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Our invocation was offered by Tim Hunt. President Zack reminded us to invite clergy and church support staff to our meeting on November 22nd, with food to be provided by Double A Catering; this means you need to let Zack know by this Friday, November 17th, how many guests you will be bringing so we can order the right number of meals, We were also told that dictionaries will be distributed to third graders tomorrow right after our meeting concludes, with Rotary volunteers needed for that effort. In addition, there will probably be a sign-up sheet for Salvation Army bell ringing circulated at our meeting tomorrow. Keith Olson introduced our student guests from Hillcrest. Rye Frobish, originally from Iowa but having moved to Fergus because his mother is now teaching at Hillcrest, is the treasurer of the student body; TJ Idubu is from Nigeria and hopes to go to college somewhere in the United States next year. Jonathan Wutka is from Connecticut, is the senior class treasurer and plans to attend Liberty University.  President Zack led off the bragging, telling us his fourth and seventh graders are in the children choir for the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that was offered last week. Katie thanked our program for the day for working with her daughter and two other NDSU students on their capstone college project to design a children's museum; the three of them visited three different children's museums and all said their favorite was Otter Cove. Wally told us about his temporary teeth, and we sang Happy Birthday to President Zack (his 40th) and John MacFarlane. Keith was pleased to have received his new passport without a hitch, while wife Kim's was held up because it looked like she was wearing some kind of uniform. Matt paid in for missing the last two meetings. Katie introduced our speaker, Katie Ganoe from Otter Cover. Katie has been its Executive Director for close to three years, with the museum having celebrated its third birthday this past September. Since its opening, it has hosted over 75,000 visitors. While it remains closed on Mondays, its hours have now expanded to near 40 per week. It recently received a grant from the Minnesota Department of Education for both programming and to increase its free membership program for those financially unable to pay membership fees. Otter Cove is attempting to expand its presence in the county and region, as well as broaden its appeal to students beyond age eight. Right now, it occupies 4000 square feet on the first floor of its leased building and is at full capacity. This coming year the museum is most likely going to buy the building with the hopes of ultimately being able to expand to the basement and the second floor; relocating at another location has not been ruled out. They are very much looking forward to the opening of the splash pad, with a sidewalk from the splash pad to right behind the museum's back door having been added to the project. This is the third year that Otter Cove has participated in the activities of the Greater Minnesota Children's Museum Association, made up of ten rural museums, and that has involved Katie in doing some lobbying. Otter Cove is going to embark on a new membership drive to encourage business support in 2024. Their largest fundraiser is the Festival of Lights on the Kirkbride campus. This will be its fourth year and while there is no charge, free-will donations are taken by volunteers standing at the entrance and braving the cold. This year's event will run from November 29th to December 9th and is open to the public every evening from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. Otter Cove's website is ottercoveff.org and you can make donations to it at ottercoveff.org/donate. Its telephone number is (218) 998-5437. |
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