Roseland Rotary Meeting May 15, 2014

 

Today was the first day back to Rotary for Bob Stephens and me after several months in warm sunny Florida.  I thought we would be welcomed with sunny warmer weather, however I was mistaken. As Bob put it, “at least there is no snow in my driveway”.  Don’t speak to soon Bob!

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Thanks to the Waterford for a fine Pot Roast lunch.  As always they did a great job.

This was an interesting meeting despite the ominous start.  We had a problem syncing the computer to the projector and really never did get it working.  Bob Eberhart was asked to lead us in song, however we had no song books.  Bob improvised and we sang one verse of America. Jerry Hunt led us in prayer and did an excellent job.  We had 18 members, 3 guests and our speaker in attendance.

Jennifer Price was presented with her membership certificate by President Bob Sones. 

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A Big Thank You was given by the club to Jay Harwood for his hard work on the Annual Auction.  Everyone was very pleased with how the auction was run and that it was a great success.  Unofficially we and the Sunrise Club raised $23,652 and produced $18,832 after expenses.  Approximately $4,800 was given to Camp Raybird and the same to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana. One of the highlights of the evening was the presentation of the “Service Above Self” honor that went to our own Al Veldman.  My friend Al, I am just a name dropper!

“Please pass on my THANK YOU message to our Roseland Rotary Club members for supporting this year’s “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive at the Northern Indiana Food Bank on Saturday May 10th from 1:00 -4:00 pm.  We had 10 members who worked VERY HARD sorting food at our work stations.  During the day 110,500 pounds of food was collected and sorted to be given to those in need in our community.  All of this food will enable the Pantry to help keep people nourished for the next 3 months.  Thanks to all for helping on this “Service Above Self” project that we have been doing for the last 15+years.”   Cliff Witkowski

Joe Maloney passed around the Dues Invoice’s for the 1st quarter and a donation sheet for the Rotary Foundation.  More to come on this project.

In a couple of weeks we will be taking members photographs for our Directory that we are hoping to publish within the next month.  Stay Tuned!

Chicago Cubs Baseball, a trip to the old ball park is planned for June 27, 2014.  A copy of the flyer will be posted on our Web-Site www. Southbendroselandrotary.com.   Note, we will not be going on June 27 1014. More to come!

Friendly Dave Keck collected happy dollars including dollars from Tom Hickey Morey Rosen, Bob Eberhart, (guess why), Ben for enjoying this cold weather, Jay Harwood because the Auction is over, Bob Stephens happy to be here, (is it the truth) and our new Rotarian Jennifer Price.  I just could not write fast enough to get everyone that participated in the Happy Dollars, I apologize.

Our speaker was Dan Ryan from the District and he talked about membership.  As you may note we have had numerous speakers regarding Rotary Membership and there is a good reason for that.   As Dan pointed out, Rotary is only two generations from extinction.  Membership is continuing to decrease even with the efforts to increase.  Of all the new members, we are losing 80% of them within 5 years.  The reason is that we are not getting them involved.  When young people were asked, what is the main reason for joining Rotary their answers were #1 Mentoring, #2 Make Friendships and #3 was Net WorkingSurprisingly Service was last on the list.  Still when given a Service project to do, these young people excelled at it.

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Too many of our Clubs are just writing checks and this does not work well for developing new members.  Ask new member what they want to do.  Make a list of all our programs and everything we do so new members and prospective new members can see what we do.  Then ask them what they want to do.  New member want to use their talents to better Rotary.  One Club has their new members come up with a one day project and then gives them up to $500 for that project.  What are we doing?

Everyone is thinking of you Sam!

Don Fischesser won the drawing.

As I always say, “ Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

Next week’s speaker is Sheriff Grzegorek.  I would suggest you be there!