August 12th Meeting

It was a great meeting today, I don't know where to begin. First off, great turn out. I think we had 27 people attending (if you count the one person who shall remain nameless who limped in about halfway through to fulfill his Treasurer duties). Don Black brought our new exchange student, Arthur Vieira De Oliveira from Brazil with him. Arthur arrived last night and is in the process of registering for Chugiak High School. He is staying with the Jorgensens. His "brother" Roger Jorgensen came to lunch with him. Our other guests were MaryAnn's granddaughter Nadia, Assistant District Governor Jack Timm, and Tony and Sandra DeLucia, and of course, our speaker, Jennifer Johnston. Frank led us in the pledge; we had a moment of silence for the victims of the plane crash; introduced our guests; and had our Happy Bucks, the highlight of which I think was singing Happy Birthday to Brad Gamble. Brad looks good in red. Jack Timm spoke about the Valley Clubs' Foundation Fundraiser. They hold an auction where you "buy" the items with a donation to the Rotary Foundation; and you get Paul Harris credit too. They've invited us to participate. We'll discuss this at Assembly in a couple weeks. Jim Palmer distributed sustaining member pins. We've had something like a 20% increase in our sustaining member roles. Great Job. All are invited to the Bushnell's this Sunday afternoon (1-2ish) for the Bushnell Bash. Details in a follow up email. Our Speaker was Jennifer Johnston who is a candidate for Senate Seat P (vacated by the retirement of Con Bunde). Jennifer spoke a bit about her time on the Anchorage Assembly where she has been working hard to cut the budget. She wants to take what she's learned on the Assembly down to Juneau to work to get the State's budget under control.