INSPIRATION -- Steve Hug
November 13 is World Kindness Day and this year the 125th anniversary of the Family Service of RI. The agency is celebrating by committing to perform 125 acts of kindness for the community. Steve modeled a kindness themed t-shirt and reminded us of the song, Try a Little Kindness, sung by Glenn Campbell.
ANNOUNCEMENTS, Etc.
President Don presented a Providence Rotary Club flag to visiting Rotarian Alex Krembs, a new member of one of the 100 (!) Hong Kong Rotary Clubs.
Don and PP Anthony visited Stanley Sorrentino to present a framed certificate naming Stanley as an Honorary Member of the Providence Rotary. Stanley is well and still enjoying the Patriots!
Don acknowledged Bryan Cook’s very patriotic (and flashy) socks!
John McGinn is chairing a committee to clean out the Rotary office space on Dryden Lane. Workers will throw away the junk and pack anything that has historical significance for our club. Contact John if you’d like to help.
PP Randy Dittmar is organizing the Dictionary Project again this year. His spreadsheet of schools is ready for your name to sign up to deliver the dictionaries before the end of the year. This timeframe will give the children six months to use them. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4!
- Sign-up with Randy
- Contact the school and find a mutually acceptable time to deliver the dictionaries
- Pick-up the dictionaries at the Roger Williams Boat House
- Plan to spend about 1 ½ hours with the children as you give each child a dictionary
Anthony Landi announced that the Providence Bruins evening on December 2 has had a great response from generous members making donations so that at least 25 children will be able to attend along with Rotarians and their families. Contact Anthony for more information.
HAPPY BUCKS - collected by Margaret Kane
Jan Feyler $30 for three terrific weeks in Florence.
Jane Kratsch for the Quilt of Valor created by Coastway employees and presented to US Army veteran, Lt. Col. Joseph Palmer.
Pete Brock for an excellent trip back to the University of Colorado for a ceremony honoring his brother, Stan (although he still can’t understand why he was passed over!) and the pleasure of reconnecting with college friends he hadn’t seen in 40 years.
Mary Brewster, architect for the new RI Veterans Home, happy to attend the official ribbon cutting ceremony and hear from residents how much they love their new home. She’s also happy to have sold five paintings at a show at the Providence Art Club.
Maxine Cohen for acquiring 15 pharmacy continued education credits in 1 ½ months and for reconnecting with a long-time time friend.
David Hunter for enjoying football at his alma mater, UMASS, with two friends.
CULTURE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
MAKES U.S. RICHER THAN OTHER NATIONS
Guest speaker Jerry Weinstein framed his remarks on entrepreneurship by identifying reasons why the United States is 25-30% richer than other developed countries in the world: the U.S. has a culture of entrepreneurship driven by the acceptance that it’s okay to fail; the country’s financial system supports this business model; and our world class universities are innovation drivers.
He described the innovation model as a risk vs. reward system for entrepreneurs to build their business and for investors to receive the highest return on their money. The risk is especially high with new start-ups as they have a failure rate of about 80% in the earliest stages.
The average angel investor is a 59 year old corporate executive with an advanced academic degree who is interested in advising businesses as well as investing. There are a number of key factors in evaluating potential involvement with a new business including the quality of the management team and their willingness to accept mentoring by the investor.
Mr. Weinstein is an adjunct faculty member at Bryant University’s College of Business and a member of the Cherrystone Angel Group, an active group of angel investors based in Providence.
