Kathy Austvold provided our invocation while Wally Cole was our song leader, modifying "Mary's a Grand Old Name" to "Lori" as the pronoun and following it up with "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow." We welcomed Deanna Sinclair visiting us from the Detroit Lakes Club. President Lori told us the baby picture from two weeks ago was that of Lois Josefson Russell's and that Buzz and Dan guessed correctly, with Dan's name drawn for the prize. We also all received a sheet of all the baby pictures (32) viewed this past year and were asked to try to identify each again; Pete Wasberg got five right and won the grand prize. Did anyone else note that on the pictures Keith Olson had maybe the most open mouth while his son-in-law Dan was the only one with a pacifier in his?
This writer presented the 2017-18 Foundation banner for 100% participation by all Club members in the Annual Fund campaign, with the club averaging $100 a member and every member giving at least $25, and further thanked everyone for contributing to accomplish the same feat during the 2018-19 Rotary year. Steve Andrews then presented a banner he had received from the incoming president of the Lagos, Nigeria club, who he met when they both went to make up a meeting at the Chinatown Rotary Club in New York City, only to find the club had a special meeting at another time so didn't gather that evening; Steve, Menghui and James Ajayi from Nigeria had an enjoyable visit nonetheless.
Even before we arrived at the brag and fine segment of the meeting and at the encouragement of the Sergeant-of-Arms, Greg Darling put in a scooter buck and thanked Lori for her year as our President. Once the time for brags and fines was announced Kathy Austvold led off reporting on the Rotary Botanical Garden in Janesville, Wisconsin, she recently visited on a trip to Chicago. Steve Andrews contributed Mike Clark's dollar for leaving early and then Bonnie Denzel also rose to thank Lori for her year. Randy Kempfer said he was in St. Louis and while there attended Albert Pujols first game back in the city and witnessing his home run. Mike Smith also had to leave early explaining first thing the next morning he was leaving for a ten day vacation to the Branson area and had to pack before going to a Pantatonix concert in Fargo Wednesday evening. John MacFarlane also contributed to congratulate her year as President, which was seconded by Tim Hunt, who also reported on a trip to Colorado Springs and asked us to keep in mind the farmers south of us that are "hurting bad" from to much rain. Mary Pettit gave a check for missing a number of meetings, to thank Lori and to report that her family purchased a tiny place on Lake Beltrami that in earlier years Mary had thought how nice it would be to own.
Lori Larson then gave us a wonderful recap of her year as President, reminding us that she started out talking about inspiration and ending up thanking those assembled "for a great year of inspiration and helping to change the world we live for the better." She said Rotarians can say "I stepped up" and trusted that this would continue to be true. She talked about the successful initiation of "Wine Down Wednesdays and the many service projects we undertook: the roadside clean-up, the Rotary Otter Orations Speech Tournament, the School Board Candidate Forum, distributing Andy and Elmer's Apple Dumpling Adventure for the first time; in all there were 17 service projects we undertook during this past Rotary year, well exceeding the goal she had set of one a month. Lori's contributions to our Club's vitality has been immense, one of the things she did that I suspect no one notice is posting minutes, financial statements, etc. -- basically a record of the year -- on ClubRunner under "History & Resources." Basically the only goals we did not meet was growing our membership to 45 and having two new members proposed, finishing the year at 44, with one new member. But in terms of service participation, leadership development, District Conference attendance, District Training attendance, giving to The Rotary Foundation Annual program fund (we fell just short of our PolioPlus goad), hosing an exchange student, sending students to RYLA, having an online and social media presence, completing a member classification study, generating media stories about our activities, utilizing Rotary promotional materials, collaborating with non-Rotary organizations, we met and many times far exceeded the goals set at the beginning of the year. Lori thanked the membership for making this happened. She reminded us that we all need to work more diligently at increasing our membership and could also benefit from having our committees take a more pro-active role in the Club. Lori suggested we may have to consider some changes to our meeting format, trying to engage those in attendance more and maybe even doing something "more off the wall" a couple times a month. We sometimes get in the same rut, hearing the same programs on a regular basis -- maybe we should consider hearing from two or three non-profits at a time instead of giving the same ones the floor for an entire meeting. When Bonnie Denzel asked how Lori would suggest we each motivate ourselves to being a more supportive member, Lori remarked that almost everyone in the Club has served in a leadership role in the past, but that doesn't mean there is no longer a need for each to do so, in some way, again and again. Whatever we do we should enjoy the service opportunity, not begrudge the work it necessarily entails. Lori felt the hallmark of her year was moving us toward more committee effort. I would probably point to her amazing effort to give us an active, online/social media presence, but likely each one of us will find something to remember in her remarkable year of leadership. Thank you Lori!