, and has just released a list of its funded projects. By design, these projects have to be in Shawnee County. They have a separate board of directors that manage these funds and provide oversight to the granting process.

Most people don’t realize that health care in most of the world is delivered by organizations such as Rotary, or churches or other world health organizations and is largely fueled by donations and volunteers. It makes me very proud to be a Rotarian, and to read each month about the many worthwhile projects while Rotary supports.

If you have interest in any of these projects and would like to get involved, please let me know.
Joan Wagnon

Aeschliman Publishes Book on Iraq War

LTC Roger Aeschliman spent a year in Iraq as the Chief of the Joint Visitors’ Bureau in Baghdad, guarding and escorting the world’s most senior dignitaries, traveling all over the country. These dignitaries included presidents, prime ministers, US cabinet secretaries, and more than 100 Congressmen or Senators.
Aeschliman has published an account of his mission in the Iraq War in his first published book, Victory Denied.

Aeschliman has included personal notes and letters to his wife, children, family and friends that help tell the whole story of a soldier leaving home to do his duty. These letters are tender and warm, sharing both the difficulties and triumphs a family faces in a lost year. And the additional comments appended to the weekly reports by Robyn, Aeschliman’s wife, truly add to the depth and quality of the narrative.

“Whether in medical care, transportation, education, public services, the creation of government structure and capacity at all levels, and the development of both the Iraqi military and police force, there has been tremendous progress made by the US military and the two dozen other allied nations,” Aeschliman says. “All of this has been ignored by the national media in favor of headline grabbing bombings and violence.”

VICTORY DENIED is many different books in one: an offbeat war memoir, a personal history of one man and his unit preparing for war, going there, doing the job and demobilizing, a sociological and historical review of the region, with a smattering of zoology, botany, astronomy, meteorology, poetry and theology thrown in. Aeschliman wrote home weekly to his wife and many of those stories were shared with the Topeka Rotary Club.

“I want to thank Rotary once again for its support,” he says.

Victory Denied can be purchased at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders or any local bookstore. It may also be purchased online from Authorhouse at www.authorhouse.com.

January is Rotary Awareness Month

Wanting to learn more about what Rotary is doing around the world? Click here for some PSA's.