Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
10/14/2019
President John Griffith called the meeting to order promptly at time unknown, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Jim Gleason
Greeters:
Charlie Shopp and Jimmy Goolsby were our greeters today and Jimmy introduced the members who brought guests:
- Eric Easton introduced the parent of our SOM Susan and Michael Eathorne & Mike Britt, Principal;
- Wayne Heili visiting Rotarian (5 Trails);
- Kevin Murphy introduced former Rotarian Matt Grant;
- Dennis Gazdiewich introduced his wife Julie;
- Charles Schoenwolf introduced his niece Brittany Schoenwolf;
- Phillip Rael introduced Jed Shenefelt (Super Nerds IT);
- Michelle Sorensen introduced Dianne Marr (BLM);
- Kendra Ziler introduced Arlin Bird (GM of Hilton Garden Inn);
- President Griffith introduced District Governor Chris Woodruff and his wife Karoline;
Song and Merriment:
Gary Pehrson did not attend today’s meeting to lead us in song and merriment
Family of Rotary:
Nothing to report
Rotarians of the Week:
Vickerie Hall nominated Liz Becher for her work organizing the Platte River Revival
Jim Anderson and Bill Mortimer were nominated for putting on the pheasant hunt
Jim Porter nominated all of the Food Bank Volunteers
Club Announcements:
Miamie Sleep is looking for volunteers to help with various aspects of the Duck Derby. If anyone is interested in volunteering or learning more about the volunteer opportunities please contact her for more information. There is a signup sheet on the back of the sheet on the tables you can fill out or you can call her.
President Griffith spoke about World Polio Day on October 24th and that our club would be working with the other clubs to host Pints for Polio; Cups will be available for purchase at next week’s meeting; Also November 8 & 9 will be a Rotary Leadership Institute hosted by the Casper Rotary Club;
Jim Anderson recapped the previous week’s hunt and nominated Edis Allen for “Best Dressed”
Membership:
New Member:
Cameron Ross from Visit Casper received his red badge today. He was welcomed by his sponsor Cori Cosner-Burton, President Griffith and District Governor Chris Woodruff. Welcome to the Club, Cameron!
Blue Badges:
Leah Reeb-Varela and Michelle Sorensen both received their blue badges today. Congratulations!
Student of the Month:
Our SOM this week is from KWHS, Mia Eathorne. She did a great job with her presentation. A great young lady with a bright future.
Special Presentation:
President John Griffith introduced District Governor Chris Woodruff to make a presentation to our Club today. This is the DG’s second visit to our Club. He and Karoline attended the Duck Derby this summer. Mr. Woodruff reminded us that Bill Schilling will be the District Governor next year and that plans are already underway on how they will transition. Mr. Woodruff congratulated Mia on her accomplishments.
Mr. Woodruff spoke to how important that Rotary is to each community and thanked us for our work in the community and the great new membership.
The “Dig Deep” Project is the special project by Chris and Karoline Woodruff. Karoline thanked President Griffith for sharing information with our Club earlier this year. The Foundation has made a generous donation to this project. The grant allows households to get a cistern and pump to allow them water.
Mr. Woodruff presented Former President Dick Jay with a certificate of appreciate for our Club’s support of End Polio Now. We are one of 11 Clubs in our District that received this certificate.
Program:
President John Griffith introduced our speaker today, Deputy Sheriff Michael Scott. Deputy Sheriff Scott has worked in law enforcement for 14 years. He’s been a patrol officer, a DARE officer, a hostage negotiator, and a youth diversion officer as well as an Active Shooter Trainer. Deputy Sheriff Scott spoke about the ALICE Program and Active Shooter. His emphasis was on the FBI’s Run, Hide, Fight protocol. He was involved in an active shooter incident when he was in middle school. The Run, Hide, Fight protocol can be used in any business, school, or organization. First and foremost, if there is an active shooter situation, RUN away from the area. If you’re able to take others with you, do so. When you’re away – don’t forget to call 911. If you cannot run, you should HIDE. Barracade yourself into a room, block doors and windows, make yourself aware of all exits and entrances from the room that you’re in. Your last resort is FIGHT. Throw things, hit the shooter, distract them by waving your arm. If you do disarm the shooter, don’t pick-up the gun. If you do get your hands on the gun, Mr. Scott says to put it in or under a garbage can. If you can, pin the shooter in place until help arrives. Lisa is going to share Deputy Sherriff Michael Scott’s contact information with us after the meeting so we can reach-out to arrange for trainings for our work groups if desired.
President John Griffith concluded the meeting at time unknown letting us know that next week we will be at the Casper Events Center and not at the Ramkota.
“Use Rotary to connect your world”
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Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
10/07/2019
President John Griffith called the meeting to order promptly at 12:24, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Lauren Griffith
Greeters:
Martha Rakestraw and Tim Monroe were our greeters today and Martha introduced the members who brought guests:
- Barb Redder visiting Rotarian was with us today (Jackson Supper Club);
- Wayne Heili visiting Rotarian (5 Trails);
- Dale Melody visiting Rotarian (Edmond OK Club);
- Matt Young and Neil Johnson visiting Rotaractors;
- Eric Easton introduced the parent of our SOM Janet Bachwelder (Teacher);
- Kevin Murphy introduced former Rotarian Matt Grant;
- Phillip Rael introduced Jed Shenefelt (Super Nerds IT);
- Charles Schoenwolf introduced his niece Brittany Schoenwolf;
- Chloe Moindron our exchange student was also with us today;
Song and Merriment:
Gary Pehrson led us in singing America The Beautiful;
Family of Rotary:
Nothing to report
Rotarians of the Week:
Martha Rakestraw nominated Jim Ruble, Dusty Johnson, Jim Porter, and Richard Schwahn for taking the time to help her out with rides and other things.
Chloe nominated John and Lauren Griffith for their help with her swimming.
Kevin Murphy nominated Bill Degraeve, Bill’s son Gabe is the homecoming King at NCHS this year.
Dusty Johnson nominated everyone who participated in the food packing this past week for the Kids for Hunger. We packed 18,360 meals between the Casper Clubs. Jim Anderson, Anthony Martinez, Kevin Murphy, Greg Brondos, Gene and Deb Theriault, Tom Crull, Jim Allison, Chad Nelson, Caryn Dowell, Bill and Chrisa Degraeve, Denise Prugh and her office staff of 8, Phillip and Rebecca Rael and daughters, Rita Wagner, Tom Broumley, Char Canada, Percy Anderson, Kendra Ziler, Maribeth Plocek, Eric Easton, Mark Owens, Steve Loftin, Tim Monroe, Dick Shamley, Mike Ward, Miamie Sleep, Chastidy Greenwood, Glenn Januska, Nicole Tholson, Eric Schlidt, Ben Winckler, Tassma Powers, Dick Wimbish, Martha Rakestraw, Phillip Griffin, John Griffith, Charlie Shopp, Susan Griffith, Tony Valdez, Dusty and Vickie Johnson, Vickie Diamond. As well as anyone he may have missed.
Announcements:
President John reminded us that we will see emails going out about the October 24th Pints for Polio event fundraiser we are doing with the other local clubs.
Steve Loftin announced that we have food packing at the Food Bank today and need at least 6 volunteers.
Jim Anderson announced the bird hunt this coming Saturday the 12th at 9am and there is room for more hunters.
Miamie Sleep announced on each table there is information about next year’s Duck Derby. There will be a meeting next Tuesday at 4 pm. If anyone is interested in volunteering or learning more about the volunteer opportunities please come to the meeting or contact her for more information. There is a signup sheet on the back of the sheet on the tables you can fill out or you can call her.
Membership:
Student of the Month:
Our SOM this week is from NCHS, Lauren Blachwelder, she did a great job with her presentation. A great young lady with a bright future.
Program (Polio Plus):
President John Griffith introduced our speaker today, Dr. Krishna Murthy, fellow Rotarian and Polio Plus advocate. Dr. Murthy was here to tell us about the End Polio Now campaign and where we are in the world with this great campaign. He has been involved with this project for many years and definitely has a passion for this work of ending Polio worldwide. He said there are two types of Polio that affect people, paralysis of at least one limb, which is the one we see most of the time. The other one is rare but it affects the patient’s breathing and they end up having to be in the iron lung or they will die. Polio has been around for thousands of years, it is a gastrointestinal virus that mostly affects children but sometimes adults. One in every two hundred cases the patient ends up with the paralysis. He showed us the numbers from the past where when Rotary got involved there were over 350,000 cases worldwide with half of those cases in India, and now there are less than 200 cases. End Polio Now is the Rotarian way of saying that all children in the world should be able to live free of Polio. In January 2014 India was declared Polio Free after the last case was reported there in 2011. He said that Small Pox is the only disease so far that has been eradicated which happened in 1977. As of August this year it has been three years without a reported case of Polio in Nigeria. This is something to celebrate. We still have cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan that we need to keep working on. He showed us pictures of when the Fort Collins team went to India in 2014 to vaccinate children. There were 135 million children vaccinated in just one day with the teams they had on the ground there. They have 2.4 million vaccinators in the nation that go everywhere to find the children and get them vaccinated. They visit 91 million homes in two days to make sure they have reached all of the children. There are a lot of people involved in order to get this all done. Most of the children get 3-5 vaccines to make sure that they are protected. The cost of the vaccine is about 50 cents per vaccine. They have so much information and campaigns going on that the people are well informed so that when they get there to vaccinate they are ready and willing to get it done, which saves a lot of time and allows them to get a lot more children vaccinated in a shorter amount of time. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now matching our donations 2 for 1 which has made a huge difference in beating Polio worldwide. They continue to vaccinate India because of the possibilities of cross over from Pakistan. There are 69 cases in Pakistan this year, there were issues with vaccinators being killed and thus shutting down the vaccination for a time until their safety was restored.
There are 3 subtypes of Polio, type 1, 2, and 3. Type 2 has been eradicated since 2015 so we do not see that anywhere now. Type 3 was last seen in 2012 so now the strategy is to concentrate on the type 1. The plan now is to focus on other areas in the community such as clean water and other health concerns so that they can then lead into the Polio vaccinations once the community has the other concerns taken care of and we have built their trust. Any time there is a case of flaccid paralysis anywhere in the world the Polio Team investigates to see if it is caused by the Polio Virus or not, so they are very focused on this mission. They also test to see if it is the wild Polio Virus or the vaccine caused virus to make sure they know how to handle each case. Last year in Colorado and Wyoming and other places there were a few cases of a Polio like Virus that was not caused by the Polio virus but they keep their eye on anything like this.
They have regional hubs in Pakistan and Afghanistan so that they are right there to combat any outbreak and to keep the vaccinations going. If they have a case in one region then they send the rapid response team to that region to vaccinate all of the children again to make sure it does not spread. There are a lot of people behind the scenes that keep the mission going around the world. So as Rotarians we can continue to fundraise and donate to the End Polio Now campaign as it takes a lot of money to keep it going. He showed us pictures from the Rotarian Magazine and reminded us of the great stories in there about Polio. October 24th is the fundraising day for all clubs to focus on End Polio Now. Eventually once Polio is eradicated we will no longer need to continue to vaccinate but just to keep our eye on it.
President John Griffith concluded the meeting at 1:25 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota and we will have Deputy Michael Scott speak to us about active shooter scenarios and our safety.
“Use Rotary to connect your world”
