There were 24 members present and two guests: Gary Martin (brother of Barb Tubekis) and Bob Thomas (guest of Tony Kambich and new WCH Executive Director).

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: David Birkenstein is celebrating his birthday on August 19; John Thomas on the 21^st; and Sam Badger on the 22^nd.  It was requested that the Happy Birthday song be sung with gusto! Patti Van Cleave ran the meeting in the absence of President Nash who was taking his student  back to college. Patti announced that each table had Prospective Members Worksheets for members to take, review carefully, note potential members and luncheon guests and return to Patti within the next few days. The Club’s Membership Committee will be meeting in the next couple of weeks to review the submitted forms and to make further recommendations as to how our entire membership can help grow our Club. 

 

Patti mentioned that our District 6440 Director, Don Brewer, will be visiting our Club on October 5, including a pre-meeting discussion with our Club Board and then speaking at our regular meeting. September 16 is a busy day for our Club members—they will be present at the Winnetka Village Fall Festival passing out coloring books to children; they will be able to buy tickets to the Northwestern – Bowling Green football game in Evanston with a tailgate starting the festivities at 6:30 PM that day; and finally our Club members can obtain tickets to the Chicago Red Stars professional women’s soccer game held that evening at Toyota Park. Contact Tom Nash for these tickets.  Winnetka is also hosting a bike ride and wine walk on September 16^th. Fred Schwimmer announced that within the next week or two, there will be an opening ceremony of the rehabbed and expanded Kate Dwyer Park just west of the old post office from 5:30-7:30 PM. The Park is in honor of Ms. Dwyer who was a Winnetka school teacher for 35 years.

 

SPEAKER FOR THE DAY: Jon Grand, former manager of the Winnetka Book Stall, gave a review of the book “Washington’s Farewell: The Counsels of an Old and Affectionate Friend” and shared his reflections on the Founding Father’s farewell address when he left office in 1796 after serving two terms.  Washington was deeply discouraged by the intense and bitter partisanship at that time  and wrote the speech to his “friends and fellow citizens” listing six subjects that concerned him about our new country.  He was reluctant to run for a second term and had to be persuaded to do so by James Madison. His second term  presented Washington with several serious problems, including the Whiskey Rebellion and the Jay Treaty.  He was personally attacked by the newspapers for being a lousy general and criticized for acting like a “king” of the country. Alexander Hamilton actually wrote most of Washington’s farewell speech, although Washington edited it with great care and effort. His first point was the importance of all U.S. citizens to be loyal to the new country and identify as Americans, as opposed to citizens of their original country. His second point was the danger of citizens becoming too involved with and swayed by party politics.  Washington considered himself an independent, not aligned with any one political party. Third, he thought that religion played an important part in the morality of the country and that people needed to be educated regarding religion, but he did not want to be identified with any one faith. Fourth, he believed that education institutions needed to play the leading role in educating the public and that public opinion needed to be informed.  Fifth, he believed that the new country had to have sound financial practices and that debt should be minimalized and paid off quickly. Sixth, his thought on foreign relations was that the U.S. should remain as neutral as possible and should not try to influence the type of governments established by other countries. This farewell speech was very long and is still read in its entirety before Congress each year on Washington’s birthday. Although things have changed in most of these areas since WWII, Jon thought that Washington would be generally pleased with the type of country  the U.S. has turned into since his first presidency. The one thing now that makes it tough for our political leaders is that the news can now get out so quickly over the internet that it doesn’t give our politicians enough time to think about their responses. In 1792, it was very important for the stability of this new country for Washington to run for his second term.  He did a very good job in being a role model and showing the U.S. people how its President should act. (At the end of his presentation Mr. Grand made the point that the subject of “Civics” has not been offered by most public schools in recent years, but that New Trier has now reinstituted the subject as part of its curriculum.)