Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
01/11/2021
President Lisa Scroggins called the Zoom meeting to order promptly at 12:00, with a check of her phone clock, and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test: Mike McIntosh
Greeters:
We had one guest from Australia with us besides our guest speaker. We also had a visiting Rotarian, Ryan Stepp, from Five Trails.
Family of Rotary:
President Lisa shared with us an email from Mike Lougee, his older brother, age 52, passed away yesterday so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Jim Porter asked that if anyone has had a cochlear ear implant to please reach out to him as his wife is considering having this surgery and they would like to speak to someone who has gone through this surgery.
Rotarians of the Week:
Small Groups:
President Lisa broke us out into small groups to visit for about 8 minutes, it is always great to chat with those in the small groups. After the groups President Lisa shared a video from the Gates’ Foundation about End Polio Now.
Announcements:
Past President John Griffith let us know that there is a vacancy for President Elect Nominee, who would end up being our Club President for 2022-2023 fiscal year. If you are interested or have questions please contact him.
Eric Schlidt announced that they are starting up the Casper Start-Up challenge for 2021 and are open for applicants so if you know of anyone send them to
www.impact307.org
Program (Rotary Down Under):
PE Michael Howe introduced our guest, Allan Barnett, a Rotarian from down under Australia, who is here to speak to us about Rotary in Australia. He is a member of the Burleigh Heads Rotary Club on the Gold Coast of Australia. He, like Michael Howe, has been traveling the world through Zoom meetings at different Rotary Clubs around the world. Burleigh Heads is on the coast so they meet at the surf club at 7 am on Thursday mornings with the best view in the world.
One of the most popular ways to fundraise down under is through Bunnings Hardware Stores, much like Home Depot, they have an area where they allow groups to do fundraisers through BBQ, all groups have to charge the same prices for the sausage and drinks. He said that community groups make around $30 million a year through this set up. So their club uses this as a fundraiser. Another one they did was a Black-Tie Ball they did with another club two years ago and ended up raising about $20 thousand between the two clubs. About 18 months ago they decided to do a different type of fundraiser, an art show and short film festival over a three-day period. It was a lot of work but they did not earn a lot of money so they may not do it again. Their main community service project for the past seven years is mobility scooters that they own and hire out to people who need them but can’t afford to buy one, the club hires them out for $1 per year to these folks. They have about 55 scooters that they have used federal, state and other grants to purchase the scooters. They are finding out that it is costing them a lot to maintain the scooters, about $10 thousand a year so they are looking at ways to reduce the costs.
The country wide Rotary project is called Donations in Kind, it involves collecting equipment and goods from different places that would normally be thrown into landfills. They take it all to a depot in Brisbane where it is all sorted and shipped to third world countries that need the equipment. The last shipment they sent had about $300,000 worth of hospital equipment.
Another arm of the club they are proud of is their youth project, they sponsor a Rotaract Club and also two Interact clubs as well as Youth exchange both incoming and outgoing. They had a young man from Germany and sent out a Rotarian’s daughter to Italy in 2019.
With COVID-19 in Australia it has been a State based reaction, some border closures between States other States not as drastic. On the Gold Coast they have been pretty much back to normal since June of 2020. They had 3 months of Zoom meetings then they went to hybrid meetings and now do a hybrid once monthly for worldwide guests.
Last August they finished an ongoing major project, they applied for a grant but did not get the grant but learned a lot about the grant process. They did get a $35 thousand grant from the Queensland government department though to help with this project. They built a playground for a special needs school, he showed us pictures, great job.
He has his young son actively involved in Rotary and service projects so that he is used to serving others and participating in Rotary, his son loves it. He showed us several pictures of other service projects from other clubs that he and his son helped with.
He showed us some great pictures of the beautiful beaches and countryside. He said that they have been very lucky with the Covid-19 problems. They had their 65th anniversary dinner with 65 members and guests. In October they started a train from Brisbane and went down the Gold coast and at each stop Rotarians would board the train wearing End Polio Now shirts and ride on down the line to celebrate the End Polio Now campaign and to raise awareness for Rotary. With donations in a few days from their club members they wrote a check for $2,811 to End polio Now.
For a social activity to encourage people to join Rotary, they had a stand-up comedian come for an evening of fun. They had about 40 people attend and had a fun evening. They had a regular Christmas Party in the park with a BBQ and kayaking in the river next to the park.
For their scooter mobility project, they managed to get a grant to buy a van to haul the scooters and they wrapped it with a Rotary mural in order to show off and promote Rotary as it drives around servicing the scooters.
He showed us a picture of their meetings where they look straight out onto the Beach, what a view. Burleigh Heads National Park is right there as well, very popular area to go for a walk through the scenic park and to enjoy snorkeling and swimming.
On January 26th each year they have National Australia day where they celebrate the country, this year is the 100th anniversary of Rotary Australia so each club was given a Grant to promote Rotary and celebrate this day. They are going to do a dinner with over 100 guests with entertainment to celebrate. This is always a huge celebration day and they are in the middle of planning this celebration.
It was then opened up for questions, a few of our members volunteered to join his club, great presentation.
He also stated that tourism and International Students are their top two industries in Queensland.
President Lisa Scroggins concluded the meeting at 1:00, she let us know that next week, we will be back on Zoom.
“Rotary Opens Opportunities”
J. Carter Napier became the City of Casper’s City Manager in June 2017. He received a Master of Public Administration from the Romney Institute of Public Management of the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. Carter's first job in local government came in 1997 with the City of Longview, WA as an intern to the City Manager. Following that experience, Carter began his service in Casper, WY in 1998 as an analyst and then became an Assistant to the City Manager. In 2003, Carter was named as Riverton's City Administrator. In April of 2011, Carter was named as Gillette’s new City Administrator.
