Welcome to Baldwinsville Rotary's little corner of the internet. We hope you will find the information you see about our events, our mission and how much fun we have with the tabs at the top of the page. 

 

If you are considering joining Rotary, reach out to us directly at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com to plan a visit to an upcoming meeting or request a one-on-one discussion about what Rotary would mean for you. Our meetings are currently being offered as hybrid events that can be attended in person at The Wood or virtually on zoom. See our schedule on the Meetings tab.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

July 1 is when Rotary opens up a brand new calendar for the year. That means this blog writer is no longer club president and you might get a little more writing out of me! This new Rotary year brings with it many new things - a new focus, new leaders and new ideas - but one thing we cannot get rid of is the sense of uncertainty that's weighed on us all since our worlds were shut down last March. When things feel out of our control, it's best to focus on what we can control. At least that's what we learned from the many positive thinking and mental health experts that have spoken at our meetings over the past few months! We have and will continue to do just that in Rotary, with focus and energy and joy.

 

While everyone has been in different places throughout this crisis, many have found ways to serve. Our club is here to find and coordinate opportunities for our members, with a variety of tasks for different abilities. We've written cards and letters from home, participated in virtual fundraisers and honored our youth from our living rooms. We've also worked in small groups, with masks and social distancing, to pack food for our Backpack Program. Opportunities like these have always been what we do and will of course continue in the new Rotary year!

 

A pandemic didn't keep us from getting "together." We have been conducting two meetings (or more!) each week on Zoom for three months. Now that groups of up to 50 are permitted, we will begin exploring some in-person events, keeping in mind that not everyone will be comfortable with that and always working to keep meetings accessible. The best way to plan on attending is to contact us at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com with the date of the meeting you wish to attend and we'll provide more details on your options, including the link to the Zoom meeting. Please be patient as our meetings evolve and we try to be flexible for our members!

 

No matter what is happening in the world, Rotary's values hold true. We want to be honest, fair, building goodwill and better friendships, and considering all concerned. When you attend a meeting, you will find friendly, smiling people who genuinely want to welcome and get to know you. We ask our members to take that kindness everywhere in their lives as well!

 

If you are looking to help others, meet others or share in kindness, Rotary is where it's at!

Start by following us on Facebook, then check out our Meetings tab to choose an upcoming meeting to attend, and then reach out to us to get the meeting link and attend!

In case I haven't mentioned it, this blog writer is now also this club's president. Being club president has been a demanding and fun blessing in my life, so I wanted to take a look back at the first half of this Rotary year as we approach the mid-way point and our calendars flip to 2020 to share some insights into my world!

 

We started off with a summer of fun - fewer meetings, more social activities and more opportunities for service.

We visited local bars, had informal dinners together, helped mulch the new playground at Elden, got rained out of a concert, fed seniors a BBQ with live music and door prizes at Canton Woods, got to hear from the new District Governor and enjoyed a picnic at a member's home. It was a great mix of fun, helping others and getting to know each other! But we all ended up missing a little bit of our routine meetings at the Red Mill Inn.

 

So the fair came and went, school started and September began. We were back at the Red Mill twice each week and feeling comfortable. It was a beautiful autumn outdoors, generating lots of happy dollars for the sun and leaves. We still had fun with club in a pub and pressing cider together. We hosted brand new exchange students who came to town for their first orientation. We celebrated engagements, awards and promotions for our members. And then we braced ourselves for October.

 

October 2019 could go down in history as the busiest month of Rotary in Baldwinsville (admittedly my role as president could influence my perception!). In kind of chronological order, we:

-had a great Think Tank meeting at Mohegan Manor about our changing climate and national parks

-presented an Adirondack Chair in honor of our member Ann Smiley at a special meeting at Lysander Park

-kicked off a new membership contest to help grow our club

-went on the Ghost Walk with the B'ville Center for the Arts
-honored our first two Students of the Month - Shannon McCarthy & John Burns

-hosted 60+ Rotarians, honorees and their guests to present five Pride of Workmanship awards at a dinner at The Reef

-attended our annual District Conference in Oswego for a full day of learning and celebrating Service Above Self

-raised $4,000 to fight polio at Pints for Polio at WT Brews

-welcomed TWO new members to the club

-celebrated World Polio Day with a proclamation from Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh and a panel discussion from survivors

WHEW! That's A LOT! We really did it all!

November didn't give us a break either. On November 2nd we celebrated our club's 47th birthday with a party at The Wood. Everyone's costumes were great and we had fun with the Halloween theme! We honored Veteran's Day with a Think Tank discussion about supporting veteran entrepreneurship and welcomed special guest District Governor Nominee Dana Jerrard for some military trivia. A group of Rotarians and their families made the annual trek to Syracuse Stage to see Beauty & The Beast - always a good show and good time. We inducted another new member, reviewed applications for two more and also hosted our two Students of the Month - Sarah Smiley and Anthony White. We collaborated with other organizations to gather food donations for our Backpack Program. We had a brand new service project where we served food to the first responders participating in the community's Parade of Lights. We ended the month with a week of thanks (like most people did) and a little turkey "shoot out" fun (it was just magnetic darts though!).

 

I couldn't do all of this alone and have too many Rotarians to thank for helping our club get all of this done. Those who set up our meetings, the people who arrange our programs, the members who express gratitude and generosity often, the dreamers who come up with projects and make them happen, the doers that take my ideas and make them happen, and all the ones that show up in that perfect way. All are key to our vibrant and active club! 

Of course I have to give a shout out to my spouse too. He has never carried so many things in and out of my car for me, he is finding things to do while I'm busy on the computer for hours in the evenings and he supports me in countless ways. Thankfully I can repay him by having our Club in a Pub meetings for him to visit!

 

I'm learning exactly what I would have expected is true - volunteer leadership demands a lot and gives back even more. I can't wait to see what the second half of the year brings! Won't you join me?

As we all get busy with family reunions, travel, spending time by the lake and yardwork, time for volunteering can be even more limited than usual in the summer. Our club's schedule has been lighter in order to make Rotary accessible even during this active time of year. Events are also more family-friendly, summer-themed and less formal. July was really fun with two happy hours, a live music outing, a brainstorming session, a baseball game and just two regular meetings. Be sure to check out the August schedule on the new Meetings tab for more of the same!

 

Even with all that fun, we managed to work in some service too. Last month we joined the Elden Elementary PTA on their playground build to lend a hand raking all that mulch. This month we will host a summer picnic for about 100 local senior citizens at Canton Woods Senior Center. The picnic includes a meal, entertainment, door prizes and a great opportunity for seniors to socialize. This has been a club tradition in some form or another for many, many years!

 

The fun and service is going to continue beyond the summer too. Coming up after Labor Day, we'll have:

Plus some great speakers and programs at our regular meetings!

 

 

Click here to read our newsletter for some snapshots from July outings and a fun video of the opera singer we had at a recent meeting.

The Rotary year goes from July 1 through June 30, and this one has really flown by. It brought changes to our club with new challenges, new members and a new meeting structure. We also honored many of our traditions in terms of charitable giving, supporting the community, our participation with The B'ville Big Chill, Seneca River Days and much more. Here are some highlights as we look back:

 

We have welcomed 10 new members. That might not sound like a big number, but we have about 65 members overall, so it's huge! Each month I write in this space with reasons why you should join Rotary. In this case, you might want to get in before we are full. Just kidding - that won't happen. But really, people are seeing how fun we are and all the good we are doing, and it's irresistible.

 

We changed up our meeting structure for our Wednesday lunch gathering and it's really transformed our time together. We basically flipped the order in which we have lunch and a meeting, so that we now have a meeting and then lunch. When checking in, members and guests can opt into lunch for $10 (knowing the menu in advance) or just pay $1 to attend the meeting. We kick off the business meeting and our program right away at noon, with lunch delivered just as we are winding down the meeting. Members and guests can stay after to enjoy their meal, or head back to the office to finish up their day. It's insanely convenient for being a mid-day meeting!

 

We gave out a lot of donations, helping organizations like Vera House, The MOST, Clear Path for Veterans and the B'ville Christmas Bureau. We bought a new poster printer for the Baldwinsville Public Library and made a significant contribution towards the expansion at Beaver Lake Nature Center. This past spring we cleaned up the river trail along Meadow Street and last summer we put on a BBQ that was free (and really fun) for local senior citizens.

We helped local students with three scholarships, a monthly recognition program for teens that exhibit our motto of "Service Above Self," made a contribution to the fundraising efforts of the marching band so they can go to the Rose Bowl parade at the end of the year, will be sending a student to July's Rotary Youth Leadership Awards at Caz College, hosted a weekend of fun for all the Youth Exchange Students in CNY and supported the Keep the Ball Rolling after prom party. We also continue to sponsor our Interact Club at Baker and Durgee, which is basically Rotary for teens.

 

We partnered with local businesses to put on a fun event with the Trivia for Charity tournament. For eight weeks, at the Syracuse Trivia Company's Wednesday night trivia at WT Brews, teams competed to accumulate the most points. The winner got $1,000 donated to their charity of choice. The winning team was the Smartini's and their charity was the Rescue Mission. It was a lot of fun to have Rotarians compete each week, sharing in a beverage and finding out what everyone's strongest trivia topics were!

 

Each weekend we sent home food with local elementary children who are at risk of hunger when school is not in session through our Backpack Project. Thanks in large part to the donations collected at last November's Turkey Trot, and in coordination with volunteers from our club, the B'ville Interact Club, B'ville Kiwanis, the library and St. Mark's Lutheran Church, we were able to expand to serve all elementary schools and contribute donations to the student-run pantry at Baker. 

 

We implemented a Charity of Choice program for club members only. Every time a member attends a meeting, they get to submit a form with their name and a charity that they also support. There are up to eight opportunities each month to submit an entry and at the end of the month we draw a winner. The winner's charity gets a $100 donation in their honor! We have now given donations to Meals on Wheels, Female Charitable, The Rotary International Foundation and more, and we are supporting the causes that matter to our members.

 

Finally, our club, along with all 42 clubs in CNY, was challenged to implement Acts of Kindness by the District Governor. In November, we surprised election day poll volunteers at 13 locations around B'ville with snack platters to help them through their long day of volunteering. In December, we surprised customers in the Dunkin drive-thru with a free breakfast - the first $200 worth of orders! And this month, we may just knock on your door and offer you a brand new American flag (especially if the one you are flying looks ready to be refreshed!). We will continue spreading kindness in the coming year as new ideas are generated!

 

Oh and I can't leave out our fundraisers, which also happen to be fun community events. The B'ville Big Chill helps make the dreary, cold winter days a little more fun with the polar plunge, local food tasting and pub crawl. We partner with the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce on this project that had a record turn out this past January. And we are now just days away from the 25th annual Seneca River Days. This is a family-friendly, two-day festival that spans two parks, includes live music, food, fireworks and so much fun. Click here for details! You will not want to miss this special weekend June 14 & 15!

 

So as you can see, we did a lot and still have some big projects to complete before the end of the month. This isn't even all of it! There is always something happening, whether it's a social opportunity, a community project or an interesting program at a club meeting. Be sure to check out our meeting schedule along the right side of the page if you wish to join us and see if it's a fit for you. We'd love to have you!

We may not have met, yet. 

I don't know where you work or if you are retired.

I have no idea if you have children, grandchildren or a dog.

I would have to guess your favorite hobby or passion in life.

But I can still confidently say that Rotary is for you!

 

I know this because Rotary, and especially the Baldwinsville Rotary Club, has something for everyone who wishes to give back to their community and help those around them. We work with and serve youth, senior citizens and veterans. We help provide food to those in need. Money we raise goes to help support organizations that are making life better in Central New York. We build things in the community. We clean up our trails and parks. 

 

If you want to gain leadership skills, we have FREE training. 

If you want to gain leadership experience, we have TONS of opportunity.

 

If you want to learn new things, the programs at our meetings feature speakers on all topics. We recently learned about beekeeping, drones, charities that provide beds and transportation, and what it takes for your pet to be a therapy animal. We welcomed the police chief and held discussions on how to go green. 

 

If you want to have fun, we have LOADS of fun in Rotary.

We spent the last eight weeks playing trivia at a local brewery where we sponsored a Trivia for Charity tournament. All teams at that location registered a charity of choice and the top team at the end of the tournament got $1,000 donated to their charity from us (the Rescue Mission got the dough!). We go to plays, sporting events, wine tastings, have picnics together, drink and eat good food, and much more. 

 

I have never met someone that wouldn't be attracted to any of the things I've touched on here and our Rotary club offers them all: 
-Opportunities to serve

-Leadership growth & experience

-A chance to learn new things

-A lot of fun!

 

If you are interested in getting involved, it all starts with a visit to an upcoming meeting or event. Check out the meeting schedule along the right side of this page and choose something of interest. Pick a Tuesday evening or Wednesday lunch meeting, whichever is most convenient. If you aren't comfortable walking into a room full of strangers (because who is, really?) just drop us a line on Facebook or email us at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com to make that first connection. Hope to meet you soon and get started serving others, together!

Despite negativity sometimes getting more of the spotlight, the demand for opportunities to help others is high. People want to be able to give back, millenials will gladly lend a hand or make a donation, and people around the world are doing amazing things to serve others. In Rotary, our motto is Service Above Self, but that doesn't have to mean volunteering is demanding of your time. It just means that volunteering is in your heart!

 

In the Baldwinsville Rotary Club, we seek out ways to play to our members' strengths. Opportunities with us are not one size fits all, nor are members expected to overextend themselves. If you wish to do the hands on work, we always need volunteers for the day of events and fundraisers. If you wish to take the lead on a project, we are always seeking new and fresh ideas (and we have many opportunities for leadership training!). If you want to make new friends or get to know your community better, attending meetings will help you connect with fellow Rotarians and meet leaders from our area. However you wish to serve, we can facilitate that, expanding your impact exponentially with the power of our 60-member group!

 

The future of service is flexibility and we're doing just that. Contact us at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com if you are interested in learning more!

 

On Saturday, January 26th we join together with the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce for a fun fundraiser that includes a polar plunge, Best in Bowl food tasting and Poker Bear Pub Crawl throughout the village. It's a hyper local event that showcases our local businesses and raises money for great causes! Click here for our Facebook event so you can learn more, join and share!

 

Baldwinsville Rotarians develop real friendships and enjoy spending time together, so our fun committee puts together opportunities for members to get together just to have a good time. Coming up for the new year we have a Soup 'n Snowshoe event at Beaver Lake, we will be trying out our detective skills in an escape room and will have our annual paint and sip event. We hope you will consider one of these fun activities for your first visit to our group so you have ample time to socialize and get to know everyone!

 

Save the dates June 14 & 15, 2019 for this year's two-day family festival celebrating life on the beautiful Seneca River. Once again we will host the Food Trucks & Fireworks event on Paper Mill Island for the Friday evening festivities with a $5/person cover. Saturday will remain admission-free with tons of fun for all ages throughout the day, culminating in the Great Seneca River Duck Race. Make sure you plan to join us for our 25th annual community event! Click here to like our Facebook page and stay up to date. Contact us at senecariverday@yahoo.com if you wish to be a sponsor or get involved.

What are you thankful for this year? Are you thankful for the same things year in and year out, or something new in your life?
Baldwinsville Rotarians have much to be thankful for with the results of their volunteering so far in 2018, including some of the same and some new activities!

Looking back, we have:
-fed hungry children

-helped with the college funds of three high school seniors

-put smiles on the faces of hundreds of senior citizens at our annual picnic

-raised thousands of dollars holding local community events to give back to the community with donations that have helped the disabled, local school groups, veterans and more!

-provided a weekend of leadership training to two local students

-helped refresh the family room at the Salvation Army

-cleaned up along the canal for Earth Day

-started our Acts of Kindness program

 

And we have a lot more to come!
We will be delivering food and notes of thanks to the poll volunteers on Election Day.

We will hawk newspapers to raise money for the Syracuse Christmas Bureau on Dec 7 & 8.

We will continue monthly challenges for mini acts of kindness our members are incorporating in their daily lives.

We will distribute dictionaries to every third grade student in the school district.

And we will have several opportunities to socialize during the holidays to spread cheer, enjoy each other's company and invite new members into our group!

 

Are you ready to join us? It starts with a visit to an upcoming meeting. Perhaps you would be interested in learning more about the American Flag or tasting some local hard ciders - we have both coming up this month! Please plan to join us. All meetings will be at the Red Mill Inn.

Happy Summer & Happy New Year!
The Rotary year starts July 1, so we have a lot of new things going on each summer. We get new leadership at the club, district and international level and have a new set of objectives to focus on for the next 365 days! 

Our club welcomes new president Meg VanPatten. She is the head librarian at the Baldwinsville Public Library and has been in our club for four and a half years, leading us with The B'ville Big Chill and taking part on the board for a couple of years. Meg has been active in our community for many, many years and brings a new perspective on how we can work with other organizations to best address the needs of beautiful Baldwinsville. It should be a great year!

 

We are also very proud that this year's District Governor, who oversees 43 clubs in CNY and the Mohawk Valley, is our very own Marv Joslyn. Marv has been a Rotarians for ten years and has been in training for this position for four! He was an innovator when he led our club, establishing our Tuesday evening meeting and growing membership by double digits. The theme for the new Rotary year is "Be The Inspiration," and Marv has many ideas up his sleeve for how we can inspire by being a source of kindness and peace in a tumultuous world. He is reinstating the Passport to Service program, that encourages members to visit other club's events and branch out, and he is introducing Acts of Kindness, to promote spreading joy in our areas of District 7150. He is also planning an awesome celebration in Lake Placid for May 3-5, 2019. Congratulations to Marv - he has the full support of his club, as always!

 

Finally, we welcome Rotary International President Barry Rassin from the Rotary Club of the Bahamas. Barry stepped in after the unexpected passing of Rotary International President Elect Sam Owori last summer and has turned what was a sad situation into a big positive for our organization. He brings great energy to his theme "Be The Inspiration," and a touch of the Bahamas in his beautiful wave in the logo. With 113 years of Rotary under our belt, Barry has a legacy to create for himself, typically accomplished with the Presidential Citation - an outline of goals that reflect the passions of the current RI President. Barry included goals that will engage Rotary alumni - people who first experienced Rotary through a youth program like Youth Exchange, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) or Interact (Rotary for high school students). These are prime targets for potential Rotary Club memberships since they have already seen the good works of our organization. He also wants to grow membership through establishing new clubs in communities that currently have no club or where there's potential to add a second one, as well as through sponsoring Interact and Rotaract (Rotary for college students) Clubs in our districts.

 

In Baldwinsville, we have a lot to look forward to. We've experienced several straight years of membership growth, with many active and inspiring members ready to put Service Above Self. For the summer, we are working on a picnic that will provide a free meal to senior citizens in our community on July 25th, we will hear from students returning from a year of studying abroad about their life-changing experiences in August and we will get to host the incoming Youth Exchange students during their orientation in early September. We are currently re-imagining our annual 5K run/walk to raise money for the Baldwinsville Community Food Pantry too! If you are at all considering joining an organization that will give you opportunities to help others, we invite you to visit us at a meeting this summer. We have such a fun group, that laughs a lot when we're together, and we love to add more smiling faces to work side-by-side with us! You can contact the club at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com to arrange for a visit or check out the meeting schedule on this page and just pop in! 

You may have heard that volunteer organization like Rotary are fading. Articles pop up in local papers about volunteer groups disbanding, desperate for new members, with bleak futures. While membership in the United States overall is in decline, growth in the number of Rotarians around the world keeps our membership strong. We have 1.2 million members in over 34,000 clubs across the globe. Despite membership challenges in the US, there are signs of growth in our district (which encompasses CNY and the Mohawk Valley) and the Baldwinsville Rotary Club has been growing every year for several years now. When I joined 9 years ago we had 35 members and today we have almost doubled our membership. Thanks to this growth we have added programs like our Backpack Project to provide food for children at risk of hunger on the weekends (done in partnership with the Kiwanis Club and St. Mark's Lutheran Church), we have partnered with the local chamber to provide workers for the annual B'ville Big Chill and we've continued with traditions like Seneca River Days and our annual senior citizen luncheon. There is always something to do in our club!

 

Why Baldwinsville Rotary?
We have volunteered hard over the years to be one of the most organized clubs in the district, implementing a new member orientation program to help acclimate new members to all the ways they can volunteer, keeping our bylaws up to date so the club is modern and flexible, and always trying to keep an open mind about the projects and programs we work on throughout the year. We also place a high value on the social nature of our club and consider it a big benefit to being a member. You get the opportunity to develop real friendships thanks to regular social events, organized by the fun committee. We are always improving and working to do more, but we think we've got a great balance between volunteering and fun that makes being a member of our club truly worthwhile!

 

There are many other clubs in Central New York that are doing the same and have so much to offer. Whether it's mentoring kids, flipping pancakes at a fundraiser, running a fishing derby or working with local veterans, there's a club that is already doing what you would enjoy, or there's a club ready and willing to take on something new! If Baldwinsville isn't close enough to home or work for you, click here to find another club that fits your schedule and location. If our club sounds like a great opportunity for you to get more involved in our beautiful, riverside community, download a membership application or just plan to visit us at an upcoming meeting (see schedule to the right)!

 

Feel free to contact us at bvillerotary1@yahoo.com and let us facilitate your first visit so we can welcome you and make you feel at ease while meeting everyone!

January is a notoriously cold month in Central New York. It's also scientifically proven that we get less sunshine than the rest of the country and we know we get a lot more snow than most. Put that all together and it can really get you down! Rotary is a great way to stay connected with others, do rewarding activities and just get you out of the hibernation.

 

We're Connected
Whether it's at one of our two weekly meetings, at a social event that we do each month or if you are helping at a fundraiser, volunteering with our club gets you connected with other people. We have fun together, work hard together and relax together. Rotarians often form true friendships so the fellowship extends beyond just Rotary meetings to lunches, coffee chats and visits with one another. That can be really helpful for anyone needing a little pick-me-up in the winter.

 

It's Rewarding
What our club accomplishes, even in the winter months, is fulfilling work. In January alone we will have a board meeting where we consider donations to support local programs, we will honor two students in our Students of the Month program and we will pitch in (in a big way) for The B'ville Big Chill event on January 20th. The latter is a fundraiser for our club and the chamber - a joint effort that's fun and makes a lot of what we do possible. 

 

So skip the hibernation this year and get to a Baldwinsville Rotary Club meeting! The schedule is along the right side of the page so you can see what's on our agenda. Pick a speaker that interests you or a day and time that's most convenient. See you soon and stay warm!

September is the time of year when kids go back to school and grown-ups tend to find their schedules slowing down. The weather gets cooler and days get shorter, meaning fewer BBQ's and more down time. It's the perfect time of year to consider volunteering to help others. With the holidays coming, we will hear more and more about those in need and you can be ready to help by being in Rotary!

 

The last few months of the year happen to be pretty busy for our club, with fundraisers, projects and celebrations. Here's what we are working on!

 

 

 

Each November we host a beautiful, autumn race to raise money for the Baldwinsville Community Food Pantry. We've been able to donate thousands of dollars over the years and hope to continuing growing this event. Starting and ending on the school campus, with a course that goes through the Baldwinsville community, it's a great 5K for any level runner and for walkers alike. We put on an excellent event, with nice finisher medals and shirts for our participants, refreshments and prizes are provided after and it's all for a great cause. Click here for more information and to sign up to participate in this year's race.

 

Charter Night Celebration
In late October our club will throw itself a dinner party to celebrate our birthday. This year we turn 45 years old! Rotarians will come together for an evening of reflection on our successes, fellowship over some great food and usually some fun and games. Often we will host guests from around the district for this special evening too!

 

Being in Rotary isn't all work and it isn't all play. We get to make meaningful change and improvements in our community, help and serve others, and enjoy ourselves along the way. We hope you will consider visiting us at an upcoming event or meeting!