State College Downtown Rotary Weekly Newsletter, Paul Rutter-Editor

February 26 Patricia Smith, International Speakers Program
March 2 Meeting with Evening club at their digs 5:30 PM
at the Nittany Lion Inn
March 4 No meeting; see March 2
March 11 Bernie Punt, BJC
March 18 Barbara Farmer, Principal of Houserville/Lemont School-diversity
March 23 Prep night for Spaghetti dinner
March 24 Spaghetti Fund Raiser
March 25 TBA
April 1-30 Group Study Exchange to South Korea
April 1 Club assembly
April 8 Dean Thomas, IST Building
May 6-8 District Conference

Visiting Rotarians: none
Make-ups turned in: none
Guests: none
50/50: Dick Held drew the 5 of spades, again sadly not the card needed to take away the pot of about $250. There are 40 cards left to draw from next week.
Auction: Dennis Martella provided the auction item, a gift certificate for flowers just in time for Valentines to the State College Floral Shoppe. It was won by H.M. (ssshhhhh its a secret from his wife!) with a bid of $28.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: (Please send announcements for the newsletter to Paul)

Dec. 18 Christmas/Holiday Party-Gary Brytczuk with help from Chris Hickey

Dec. 16 PSA's - Rutter on CNET & Don Bedell on radio

Dec. 10-14 Festival of the Trees-
Carl Hill and Jim Eberly organized this effort. Helpers included Geise, Meckstroth, Kauffman, K.Kerner, Hickey, Ferguson, Friedman, DeArmitt, Brytczuk, Aungst, Biddle, Bedell, Taverno, Walsh, Coble, Turley, Gambone, Amato, Eberly, Bell, Martin, Moose, King,Zimbler, Christian, Fetter, G.Wilson, Johnston, Eberly(2), Davis, Bacastow, Held, Rutter

Dec. 3 Bell Ringing-Kauffman, Brytczuk, Biddle, Johnston, Meckstroth, Bedell, Myrick, Zimbler, Mose, Moose, Davis, Eberly, Hill, Aungst, Rutter

Nov. '03 Coupon Book committee- Linda Friedman, Pam Ferguson, Teresa Davis and the club.

Previous Mystery member's experience: none this week. click for answer
The coupon book sale continues on. Please do all yo ucan to sell these books now early in the year. The coupons are good through 2004. Linda Friedman reported earlier that the coupon book sale has reached the break even mark so every additional book is profit for the club. Greta job Rotarians...Keep selling!!
Spaghetti dinner tickets have been handed out. Each of us is responsible for selling 12. Please change the dates on your tickets to read the 24th. Some say the 19th. We each need to sell, sell, sell these tickets!!
A motion or suggestion has been made that in lieu of a member not selling his or her 12 spaghetti tickets, the member would be responsible for a $50 contribution to the club. I think this is a valid suggestion for two reasons: preventing wasted food (read costs) and fund raisers are what Rotary has been doing for the fifteen years I've been involved through 5 different clubs.
In the past, many members would personally buy all of their unsold tickets, turn in the money, and dinner officials purchase meal preparation materials and food stuffs that get spoiled based upon tickets sold. We end up having less diners actually using the tickets.
The second reason is easier-- this IS a club FUND Raiser. In the past members have balked at having to sell. Again my personal take is this: the $50 bucks can be a check written to the 501(C)3 part of the club and one can take a deduction if itemizing as allowable by law please consult your tax advisor for your personal circumstances.-JPRIII/editor
The Board will be acting on this suggestion at the next board meeting.
The District Newsletter is online at the district Web site.
Three Rotarians were presented with Paul Harris Fellowships at the December 11 meeting-Brian Christian, Jan Hill, and Meg Moose.
Our club has been approached by the Evening Club to start an Interact Club. A meeting is being coordinated to get something happening at the High School.
The evening Rotary club now has a list serv like us. Their address is RotaryEvening-L@lists.psu.edu. Contact Mary Johnston if you want to be added to their list.
The club has a list serv. All active members are on it. The email address for it is SCDTROTARY-@LISTS.PSU.EDU. Email Paul Rutter to see about your admission. It is a private listserv not open to the public. If you are already on it and want help with it please call or email me.
mystery answer: none this week

-TOP-

Previous Week's Speaker: Dr. Andrea Schokker from PSU on Fallingwater

The speaker, Andrea Schokker, is a researcher and assistant professor at Penn State that was involved with instrumentation while the house that Frank Lloyd Wright built, Fallingwater, was having the cantilevers that were falling away repaired. The project was conducted with a graduate student of hers named Justin Brennan.

She let us know that the cantilevers were cracked because there was not enough rebar added to strengthen the cement that FLW had planned for. She told us that the contractor back in the 30's when the house was built did a small amount of reinforcement making FLW mad. But this small amount is what kept the floors from fallign entirely.

The window panes were the only thing holding the upper cantilever.

She was critical of FLW's design saying that what he called for is wrong a basic Penn State engineering student in the first two weeks of an engineering class would have the knowledge not to do what FLW had planned.

Penn State's role in the re-engineering was only to do the instrumentation monitoring. Certain changes were made based upon measures that her students had determined, such as weight limits on window panes in certain places.

Fallingwater Web site: http://www.wpconline.org/fallingwaterhome.htm

This week’s note taker: Paul Rutter

DATE	AUCTION	INVOCATION	NOTES	THANKS
Feb. 19, 2004	Martin	Rawson	Walsh	Domalski
Feb. 26, 2004	Meckstroth	Rutter	Whitfield	Eberly
Mar. 4, 2004	Moose	Taverno	Zimbler	Assembly
Mar. 11, 2004	Mose	Turley	Abramson	Edwards
Mar. 18, 2004	Myrick	Walsh	Amato	Ferguson
Mar. 25, 2004	TBA	Whitfield	Aungst	Fetter
	April 2004 to be published later

Contact club webmaster: Paul Rutter