President Cathy opened the meeting with an account of the State’s sports team – all while wearing her favorite Seahawks shirt to show support for tonight’s game.
The Invocation, including the beautiful piece “Simple Gifts" was sung by Sharrie Kahn who formerly sang for the New York Opera. Ms. Kahn than accepted a Service Fund grant upon behalf of the Whatcom Choral for $1,000. She expressed her thanks for everything that Rotary does, including its focus on youth. She informed the Club of upcoming programs over the next season.
ELECTIONS DECEMBER 9, 2019: A Voice Vote for 2020-2021 Officers and minor RCOB By-Law changes to bring us in line with RI By-Laws: Click Here
President: Gary Goldfogel
President-Elect: Peter Theisen
VP/Program Chairman: Paul Grey
Treasurer: Steve Gray Board of Directors: (vote for 2) John Pedlow and Steve Hettick
Announcements:
BELL RINGING SCHEDULE FOR DECEMBER 14, 2019 CLICK HERE
FOOTBALL POOL NUMBERS: Pac 12 Championship December 6, 2019 Click Here
Ken Marzocco is reminding members to donate to the Club’s major fund project, the Recovery House on Girard Street. He urged members to get their pledge forms in. Click Here This project is well worth everyone’s participation. So please make and fulfill a pledge. You do not want Ken Marzocco to be knocking on your door. He announced that over 50% of club members have pledged to our Major Project and encouraged remaining Club members to get their pledges in.
Here is a tutorial on how to login for the first time. (Click here) In order to login you need to know your user name and password in your Clubrunner account. The user name is Yourfirstname.Lastname.264 unless you have changed it. Example: Sandra.Lindhout.264 The password is initially set by clubrunner at 264 unless you have changed it. Sandee can see your Username from my computer but not the password. She can also change your password for you from her computer at your request if you run into problems.
Once you have originally created your User Name and Password you can download the ClubRunner Mobile app on your phone:
Please contact Sandee at 360-734-5532 or rcob@comcast.net if you run into any trouble.
Guests of Rotarians:
Dick Tucker introduced Bacchus Taylor with Explorations Academy
Rob Olsen brought Judge Lee Grochmal, Whatcom Superior Court
Marty Haines introduced Sherrie Kahn, President of Whatcom Choral and Debbie Brown, artistic director and conductor
Presentations:
Paul Grey – International Service Update : Paul reported on the Club’s International projects including: 1) ARES which is our project, led by Mark Knittel, in Africa that provides servers and low cost lap tops to enhance student education. It targets 20 schools, 15 of which have been completed. 2) Youngwater Fellowship in Africa which is a Club project o train young people to launch social businesses. We sponsored Joyce Klu who developed a project to install alerts to the sanitation system so that waste did not overflow into the Nairobi river. 3) El Zapote Water Project in Honduras where we are joined by 11 other clubs to replace an aging water distribution system. 4) Aldea Nueva to improve the school’s classrooms, expand kindergarten, divide a classroom, replace windows and refinish concrete.
Program:
Jeffery and Christine Smith - Motor Vessel David B
The Smiths, delivered an interesting program on the refurbishment of their 1929 Motor Vessel, “The David B”. (The David B was named after David W. Branch who worked in the cannery business in Alaska.) The David B was built for fishing in Bristol Bay and had seen (much) better days. As a vessel built for fishing, the pilot house was small and built in the back of the boat. The boat had gone through a series of restorations beginning in 1998. In 2006, the Smiths acquired an old motor vessel to their tourism business taking passengers up the inside passage to Alaska. The Smiths realized that the layout of the David B was failing to compete with more modern tourist boats.
As the Smiths’ noted, they had more time and energy than capital. To fund a major restoration of the David B, they used an unusual financing method. They contacted their customer list, of about 600 former passengers, and asked them for financing.
Within three days they had raised 84% of their capital needs. Within a week, they had raised 140% of what they needed. In the financing proposal to passengers, passengers were offered one of three financing ideas 1) An advance payment of their 2017 cruise, 2) a loan at 15% where the interest would be paid in the form of a tour or 3) a loan at 7% interest. Passengers were evenly divided in how they responded to the three options. It was clearly a loyal group of customers.
It took eighteen months to do a major refurbishment – all of which had to be accomplished in the off season (October to March). The Smiths showed photos of the major change to the David B which included cutting off of the front of the old dog house (“a scary day”) and then using a crane to drop an entirely new aluminum house and beautiful finishing touches to the interior of the boat. Aluminum was used because it was lightweight and easy to fabricate. The goal was to get the David B to look as close as possible to the original 1929 design. To accomplish this, they retained a naval architect, Tom Riley, to lead the design.
The final product was a beautifully restored 1929 cruising boat, loyal to its original design but with modern comforts. The David B had its best year this past summer and already has had its best bookings for the coming season.
