Written by Patrick Hart
Tom Zengeler opened this week’s meeting with a pledge and a prayer. He offered to let someone lead us in a song, but apparently everyone was feeling too shy to step up.
BRAGS:
Elliott Pinsel bragged that his son had graduated from Ball State University a semester early, and is taking the LSAT exam with plans to enter law school.
Scott Hezner bragged on behalf of Carol August, who has made a magnificent recovery from an injury she incurred during a recent home inspection.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
January is Rotary Vocational Service Month.
The township food pantry thanked the club for our great support in enabling them to distribute Christmas food baskets to our neighbors in need.
There will be a Zoom meeting on the winter fundraiser on January 11, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. The actual fundraiser will be on February 27, 2021, and more details should be coming after the meeting.
Tom Miller made an effort to explain the membership billing process In the Age of Zoom (that strikes me as a great title for a science fiction movie.) Anyway meals are always billed in advance on the invoice, and since on our last invoice we were charged for the meals for the quarter which was just completed, and we never got to eat those meals, we will all see a credit on the upcoming bill. ( You got that). If you do not take this credit it will be donated to a food pantry. The charges for Fun & Frolics and raffle tickets on your invoice are being billed in arrears, so you already owe the amount shown on your invoice.
Pat Schwartz mentioned that the Lake County Health Department has released an educational video on the Coronavirus vaccination program. The membership expressed enough interest in this material that he agreed to email the link out to everyone.
Bob Zamor added a strong encouragement for everyone to register on the Lake County Website to receive the vaccination. He mentioned that the date you register will be one consideration in determining when you receive the vaccination.
Patricia Bleck has made some entries to our facebook page, which the district is helping to spread, and while I do not totally understand the process of building a social media presence, it sounds like this is a good thing.
FUN AND FROLICS:
John Blair held a trivia quiz on New Year, and we learned among other things that the Chinese New Year this year will begin on February 12. We will be ushering in the Year of the Ox, which I am sure will make all ox lovers happy. The festival lasts for sixteen days and according to Mr. Blair the whole country basically shuts down for the whole sixteen days, while some Americans do not even get the Friday after Thanksgiving off.
PROGRAM:
Our speaker this week was Rick Harnish, the Executive Director of High Speed Rail Alliance. High Speed Rail Alliance is a 501(c) (3) educational non-profit organization, which promotes the implementation of a high speed train service. Many countries around the world have high speed train services that travel up to 220 miles an hour. China for example started building their high speed rail network in 2008, when a blizzard during their sixteen day New Year celebration devastated many people’s holiday travel plans, and they have already made substantial progress toward implementing a nationwide high speed rail network.
The United States by contrast has not built any high speed rail lines, and for many decades they have allowed their rail transportation system to decline from neglect. Rick’s organization wants to change this, and California is attempting to put together the first high speed rail network in the country.
Most Americans of course prefer driving cars to taking trains, but our reliance on the automobile is very costly both financially and environmentally. Building railroads is much cheaper than building highways. Rick also believes that while for the moment we seem to be out of our energy crisis, the long term outlook points to a return of this problem, which will make it impossible to continue our heavy use of cars forever,
Trains are far more efficient than other forms of transportation, because the steel rails and steel wheels which they employ cause lower friction than what is used by airplanes and automobiles. That is why freight trains can be up to three miles long.
Although building railroad tracks dedicated to high speed trains would be the most efficient means of operating this service, High Speed Rail Alliance wants to use the traditional railroad tracks as well, which can be changed into dual systems running both the high tech and the old fashion trains. This of course would reduce the amount of new tracks that would need to be built to create a viable high speed system.
The Alliance is hoping to eventually establish a nationwide high speed rail service, and they believe we need a national plan to coordinate this transformation.
RAFFLE:
This week we had $27.00 in the weekly drawing, which went to John Blair. We had $254.00 in the progressive pot, with only 43 cards left. Unfortunately, (at least for John McDonald) he only drew the Queen of Spades in his effort to take home this prize.
NEXT WEEK:
Greeter and Prayer: Tom Miller
Fun and Frolics: Patricia Bleck
QUOTE FOR THE DAY:
“To take away voting is to reduce a man to slavery.” Thomas Paine
