R.O.B.S. - Announcements November/December 2010

            *Members: If you have any announcements that you would like to post on the ROBS web site, please contact Nick Siciliano at
             News2@robsny.org. Announcements will be posted each month on this page. If you miss any previous month's announcements,
             you can view them at the Archives page of this web site. You can also read more news in our Newsletters. In addition, if you have
             your own web site, and would like to share it with other members, let us know and we can include the link on the ROBS site.

IMPORTANT DATES	IN THE NEWS NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2010
November 5 General Membership Meeting See Events December 3 Holiday Luncheon Details & Reservations December 7 12:30 PM Holiday Wrap Party Kris Dougherty's house. E-mail for directions: Krississu@optonline.net December 16 Executive Board Meeting See Meeting Date Schedule January 7, 2011 New Years Breakfast Details & Reservations	ROBS PROJECT HOPE AUTUMN 2010 Peter Vercillo Project Hope Chairperson Dear ROBS Member, It's time again to ask for support of our ROBS Project Hope. As you may know, Project Hope is a way for the retirees of the Brentwood school community to show continued concern for the children of the area. Through Suburban Children, Inc., ROBS adopts local families during the traditional holiday season. We provide food for extensive Thanksgiving meals, and many gifts are bought, wrapped, and presented at Christmastime. Now well into a second decade, our members have worked to make this endeavor a success. The effort has been very much appreciated, not only by the folks at Suburban, but especially by the children and their parents. Through our donations, Project Hope touches the lives of many. It is an opportunity for our group to add to the joy and spirit of the season. Please help continue this fine tradition. Checks should be made payable to ROBS/PROJECT HOPE. So that we may keep proper records, please send checks to: Peter Vercillo 26 Willoughby St. Brentwood, NY 11717 Thank you for your loyalty and support. Best wishes for the special weeks ahead. Sincerely, Peter Vercillo PROJECT HOPE CHAIRPERSON HAVE YOU PAID YOUR ROBS DUES FOR 2010-11? If you have not yet paid your dues, please send your check to Marge Kirchner ASAP. Perhaps you just forgot, so please take a look at your check register to see if you have paid or not. Please go to the Membership Page for the application and mailing instructions, and to see how your dues are dispensed. SAD SHARING POSTED 12/28 Pat Gemellaro, a special education teacher, passed away on Dec. 26. She will be waked at Grant's Funeral Home in Brentwood on Friday, Dec. 31, from 3:00 to 7:30, with religious services on Friday evening.		ROBS MEMBERS CONTINUE TO HELP THE COMMUNITY Miriam Massucci will be collecting new books for Kindergarten and 1st grade level students which can be brought to the ROBS meetings throughout the year. These small books will be used to fill the baskets that these youngsters will receive during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. This charity is sponsored by F.A.N. (Food and Nutrition), a program of Catholic Charities. SAD SHARING POSTED 11/9 Anna (Lupo) DeRiggi, the mother of Vinnie DeRiggi, passed away on November 6, 2010. The following is the obituary: DeRIGGI - Anna (nee Lupo) on November 6, 2010 of West Babylon. Beloved wife of Samuel. Devoted mother Genevieve and Vincent. Loving sister of Nancy Lupo. cherished grandmother of Brenda and Eric, great-grandmother of Andrew John. Mass Wednesday 10 am Our Lady of Grace R.C. Church. Reposing Noce Funeral Home 189 Route 109 West Babylon. Entombment St. John's Cemetery, Queens, NY. Visiting Monday and Tuesday 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 pm. NICK GERACI WRITES NEW NOVEL POSTED 12/21/10 Click on image to view details Nick Geraci, writing as A. C. Nicholas is the author of a new novel, Anna and The Tale of the Wolf. One reader described it as "a novel of dark fantasy, suspenseful and engrossing." Nick's book is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Author House Bookstore. It will shortly be on shelves in stores. Nick is a retiree of the Brentwood School District where he worked as a special education teacher, guidance counselor and Guidance Coordinator.
				GOOD NEWS POSTED 11/8 Wendy Gelardi's daughter who lives in Virginia just gave Wendy a beautiful granddaughter on Friday 11/5, Avery Rose. "HAITI NOW" PRESENTED BY PAT LANDRY POSTED 11/19/10 At the November 5th ROBS general meeting, Pat Landry gave a slide presentation of her recent trip to Haiti, where she was one of 102 volunteers working with the Leogane Project of the Hands on Disaster Response. The project was formed in response to January's deadly earthquake. The volunteers did everything from building shelves, organizing tools, building benches out of PVC, working on transitional housing and school building to working in the hospital. You can click on the link below to view the photos of the meeting, along with selected slides from the presentation. "Haiti Now" SUSTRIN SISTERS PUBLISH A THIRD BOOK POSTED 12/23/10 In the January issue of NYSUT UNITED on page 30 under "Check it Out", is a review of Shelia and Letty's new book The Teacher Who Would Not Retire Discovers a New Planet. This is the third book for these two ladies and they deserve congratulations on the publication of this book. Read NYSUT online article here: Check it out.
NYSUT NEWS
Support VOTE-COPE with your voluntary contribution. Download the VOTE-COPE Contribution Card here. Check out Member Benefits November 16 10th Annual NYSUT Retiree Conference Contact: Dorothy Zuckerman 631-273-8822 dzuckerm@nysutmail.org
RC21 EVENTS	ROBS HISTORY PROJECT - John M. Sherin
November 10 AARP Defensive Driving Course Details and Registration November 23 General Membership Meeting WI Library 10:15 am December 7-9 Christmas in Baltimore December 21 Holiday Luncheon WI Library RC 21 Website: http://ny.aft.org/rc21	Why did we do it? What was our purpose in taking on such an open ended “History Project”; the one for which we’ve evolved a script of questions with corresponding answers from over one hundred and fifty dedicated volunteers for nearly two decades? We couldn’t answer the question in ‘94 when people would ask “What are you going to do with the interviews?” All we could say was that for educational and informational purposes we had better document our record or lose any chance to preserve innumerable poignant accounts, humorous stories and touching tales told to us by exemplary educators and dedicated public servants, who shortly and for reasons unknown might soon be leaving our Brentwood for good. We decided to let time sort out the details as we commenced making appointments to ask questions and simply listen. Listen we did as this project evolved saving for subsequent generations the very essence of what it means to have been an educator or employed in a large student centered public school system during the latter half of the twentieth century. Brentwood remains an exemplar to all the others; a diverse microcosm and accurate reflection of the approximately one hundred and twenty seven neighboring school districts on Long Island and the thousands across this country. We’ve accomplished something here, something we can all be proud of having been part of, whether we were interviewed or not, ours is a claim of service that few other professionals in the State of New York are positioned to share in a like manner.		INITIALLY the practice of sitting for an hour with the Subject of our interview and giving them one hundred percent of our focused attention for that period of time seemed a little threatening to many of our friends and former colleagues. So much so in fact that many declined repeated invitations to be interviewed as they left careers behind or retired from full time employ with the District. Despite all assurances that this was not to be about investigative journalism or invading their privacy, they’ve deferred. Until now, almost seventeen years after we began, some say they may finally be ready. We say, “Better late than never”. However, to all those among you who were willing to share openly not only your classroom experiences but personal stories, precious memories from your lives and fondest hopes for the future, we say thanks for allowing us to be able to continue the process of giving as we now are able to share interviews with you, with the community and with countless regional professional educators and researchers through tentative acceptance of ROBS offer of collaboration with The Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University. Commencing early next month (Nov 2010), you’ll be able to enjoy unlimited visits to www.robsny.org/ where you’ll see and hear segments from the History Project Interviews featured here in the ROBS History Project section on the Announcements Page archived each month thereafter for those wishing to return again and again.	THIS MONTH'S FEATURED HISTORY PROJECT INTERVIEWS: Wally Balinski Wally Balinski began teaching in Brentwood in 1968 and after 42 years of service decided to retire. He began teaching music in North East Elementary and alternated between there and West Middle School. Marcy Fiore Marcy Fiore came to the district in 1980, gave 30 years of dedicated service and retired in 2010. Her last seventeen years have been teaching Kindergarten at the Kindergarten Center.
MEMBER WEBSITES
Sheila & Letty Sustrin Children's Books Authors www.sustrinbooks.com John M. Sherin Local /Regional (Jigsaw Maps)600 Geography Manipulatives www.mapzzles.org Complete Team Building Kits Teaching Cooperation/ Collaboration Emotional Intelligence (EQ) www.brokensquares.com Alida Thorpe Island Vision Photography, Inc. www.pbase.com/alidasphotos Rick Mundy Watercolor Prints of L.I., Adirondacks, NYC... www.RickMundy.Com Gloria Hannemann Hardwood Flooring and Home Improvement www.Servi-all.com Elmon Kazandjian NYC Art Gallery www.woodwardgallery.net Fred Sheiferstein Where in the World are Fred and Ken? Rich Edwards Travels with Rich Edwards Rose Marie Brousseau Brentwood Rotary Club http://brentwoodrotary.com Ronda Brooks Children's Social Skills Groups www.KidHelp.org
	THE TOWN CRIER - MarilynDePlaza@aol.com
	Marilyn DePlaza	"The Town Crier" was set up a number of years ago so that the retirees of the Brentwood School District could have an email center to stay in touch. Since I began to send out all sorts of information, retirees from all over the country have sent me their email addresses. Some have asked, "Do you have any idea where so and so is?" Others have sent proud news of their accomplishments, their family news, photos,etc. and sadly, we often get bad news. Many retirees whom I have never met write me to thank me for keeping this connection going, as everyone remembers the Brentwood years with warm feelings.

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