Please send your Happy Buck and Polio Pitcher donations to Mac H. as follows:
Mac Hardin
Minnetonka Rotary Club
12926 Rutledge Circle
Minnetonka, MN 55305
Rotary International Foundation
Please send your end of year donations to Chris Rosenlund as follows:
Chris Rosenlund
8672 Meadowvale Drive Eden Prairie, MN 55347
Meeting Minutes
Meeting called to order by President Ryan at 7:30.
Guests
Mike Cooper from the Excelsior Rotary Club, and our speaker today, Esther Hollander.
Invocation
Invocation by Tyrone- He refers to the 4-Way test as the heart of what we do as Rotarians. Rotary is built on friendship; it is our central value. This and service is the flag we wave and the drum we march to.
Pledge
Everyone.
4-Way Test
Everyone.
International Theme
Create Lasting Impact.
Paul Harris Awards
Alexa R. - Paul Harris +4, Floriane N. PH +1, and Mark Forsberg, +7.
Announcements
Announcements - we will be talking about our Fundraiser every week, as we are only a month away. Mike G. - on the overall view. It’s coming together, our goal is $45,000 net proceeds.
Chris R. and Cathy P. - our sponsorships are at $26,700, and hoping to meet 2025 number of $33,000. The deadline is by (about) Sept 3 to get all the signs and materials prepared.
Tracy R. - Baskets, Booze and Auction items; We are still in need of more of all. Every member is asked to bring a bottle, or two, of spirits to weekly meetings. Think of creative ideas to auction, as well as donations from businesses.
Jerald S. - raffle ticket sales are coming in, but keep asking. Consider Annika’s strategy of e-sales and Venmo or Zelle payments.
Annika M. - be sure to use your social media to the max. Share and Comment. Use the Post from Alexa.
Other Announcements;
Sara E. -asks us to fill out the Speaker survey every week. It helps with planning future speakers. Every member is asked to seek out interesting speakers.
Beth Y. - STRIVE is taking shape for a roll-out 1st week of October. Plan on the meeting right after our weekly meeting on August 26th, with Tammy Magney here from the Excelsior Club, the Strive sponsor club, who we are helping.
Bob H. - here with Mike Cooper, about the importance of donating blood. Mike has been VERY active in arranging drives with hundreds of donors. We’d like to pair up Mtka and Excelsior clubs to come to each other’s drives. More than that, consider giving blood 2 or more times per year, and ask your friends and family to join us. If we can get from 3% of eligible donors to 4% or more, we wouldn’t have a shortage. Excelsior’s Drive is on Sept 9 at Pique Travel in Excelsior. Ours is on Nov 12 in our meeting room. We purposely set these over 56 days apart, so you can do both. Call or text Mike at 952-500-0862 or Bob at 952-484-5065. You can always call Memorial Blood at 651-332-7150 to make an appointment at their Eden Prairie or Plymouth centers.
New Member Induction
None this week.
Rotary Minute
None this week.
Raffle
Raffle ticket was held by Jim Martin, but lives on to play another day.
Foundation Award Checks or Thank Yous
None today.
Happy Bucks
Nancy D. -for a taking part in the Stillwater Club’s Ridge to Valley Ride. She went 70 miles. She met a rider who knew Ann.
Ann W. - for time at the cabin with family, and being a neighbor of Mike Cooper.
Lenny N. - for a great tour of 5 Eastern MLB ballparks, and (I think) a trip to Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
Jim M. - for his son off to Pittsburgh for school, and his daughter coming back from Spain to start a teaching job.
Ron U. - for an un-announced visit by his kids. “Why are you here?”, he asked. “It’s your birthday”. “Oh, thanks for the reminder”. Ron says to prepare for this time next year when we’re invited to celebrate his 90th! Congratulations, Ron!
Alexa R. - thanks for the ride home from Mike after the Fundraiser meeting.
Floriane N. - for the Paul Harris recognition.
Program
Esther Hollander from Clifton Strength Finders. She is a neighbor of Mikey and Alissa. She says she is a coach, and helps us put the pieces of our personalities together. She has performed this process of finding out our strengths to thousands of people.
“Why fit in in when you were born to stand out?” Connect the big picture of our lives. She says her most used tool is just listening. Becoming self-aware is a major goal of the process. We are all unique; when we sort out the many pieces of personalities, no one is the same as another.
“Name, Claim, Aim” Find you strengths, accept them as part of you, and begin to grow into them. Apply your strengths.
Some of the Top 5 strengths are being an achiever, a learner, being responsible, a relater, strategic, and reliable. The LESS common traits are self-assurance, command, significance, and discipline. Your strengths may be different at work, than at home, than with social settings.
Esther showed us some effective techniques to help organize our strengths and how to build on them. We tend to over use or underuse our strengths. Is our pace ahead of others, do we ‘raise our hand’ to often, do we just repeat what we’ve done before. Thank you, Esther, for a 25-minute introduction to what can take a much longer time to learn and apply. This was a very informational talk today.
Adjournment
Submitted by Bob Hersman.
Member Submissions
From Mark Marlin and the Grief Club:
Dear Friend,
Every day, children, teens, young adults, and their caregivers are learning how to carry the weight of grief while finding their way forward.
At The Grief Club of Minnesota, we witness their courage as they share their stories, support one another, and rediscover hope. As we reach more grieving kids and families, our community continues to come together in meaningful ways to surround them with care and support.
Because of the generosity of those who believe in our mission, all services are provided by skilled licensed counselors at no cost to the families we serve, helping remove barriers to high quality mental health care.
In this edition of The Club Connection, we’re sharing what’s coming up, including our summer grief camp, school staff trainings, upcoming golf event, community gatherings, and ways to get involved.
Whether you are a grieving family, community partner, supporter, or sponsor, we invite you to be part of the healing.
Healing Hearts Soirée
Mark your calendar for an inspiring evening celebrating hope, connection, and the power of community, all in support of vital grief resources for children and families. We will be accepting sponsorships along with live and silent auction donations to help make this meaningful event possible.
Frank, I wanted to follow up and say THANK YOU for the opportunity to present this morning. Shannon and I had a great time and we really appreciated the engaging questions afterwards. We can tell you have a thoughtful and passionate group which is what is needed to drive community impact! You inspired us to check out our own communities' local Rotary chapters.
I wanted to follow up with a few resources from our presentation today since members were requesting more information and we didn't have our business cards on hand. If you are open to it, do you mind sharing the following resources with your members so that they can reach out with their follow ups? A few members that we spoke to afterwards are so well connected in relevant statewide organizations, we would love to connect and get further information!
