Program by Member Led To New Series

by Jack White

Last fall, Jack White, President of the Abingdon Kiwanis Club, was talking to Past President Ray Minor about his engineering work at a local light-pole manufacturer. It seems Minor began in college studying the effects of vibration on long metal objects and carried this work forward during his career with this company. In the process, Minor became perhaps the leading national expert on this type of vibration and how to protect from it.

White sensed a program and asked Minor he would talk about his lifetime work to the club. Minor agreed and spent two months preparing an elaborate program with multiple slides and videos. Club members were enthralled.

Out of that came a new year-long series the Abingdon club will present during 2010, one program per month:

This logo, prepared for the Abingdon series, will be used in the club newsletter to flag those programs and in other promotions. White noted that the logo is generic and invited other clubs to use it for programs by their members. A copy can be downloaded from this website. White just asked clubs that uses the logo to notify him by email: jackwhite@whitelawoffice.com

The first program of the Abingdon series, on January 26, will feature member Sean O'Sullivan (the stage name for John Sullivan) telling about his career with ABC Television in New York, much of it spent helping produce the live evening dramas that once were standard fare of network TV. Sullivan, a New Englander and Harvard graduate, retired to Abingdon because of the town's famed Barter Theatre.

Other programs already lined up for the series include:

The pastor a local church who is known as a humorous speaker talking about his several decades in the Methodist ministry

A retired dentist who has served nearly four decades on the Abingdon Town Council and initiated projects that have literally remade the community.

Another Past President of the club, a career policeman, whose hobby is restoring antique automobiles.

The Abingdon club is now engaged in a six-month trial of alternate lunch and breakfast meetings. Programs in this series will alternate between the two meeting times.

According to White, criteria for the series are quite broad. Speakers do not have to talk about their job or profession. It could be a long-time hobby or volunteer activity, unusual travels or other adventures, or a significant achievement of which they are proud.

"People like to talk about important things they have done." White said. "Our club in the past has had isolated programs of this type by other members and they all were well received. We are just packing the concept and making a series of it."