Minutes from February 6, 2017

Rotary Club of Casper WY

Meeting Summary

02/06/2017

President Jim Ruble called the meeting to order promptly at 12:29, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:

Gary Pehrson

Greeters:

Kodi Merschat and Tom Crull were the greeters today, and Kodi introduced the members who brought guests:

* Chandra Ortiz introduced her daughter Morgan Burgess;

* Dan Odell introduced Tammy Noel (NAMI Wyoming);

* Anthony Martinez introduced Tony Cercy (Cercy Family Holdings);

* Jim Ruble introduced Rhonda Anderson (Spectrum Business);

* Eric Easton introduced our SOM Brandie Beddes and her parents Arvin and Barbara Beddes;

* Eric also introduced Larry Meeboer (NCHS);

Song:

Gary Pehrson had us all stand and lead us in singing “R.O.T.A.R.Y”

Membership:

Brian Helling gave his classification talk today; he started by thanking Jason Dewitt for sponsoring him for the club. Brian was born in Laramie but moved to Casper as a child. He graduated from NCHS and then moved to the South Pacific to destroy nerve agent, he burned sarin gas to destroy it. After that he decided that manual labor was not for him so he started selling real estate in AZ then relocated to CO Springs and continued to sell Real Estate until his wife became ill with an autoimmune disease and then he decided on a career change so that he could get health insurance. The True family gave him an opportunity to move back to Casper for a job in their land department where he worked for a couple of years. In 2014 he started an Allstate Insurance office and that is what he currently does. He was very excited to become a member of the great group of people that is the Casper Rotary Club and is very proud to now be a part of it.

Family of Rotary:

President Jim said that we received a thank you card from the exchange students that were here for the ski weekend.

President Jim let us know that Randy Hein’s mom Mary Hein passed away this past weekend, thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.

He also told us that there are cards going around for Don Harris, he is back at home after the fall he took but still is not ready for visitors.

President Jim also welcomed Martha Rakestraw and let her know we are glad she made it and our thoughts and prayers are still with her.

Jim Porter announced that Barry Johnson and his wife are celebrating their 24th wedding anniversary today.

Rotarians of the Week:

Announcements:

1. Hal Hutchinson nominated Reverend Brian Oliver for offering the invocation at the Wyoming Engineering Society convention last week.

2. President Jim announced that the club visioning would take place tonight at 5:00 at the Ramkota and that there were a couple of cancelations so if anyone would like to participate please let him know.

Student of the Month:

Our SOM this month was Brandie Beddes, her older brother was one of our students last year. What a fantastic young lady from a great family.

Program (Breakthrough 307):

PE Richard Schwahn introduced our speaker today, Blaine Christiansen from the Casper Rotary Foundation. Blaine is a member of the Five Trails Club and a member of the board of the foundation. He started by reminding us of the objects of Rotary and the first one is “the development of acquaintances as opportunity for service”. He feels that the Casper Rotary Clubs Foundation does just that. The foundation was started through Don Harris and Stan Lowe as they took to heart the objects of Rotary. They started by helping the Rescue Mission get their building, they started the 501 (c) (3) to have a way of helping more in the community. Now all of the Rotary clubs in Casper are part of the foundation. To be a sustaining member of the Casper Rotary Foundation you can give $100 per year. Both the Rotary International Foundation and the Casper Rotary Foundation are great foundations, the Casper foundation funds are used locally and can be used as donated. There are two ways we give support, directly, by donating money and support and also indirectly by way of pass through funds that are directed for a specific thing. One example is the victim’s response team that we do for victims of crime that are in need of quick assistance. He gave one example of the help the foundation has given through this. A few years ago, a woman’s door was kicked in and the team got together and got the door fixed for her as her husband was overseas serving in the military. The foundation also sponsors non-traditional student scholarships at Casper College every year. There are many other projects that the foundation participates in to serve our community such as the

Crossroads Adventure Park and Rotary Park. The foundation is a great part of serving our community through Rotary.

President Jim Ruble concluded the meeting at 1:00; letting us know that next week we are back at the Parkway Plaza and the speaker will be Dan Odell and company speaking about the Iris Clubhouse