Oriental Rotary Club

Roger Bullis
Pamlico County Fishes & Loaves

Roger and wife Pat live in Oriental. His undergraduate, graduate and PhD degrees are from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Roger enjoyed more than a 30- year career at the University of Wisconsin where he was professor of mass communications, Web and digital media. Roger is a renaissance guy dabbling in nautical pursuits as well as perfecting the art of “Geekmanship.”

Pamlico County Fishes and Loaves Outreach (PCFLO) is the cooperative effort of volunteers from Arapahoe Methodist Church, Stonewall United Methodist Church, Oriental United Methodist Church, First Baptist Church of Oriental, Pamlico Presbyterian Church, St. Thomas Episcopal Church and St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church in partnership with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina (FBCENC). Its purpose is to accumulate and efficiently distribute high-quality, nutritious food to those in need in Pamlico County, regardless of race, ethnicity or religious affiliation.

Opened in February 2008, PCFLO provides a week’s worth of balanced-diet, nourishing food, once a month, to an average of 100 families on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Thursdays of every month. The pantry, housed in a storage area at St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church, contains two freezers and a refrigerator, given by generous patrons, as well as shelving and cabinets built by volunteers.

Rotary International: Back to basics At its November meeting, the RI Board adopted a revised strategic plan that comprises three priorities, all of equal importance to Rotary’s future. The priorities are: support and strengthen clubs; focus and increase humanitarian service; and, enhance public image and awareness.
Following a mandate from the Council on Legislation, the Board recently conducted a triennial review of the plan. This review included surveying 14,000 Rotarians worldwide about the organization’s priorities and holding focus groups to assess Rotary’s image in different countries. In addition, the Strategic Planning Committee carried out a detailed analysis of Rotary’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges and considered its findings in relation to the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities.

Fund Raising for Brain Research… French Rotarians are hoping to raise more than US$1 million for brain research during a premiere of the Disney movie A Christmas Carol on 17 November in 350 theaters across France.
“Espoir en tête”, an effort of Rotary International districts in Zone 11, is now in its fourth year, having raised more than $5 million since its inception in 2005 as a centennial project. “In Zone 11, we have more than three million patients who are victims of Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, strokes, etc.,” says RI Director Catherine Noyer-Riveau, explaining the decision by the zone’s 2004-05 district governors to select brain disease research as the project beneficiary. “Brain diseases are sadly a part of our daily lives and touch everyone regardless of age, the region where they live, or social and cultural background.” Since launching the fundraiser in 2005, the project’s board of directors has worked with four movie distributors: Pathé Cinéma, Wild Bunch, Warner Bros., and Disney Pictures.

A cautionary tale …
The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air.
It knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows.
It totally coated the floor.
There was turkey attached to the ceiling
where there’d never been turkey before.

It blanketed every appliance.
It smeared every saucer and bowl.
There wasn’t a way I could stop it.
That turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure
and thought with chagrin as I mopped
that I’d never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.

(“The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven” by Jack Prelutsky)