Board Briefs to August 11, 2015 meeting:
Susie Thomson-Sines, Treasurer of the RCOB Foundation attended at the request of the board to report on the final financial activity for the Rotary year 2014-2015. She reported that the Foundation met recently and approved the annual financials. They also selected Margaret Curtis to be the President, D. C. Morse as Vice-President, Jon Sitkin as Secretary and Susie as Treasurer. Additional directors are Kathy Hughes and Gregor Hodgson. Brad Burdick will be the liaison between the club and the board.
She presented excellent documents regarding how the various funds were created and June 30, 2015 balances. She shows a total Fund Balances of $1,054,103 prior to Sun Community Services funds being distributed. She shows a club balance in our Undesignated Club Account at $18,517. These funds are collected from dues billing and distributed to support Service Grants, Grants to International projects and to Rotary International for Polio Plus and Student Awards.
Roland Trenouth attended the Board meeting to request that the Rotary Club of Bellingham take over the long term responsibility for the War Monuments at Sunnyland Memorial Park. The Club would be responsible for ensuring that the monuments are maintained and for the names of those Whatcom County soldiers killed in foreign wars are recognized and are engraved on the monuments.
A little bit of history about the park: It was first started by the Mothers of those soldiers killed during the Great War (WWI). The mothers paid for the Monuments and the dedication, but over the years the mothers passed away and the Monuments and the Park deteriorated. In the 80’s and 90’s KGMI, through the leadership of Debbie Chavez, raised money to have park refurnished and new Monuments placed that recognized those Killed in WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the other wars. KGMI is no longer taking responsibility for maintaining and ensuring the names are engraved.
There is about $8,000 left over from the KGMI fund raising campaign, which is in a Trust fund at the Parks dept. He thinks the cost of engraving the names is around $300 to $400 per name. The cost to the Club would probably not occur for several years, when the funds run out. Roland reported that the city takes care of the land and he thinks that we are now up to date with the engraving.
The Board likes the proposal because of the opportunity to involve the membership. It was also suggested that we attempt to engage the VFW and American Legion down the line if volunteers are needed.
It was moved and seconded to take on this project, form an ongoing committee and request volunteers to the membership at the August 17th meeting.
RCOB Club Assembly will be held November 9, 2015. Topics are being discussed.
Stop Hunger Now Project -
It was moved by Dominique Zervas and amended and seconded by Teri Treat to go forward as long as it is financially viable and pursue the project up to the 35,000 meal threshold.
Rotarians package meals to distribute around the world. The cost is about 29c per dry meal. He estimates the cost to be about $3,000 per club. Lisa Saar has agreed to Chair.
Dominique reported that she did not find many concerns from what Lisa was able to find out and the positive impact out weighted the negative impact. It is a great opportunity to get the membership involved.
President Chuck is working on pinning down participation by the other Whatcom County Rotary Clubs. The Bellingham Food Bank also said they may have volunteers.
February 27, 2016 has been set for a tentative date with the St. Luke’s Education Center being reserved to put the meals together. Further information will be forth coming.
Executive Secretary Report:
Sandee reports that Mark Knittel has now created an area for our Monthly Financial Reports to show up on our ClubRunner website home page under “For our Members” – “Member Information, Committees”
Mark is also in the process of placing PayPal and credit card “buttons” on the website homepage to make donations and dues payments easy. It will be announced when they are ready.
She also reported that Brian Griffin, J. C. Hickman, Del VandeKerk, Ruth Steele from Western and her visited Moles Funeral Home to go over old documents. Ruth is interested in looking over them further and will report back to us if there is an interest in storing some of our older minutes and tattlers.
New Business:
A review of granting extra make-up credits has been discussed after the board was asked for clarification.
To clarify the Board approved the following extra make-ups. Sandee reminds members who hold meetings to send her attendees names to guarantee make-ups.
- All committee meetings
- Board Meetings
- Club Socials
- Club Work Parties
- Club Fundraisers
- Bell Ringing
- New Member Breakfasts
- Family Fest
- Blood donations at blood draws held at meeting locations only
Del VandeKerk reported that the Service Fund Committee has approved the following grant requests and they were approved by the Board. The grants will be requested from the RCOB Foundation.
- Skookum Kids: Request was $1,400.00 we recommend $1,000 for fence around a detention pond
- TAG Scholarship: Requested $1,000 and we recommend that amount – one time only scholarship
- Whatcom Dream: Requested 1,000 and we recommend that amount – financial literacy classes to aid 16 families
- B’ham Library: Requested $1,000 and we recommend that amount – supply materials for an Early Learning space at the Barkley Branch Library and replenish & reinvigorate the existing spaces at the Central Library and Fairhaven Branch Library. It will purchase puzzles, puppets and other toys.
The next Board Meeting will be held September 8th, 2015 at 4:45 at the Dorothy Haggen Building.
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