Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
11/02/2015
Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:26 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Dusty Johnson
Greeters:
Joe Nickerson and Anne Ladd were our greeters and Joe introduced guests:
Joe introduced our exchange student Elise ;
Dennis Jack introduced Daniel White and Vicki Crock;
Bill Schilling introduced Tim Anderson;
Craig Valdez introduced Greg Dixson;
Dennis Lower introduced Dr. Michael Skaff;
Chandra Ortiz introduced Stormy Dean;
Don Harris introduced Stephen Finzo;
Red Nickerson introduced Chuck Lambert;
Joe introduced visiting Rotarian Chad Cundy from the Five Trails Club;
Martha Rakestraw introduced the parents of our SOM, Jeff and Lynda Brewster, and Torry and Shannon Kersenbrock;
Richard Schwahn introduced his wife Michelle and his daughter Madeline;
Song and merriment:
Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson had us all Rise and sing “My Country Tis of Thee”.
Family of Rotary:
President John announced that Brenda Peters officially retired this past week.
Dusty Johnson let us know that Bill Pierce’s wife passed away and the services will be Friday, we have two cards being passed around.
Anne Ladd announced that George Bryce is being inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in Cheyenne.
Dennis Lower announced that his first great grandson was born October 27th in Montana.
Rotarians of the week;
Bill Schilling nominated Mike Sullivan and Matt Myers for spending the evening at the BSA fundraiser event last week.
Lynn Lockhart nominated Roy Cohee for the good job he did at the debate at the College.
Chad Nelson nominated Steve Schnell for the trick or treat trail he put together at the Science Zone for the kids in town.
Angela Emery nominated Eric Easton for his work on the Casper Marathon and 10k run.
President John read a thank you e-mail from John Patterson
Announcements:
- Jim Anderson gave a report on the Rotary Bird Hunt; they had a great hunt with 17 hunters in five groups including our exchange student Elise. He had the group of Elise, Gene Theriault, Joe MacGuire, and Charles Schoenwolf come forward, Jim was also on this team. He then presented them with prizes, a 125th WY anniversary coin from the State, for being the outstanding team that shot 17 out of 15 birds for 113%. He then awarded the most birds shot to Charles’ son Dave; he won a new Ford F-250 truck, a small one, donated by Murdock’s.
- President John welcomed back Brian Oliver and reminded us to visit with the other Rotarians we have not seen for a while.
- Liz Becher announced, for Jim Porter that the sign up for the Tournament of Roses trip is on the tables so please consider going. She then let us know that today is the final day to sign up for the Paul Harris Dinner which will be this Thursday November 5th at the Casper Petroleum Club where we will eat the fabulous Pheasants that will be provided by our Rotarian bird hunt. Signup sheets are on the table and we have online signup as well.
- Robin Mundell announced that tomorrow there is a special election here in Casper that deals with the smoking ordinance, please get out and vote.
- Visiting Rotarian Chad Cundy announced that the Five Trails Club is helping sponsor the Keyhole Outdoor Living’s Wine and Beer tasting event on November 12 from 5-7, this event will help with the Five Trails Club with their dictionary project where they provide dictionaries to all 3rd graders in NCSD#1.
- President John asked if we would be interested in doing a club social once in a while like we have done in the past, many raised their hands in favor. We will get something on the calendar for a later time.
Students of the Month:
Our Students of the month today were from KWHS, Abbey Kersenbrock and Conner Brewster, two wonderful young people with great things to say and great futures ahead of them.
Program:
Jim Ruble introduced our speaker today, our very own Past President and current ADG Liz Becher who spoke with us about her trip to Texas and the Regional training meeting she attended. In September there was a four day Zone Institute and emerging District leader program which as Liz out it, was a Rotary leadership training on steroids. The meeting was for zone 21B and our zone 27; our Zone is made up of MT, ID, WY, SD, part of NE, UT, CO, KS, part of OK, NM, and part of TX. Also in attendance were Rotarians from the rest of Texas and from Mexico. There were about 500 attendees who met together to learn about what is happening in Rotary International and Rotary in our part of the world. They met the Rotary Foundation board of trustees, our RI Zone Director Greg Pod, incoming RI President John Germ; they discussed public image initiatives for RI, membership initiatives for RI. They also learned about issues before the council for legislation. They heard first from Past District Governor Ray Klinginsmith who is on the Board of trustees, the board oversees the finances of RI. He shared that we have 34 zones worldwide with 17 directors who serve over two zones; we have 535 District Governors around the world, 36,000 clubs with 1.2 million Rotarians in 190 countries around the world. The next project after Polio, when it comes up here in about 3 years will be voted on by all 535 districts. There is a push for clubs to work together on projects for a better outcome. The second person they met was one of the 17 directors, Greg Pod from CO who is our Zone Director. He said that North America makes up only 29% of all Rotarians worldwide; we need to beef up our numbers so that we stay in the mix with a director, if we fall below that 29% we could lose our director chair. The RI Board meets for 4 days and have to have interpreters as they speak many languages which sometimes makes for some interesting meetings. RI has a seat at the UN. John Germ wants us to continue to bring in new members and encouraged us to incentivize membership dues for members to help them stay in Rotary. RI at this time is interested in sticking with the six avenues of service when it comes time to choose our next project after Polio is eradicated. Those six are 1. Clean water, 2. Maternal and child health, 3. Literacy, 4. Economic development, 5. Peace and conflict resolution, and 6. Disease prevention. For the public image initiatives they want us to look for the young thinkers no matter their age. Rotary has heart is an initiative kicking off this month designed to get Rotarians and non-Rotarians all out to do service projects in their communities and to help non-Rotarians learn more about RI. Leaders are how we think, not by our title, was another component they talked about with our public image. They spoke about membership and how we are friends doing service projects together to better our communities. They have a new membership template designed to help us retain members and grow membership even more. They are focusing on Rotaract and trying to change those young professionals to be counted as full-fledged Rotarians. There are six resolutions that they want to focus on this April, those being:
- Allow for flexibility in club meetings and attendance requirements.
- Allow for flexibility in membership classifications, which will be the inclusion of the Rotaract members as full-fledged Rotarians.
- Increase the per capita dues for members over the next four years by $1 each year so as to make it easier on some members who can’t afford a $4 increase per year all at once.
- Authorize the RI Board to suspend or terminate a club for litigation against RI brought by one of their members. There are a large number of lawsuits being brought by members around the world because they were not elected to be the next District Governor in their District; they want to eliminate this problem as it is too expensive.
- Add a 5th part to the object of Rotary to be Youth Service
- She skipped number 4, so next time you see her ask what that one was. J
In April the council will meet to vote on these issues, each District will send a representative to be part of the council. Liz once again encouraged us to put the Rotary logo in our signature lines of our emails and on our business cards to help us get the word out about whom we are and what RI does for the world. She then showed us some great pictures of the event in Texas and let us know that we will have our District Conference in Casper in 2017 so there will be more to come about that. Next year this event will be in Utah and each year our District sends three delegates. She asked Ray Klinginsmith what inspired him to apply to become the RI President and he replied “We are best at what we enjoy doing”.
President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:24 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are back at the Parkway and our guest speaker will be Dr. Kevin Helling speaking about advances in Bariatrics.
“Be a gift to the world”
Click on links below for this weeks pictures and pics from the Paul Harris Dinner.
