banner
Stories
Minutes for October 1, 2018
The Casper Rotary Club
 
This week's meeting will be held:
Monday, October 8, 2018
at the Casper Events Center
1 Events Dr.
Casper, WY  82601
 
 
Our speaker will be Tom Burman, Athletic Director of The University of Wyoming.
______
Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
10/01/2018
 
President Dick Jay called the meeting to order promptly at 12:26, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.      
              
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Dan O’Dell
 
Greeters:
Anne Ladd and Guy DeWitt were our greeters today and Guy introduced the members who brought guests:
  • Richard Schwahn introduced Cici Christensen  (New Generations Exchange) he also introduced his son and transferring Rotarian Taylor Schwahn (Gruner Brothers Brewery);
  • Jim Beck introduced Liz Roth (KCWY);
  • Jason Cooper introduced Phillip Rael’s guest Jeremy Jones (12-24 Club Director);
  • Carly Applegate introduced Miamie Sleep (Servpro) and Chastidy Greenwood (Pathfinder FCU);
  • Eric Easton introduced the parents of the student of the month, Josh and Traci Blom and the Grandmother Jane Blom, he also introduced from NCHS Bryan Honker (Vice Principal);
  • President Dick Jay introduced Paul Wilhelm (Real Estate Sales)
Song and Merriment:
Gary Pehrson led us in singing “America the Beautiful”)
 
Family of Rotary:
Martha Rakestraw let us know that Ann Ruble has gone to Iowa to be with her father as he is suffering from Kidney Cancer.
 
Rotarians of the Week:
Richard Schwahn nominated Cori Cosner-Burton for giving CiCi the opportunity at Mercer House to make her Exchange a positive experience.
Bill Schilling nominated Dick Wimbish for his great job of taking care of the trees and bushes that were planted at Rotary Park, he also thanked Guy DeWitt and Monika Ratliff.
Lynn Lockhart nominated Brian Deurloo for his great work with the gutter bins and the one he dedicated at the Rotary get together last week.
Lisa Scroggins nominated John Griffith, Lori Klatt, and Monika Ratliff for putting together the Club Social last Thursday evening.
Our exchange student Francisco was homecoming King at NCHS.
 
Announcements:
President Dick Jay announced that on the tables are flyers for the Rotaract Masquerade Murder Mystery night that will be on October 28th.
Tim Monroe announced that Wednesday evening will be the Kids against hunger food packing event so please sign up and join, signup sheets are on the table.
Pinky Ellis announced that he is a member of the City of Casper preservation committee and they are in the beginnings of putting together a strategic plan for the City for the next 5-10 years or so. There are flyers on the table with information on how to give your ideas, they would love to have your input.
Jim Anderson announced that October 27th will be the Rotary Bird Hunt starts about 9:30 Saturday morning. All are invited.
Lisa Scroggins announced that she will be having an orientation in the near future.
 
Student of The Month:
Martha Rakestraw introduced our great exchange student from NCHS, Taliah Blom, a great young lady with a great future ahead of her.
 
Program (Liz Becher and John Griffith Polio Awareness Month kick off):
President Elect John Griffith introduced Liz Becher and they spoke to us about the fact that October is Polio Awareness Month and October 24th is national awareness day. Liz is on the District Polio Committee and gave us a great presentation about Polio and what is currently happening, she encouraged everyone to read the Rotarian Magazine article that just came out about Polio. She stated that Rotary first got involved with Polio in 1985 and we are still heavily involved. Some of the symbols that come to mind when you think of Polio are, the iron lung, crippled children, crutches and braces.  Many of us remember these things along with getting the sugar cube with the vaccination when we were children. Liz gave us some information on Polio, it is spread through the contact with the feces of an infected person, which contaminates the water systems and food. We have people going out worldwide and sampling the water sources to check for the virus. There are still two countries that we have not been able to isolate, those are Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rotary and its partners have been able to reach 430 million children in 39 countries during the campaign. Our partners are The World Health Organization, The Gates Foundation, and The Center For Disease Control. The Scientists collect samples of the water supply as well as waste water in order to track the virus and a lot of the contributions go towards this effort to get the research done. The Rotary Foundation has awarded nearly $700 million in Grants from 2010 through 2017 which is very significant. Rotarians have contributed $308 million to operational support over the last 10 years along with technical assistance for the health and immunization professionals in the amount of $132 million, social mobilization to raise awareness $141 million, $72.5 million for the surveillance and detection work from the 17 laboratories worldwide that are analyzing the water samples for detecting the virus. $20.4 million has gone to vaccines which cost 68 cents per dose, so that is a lot of doses. $16.6 million on researching ways to facilitate eradication. The Gates Foundation has the ability to match any dollar donation we give 2 to 1 through 2018. So all of our contributions make a huge difference in fighting Polio. We had hoped to have eradicated polio by this year but so far this year we have logged 18 cases, 14 in Afghanistan and 4 in Pakistan so we are this close but not there yet. There has been a little resurgence in other countries where they have found the virus in some water samples and with the people around the world that do not believe in vaccinating their children we are concerned that we will start to see cases occurring even here in the U.S. We have to see a couple of years of being polio free before we can be certified polio free so there is still a lot of work to be done. Once the world is certified polio free we then would see a reduction in the laboratories but we would continue to immunize in order to keep us free of the virus. Liz showed us what the Casper Rotary clubs have done, the purple pinkie fundraiser, the billboard with our club members for the this close campaign, the CSU UW challenge billboard with the WY and CO Rotarians, the speakers we have annually for awareness, significant contributions from club members as well. The Five Trails club has been doing the Pizza Ranch fundraiser, and they wrote an article in the Casper Star about Rotary’s involvement a couple of years ago. Reveille club did a fundraiser to buy very specialized crutches for a local citizen who has polio and could no longer use regular crutches. Rotaract had a mini iron lung bank they would use to gather donations. They then showed us a YouTube video of Jennifer Jones doing a Ted Talk about Polio, she was the first female Rotary international director, she is from Canada and is a great motivational speaker. This video tells the story and the impact Rotary makes in the world so if you did not see it I encourage you to watch it.  After the video they took questions and comments from the group.
 
President Dick Jay concluded the meeting at 1:20 letting us know that next week we will be at the Casper Events Center and the athletic director from UW will be our speaker.
 
“Be the Inspiration”
Read more...

Rotary Tidbits

Be the Inspiration

"Rotary continues to be the heart and soul of polio eradication, supporting the program directly while also taking on a larger role in encouraging other donors to give more." Bill Gates, Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

End Polio

Follow the Inspiration.
Share the Experience.
Join one Rotaractor's mission to help end polio in "Two Drop of Patience,"  Rotary's new virtual reality film. Take others on this journey as we celebrate our progress on World Polio Day. Visit Rotary.org/vr to watch a trailer then travel with Patience Asiimwe and her fellow Rotaractors to a remote region of Uganda to vaccinate children who otherwise would be missed. See how far Patience will go to make sure every child in her country is protected from polio. 
 

A Few Benefits of Being a Rotarian

Leadership Development - Rotary is an organization of leaders and successful people. Serving in Rotary is like a college education where you learn how to motivate, influence and lead leaders. 
 
Citizenship in the Community - Membership makes one a better community citizen. The average Rotary club consists of the most active citizens of any community. 
 
Continuing Education - Weekly programs are timely topics designed to keep one informed about what is going on in the community, nation and world.