Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:26 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary.

 

Pinky Ellis and Bob Tarantola were our greeters and Pinky introduced guests:

Bill DeGraeve introduced Erin Essary;

John Jorgensen introduced Greg Dixson;

Jim Grenfell introduced Scott Keener;

Bret Ladenburger introduced Nicole Tholson;

Don Harris introduced Stephen Finzo;

Dennis Lower introduced Brett Johnson;

Steve Shive introduced Fred Feth;

Pinky introduced our visiting Rotarians from Five Trails, District Governor Elect Barb Redder and her husband Don;

Martha Rakestraw introduced her guests Deanna Frye and Glenda Thomas’ she then introduced family members of the SOM, parents Butch and Lucinda Richards, mom Vicki Muckley and brother Blake Muckley;

Susan Griffith introduced our Interact students Hope, Arien, Alexis, Alena, John, A.J., Raquel, and Christian;

We also welcomed our exchange student Elise;

 

President John gave us a list of names of members we haven’t seen for a while and asked that if we see or speak with them to invite them back to Rotary; Ryan Ford, Brian Oliver, Jeff Eidsness, and John Watson.

President John then traded red badges to Blue badges for Andrew Beyeler, Jim Beck and Brown Ewing, congratulations!

 

We inducted three new members today: Erin Essary sponsored by Bill DeGraeve, Fred Feth sponsored by Tom Bromley and Steve Shive, Brett Johnson sponsored by Dennis Lower. Welcome aboard and congratulations.

 

Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson had us all Rise and sing “God Bless America”. 

 

 

President John let us know that today is John Patterson’s last week as he is retiring and moving, congratulations and we will miss you.

Tara Short let us know that Jim Fowler is having shoulder surgery tomorrow in Colorado so keep him in your prayers.

Bob Tarantola had Dave True tell us that he has been blessed with three new grandsons this year with the newest arriving last night, Congratulations!

 

Tara Short nominated Jim Fowler for hosting the new member orientation last week.

Hal Hutchinson nominated everyone that helped with the highway cleanup on Saturday; Jim Allison, George Bryce, Jimmy Goolsby, Liz Becher, Tony Valdez, Dick Shamley, Mary Koernig, Bert Toews, Dennis Jack, Jim Grenfell, Brian Deurloo, Lori and Ted Klatt, Tom and Robin Bromley, Steve Domonkos and granddaughter Abby, Bill DeGraeve and son Gabe, Dean and Chris Cline, Steve and Karen Higginson, Larry and Beth Madsen.

Richard Schwahn nominated Jim Anderson for taking Elise on the Rotary Bird Hunt.

Kevin Murphy nominated Gunars Hvastkovs for his work with the midget football in Casper and Charlie Shopp for his son’s team winning the championship.

 

Our Students of the month today were from Roosevelt High, Abby Richards and Brooke Muckley, two wonderful young ladies with great things to say.

 

 

 

Jim Ruble introduced our speaker today, Jane Mirandette. Jane spoke to us about the lending library projects in Nicaragua. They started in 2001 on the patio of her hotel then quickly moved to a building. They were the first lending library and community center there. They had a few computers and started some computer training classes for the community as well. In 2003 they started going to other communities and now serve 35 communities. The children love the libraries and the opportunities to borrow books. They work with the U.S. Embassy to provide more books to lend. The Library in the box recipient program helps them to set up libraries in communities to help the people have access to books by putting a small box of books to lend in the corner so that they will have books to lend out. In 2006 Rotarians in Vermont were honored for their humanitarian work in Nicaragua in 2011 the club in Gillette started going to Nicaragua to help with more service projects. In 2014 they inaugurated the Clube Rotario there and the club Members there grabbed a hold of the Rotary Club and ran with it. They are serving above themselves with a wheel chair program and other great projects. They are making a difference in their own community. One of the projects that the Rotarians helped with was to get barrels to store the rice and beans in so that the mice can’t get to the food so that they do not lose any. Another project was to supply uniforms, backpacks and school supplies for some of the schools there. They also painted some of the school buildings, supplied bathrooms and water for better sanitation and taught the children how to wash their hands with the soap balls that they supply for them. They supplied inexpensive water filters so that they can have clean drinking water. They have a school dictionary project to supply dictionaries to the school children so that they can learn better. She had a great slide show of all of their accomplishments and the happy faces of the children and teachers. She spoke some about the rules of sustainability of a project, first you have to have leadership development so that one person doesn’t do it all and end up with burn out. Next the 70% rule, when you delegate someone to work on the project you have to be comfortable with them only using 70-75% of your vision and allow them their own ideas so that they have ownership in the project as well. Create redundancies so that there are more people that have buy in and know what the project is about so as to not lose the project in midstride if one person is no longer there. Funding, make sure you thank donors at least three times before asking for more money and make sure you have transparency with spending and accurate projections. Sufficient staffing, you need to give authority, autonomy and esteem to those people who are there to help, whether it is one of the people in the community you are serving or one of the volunteers from elsewhere. Clearly define your ongoing goals so there is not stagnation, focus and plan ahead. Ascertain sustainability and buy in from your target group so that you help with their needs not with what you perceive are their needs. Great presentation and great projects! President John then exchanged club flags with Jane.

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:33 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are back at the Parkway and our very own ADG Liz Becher will be our speaker.