Hamilton Rotary Club

Colgate Athletics announced the addition of Toni Rogers as the department's new Associate Athletics Director for Compliance, starting December 2018. Rogers previously held the same position at Cal State Fullerton. While with the Titans, Rogers served as a member of the athletic department's management team and was responsible for compliance-related needs of 15 varsity sports competing in the Big West Conference. She was the softball program supervisor and provided daily overs...ight of the $3.8-million athletics scholarship program. A native of Rochester, New York, Rogers was the Compliance Director at Canisius College in Buffalo from 2012-14 after serving as both a senior compliance intern and then Compliance Coordinator at The Ohio State University from 2010-12. Rogers earned her undergraduate degree in Sports Management from Baldwin Wallace University in 2010, and received her master's degree from Ohio State in 2011. She grew up in Rochester playing soccer and basketball in high school.

3-18-21 John Bailey presented Joseph Wagner of Oneida Creek Coalition Mr. Wagner is a member of the Oneida Creek Coalition to clean up the creek that empties into Oneida Lake. This was a timely talk as many Rotary clubs in the US and Canada are joining forces to clean up the Great Lakes Watershed. Mr. Wagner sited times when the Oneida Creek has been polluted by Oneida’s sewage treatment plant, most recently in the Fall of 2020. He showed disturbing photos of black water runn...ing into the creek and emptying into Oneida Lake. Oneida Creek Coalition has a Facebook Page for more information. He is a lifelong resident of Durhamville, N.Y. Joe holds degrees in horticulture and education, with also a CAS in education. He taught elementary school for 12 years. He worked for Niagara Mohawk Power as a nuclear firefighter. Now retired, Joe has been a volunteer firefighter for three decades. Joe's specialty was interior attack and EMS. In 1980 Joe founded the Committee to Clean Up Oneida Creek Forever that resulted in Oneida having to build a new 30 million dollar sewage plant. In 1990 he founded the Committee to Preserve Neighborhood Schools which resulted in Durhamville School remaining open and doubling in size. More recently Joe founded the Oneida Creek Coalition once again, to clean up Oneida Creek forever. Also, Joe is very proud of his two daughters, both MBA's. The oldest works for the CDC in Atlanta and the younger is in her third year of law school at Syracuse. See more

3-11-21 DJ Raux of Crouse Community Center Rotarian DJ Raux, Executive Director of Crouse Community Center in Morrisville, NY was our featured speaker. Crouse Community Center, a non-profit organization, opened in 1991 across from the campus of SUNY Morrisville as a 120 skilled nursing facility to serve the long term care needs of Madison County Residents. Crouse Community Center is pleased to announce that it has earned the top rating of "5 Stars" on Centers for Medicare and... Medicaid's website, medicare.gov. For the past 2 years, they have been rated a "4 Star" nursing home. "We are honored to be able to say we are one of the best health care organizations in Central New York," stated DJ. "The staff are extremely dedicated to each individual they serve and are the reason we are rated so high. I couldn't be more proud of each and every one of our team members." See more

Earth Day, April 24th, 2021, Hamilton Rotary will join Rotary Clubs throughout the US and Canada to clean-up the Great Lakes Watershed.

Hosted by Rotarian Travis Olivera, our speaker for February 25th was Mr. Ryan Perry is a Digital Collections Librarian at the Central New York Library Resources Council (CLRC). He helps manage the New York Heritage digital collections and assists members with digitization procedures. He spoke about several historical archives and the use of emergent technologies which are driving the field in new directions. He also introduced us to several websites as resources for further research. Nyshistoricpapers.org Myheritage.org Empireadc.org Ryan is a recent graduate of Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, Master of Science in Library & Information Science and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Cultural Heritage Preservation.

Rotarian John Bailey invited Mr. Curt Andino, Executive Director of Friendly Water for the World to speak on Feb 18th.. "Friendly Waters" is leading a program which prepares people to create a better future by teaching them how to make water-centered, village-scale technologies such as bio-sand water filtration, rain water catchment systems, micro-flush toilets, multi-purpose soap training, perma-gardens, rocket stoves, and interlocking soil stabilizers. A great deal of focus... is on what the community members choose to develop in their own communities. They are connected to countries in western Africa such as Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. To learn more go to https://friendlywater.org/ or speak with our own John Bailey who has been trained to teach the building of rainwater catchment systems and has traveled to Uganda to help with the building of a system there. This project meets most of Rotary’s 7 Areas of Focus: Water and Sanitation, Maternal and Child Health, Environmental Protection, Community Development, Fighting Disease, Education and Literacy, and Peace and Conflict ResolutionJohn See more

Wishing you all from our club, a very merry Holiday season and a Happy New year! #serviceaboveself

Look at these attractive ornaments for sale! The Hamilton Rotary Club is selling these custom ornaments that display Hamilton 13346. Get yours now at the Colgate Inn, Parry's or Crush Bottle Shop for only $8. All proceeds benefit local organizations and charity!

This Is Hamilton, NY tradition continues in a small and safe way. Remember to shop local and donate to the giving tree at the Hamilton Public Library!

Happy Thanksgiving from our club to all of you!

Julie Rubenstein and Tim Mansfield were pleased to provide an update on the Hamilton Dog Park to the local Rotary Club. People are encouraged to visit the park Facebook page and follow them on Instagram Hamilton Community Dog Park! If people wish to donate contact the PCD in This Is Hamilton, NY and specifically ask to give your gift to the Dog Park.

Rotarian David Craine presented Dr. David Rogers, SUNY Morrisville President. Dr. Rogers spoke on the history of SUNY Morrisville, which started as a farming college and has since expanded to 3 campuses and about 3,000 students. Currently Morrisville has 50 academic programs, bachelors programs, and hopefully soon a Master's program. Many of their facilities have had infrastructure improvements over the last few years. A new alternative fuels facility has been designed to sup...port renewable energy. They're also starting a four-seasons farm, which will train students on indoor farming techniques. The college's roots are in agriculture, and they are expanding on that. In addition to offering more degree opportunities, more faculty members have their Doctorates now than 20 years ago (about 2/3 of faculty). This year has had its struggles, staying ahead of Covid-19. They kept tuition at last year's levels which has helped students but rising costs associated with Covid testing has been difficult to manage, but not impossible. Speaking of Covid testing, they are currently doing pooled saliva tests. At their peak they had 7 student cases, and 35-40 students that were quarantined. Wastewater testing is also how they are testing now, which is effective but not cheap. They update the number of tests they have, infection counts, and try to keep their system as transparent as possible. This is viewable on the SUNY website. Due to the nature of the programs, they have done all they could to have face-to-face instruction and are happy with the ability to continue on at this point. Overall, it's been a successful semester measuring health aspects, difficult semester for other reasons - lack of clubs, lack of student engagement, no sports, etc. Students are going home on Friday, and online classes will continue another week. Cases have only exceeded .5% of the student population once.