Please join us Friday, February 23, to hear from Ken Schmanke about development in Topeka!
Ken Schmanke has been a leader in the Topeka, Kansas commercial real estate market since 1988. His experience and career path have led to the creation of several business and numerous investments. He enjoys his work, mostly because of the wonderful relationships with past, present, and future team members and customers. Ken is driven to continuously improve the services, products and value provided by K1 and is blessed to work with talented and driven team members who share the K1 Core Values and Purpose.
See below for directions to the meeting location.
Announcements will begin promptly at 7:45 am, with breakfast and coffee being served at 7:30 am!
Brewster Cultural Arts Building
The Cultural Arts Center is at 900-B SW 31st Terrace, Topeka, KS 66611. The main nearest intersection is 29th & Topeka Blvd. You will turn off of 29th Street, south into Brewster’s campus (near St. Francis Urgent Care), take the drive south to the parking areas. The red oval is closest to the Cultural Arts building, but parking here will fill up quickly. The green is the top level of the parking garage (accessed on the east end of the garage). The blue is the largest lot, but also furthest away. You can park in any of these locations. Please note that the second level of the parking garage is for residents only.
You will enter the Cultural Arts building off of the circle drive, at the check mark. Once in the doors you will go to your right and we will meet in our networking space at the red X. It’s a wide-open space.
As you all know, we have a long-standing history with Washburn. We love supporting the local university and it’s been exciting to watch them grow over the years. With their successes our club is finding it more and more difficult to fit into their schedule. The students are the priority (as they should be) and our board is finding it challenging to have a consistent meeting location that is also easily accessible for all people. The last few years we’ve had to find alternative meeting locations for over 25% of our meetings. Unfortunately, a few of those changes has been with just a couple of weeks’ notice.
At a Board level, we’ve been considering a location change for several years. Not because we want to leave Washburn, but because we want consistency for our members. Finding a meeting space for 50-70 people at 7:30 on a Friday morning, with catering and quality AV, is challenging. We believe we may have found a solution, but we want your input.
Last week and this week we are meeting at Brewster, in their new Cultural Arts Building. It’s an event room, set up for exactly what we need, with in house catering. They are excited to host us. We want to encourage you to attend the meeting this week, try the food, and let us know your thoughts. We are considering a permanent move to Brewster, and we want your input. If we make the move we will still have off site meetings, but only when we want to and for reasons we want. Please let us know what you think. We’re excited about this opportunity, but we want to hear from you.
We will be meeting at Washburn for the month of March. If we make the move to Brewster it will start in April.
You can now pay the current quarter dues via Zeffy. The billing will show $155 for base dues. If you would like to pay the optional can money you can add that as an additional donation.
Will You Help Us Reach our Goal for Rotary Foundation Giving?
As you know, Topeka South Rotary has been superior in meeting our goals that the board sets for our club each year. One of those goals is for our club members is to contribute to the Rotary Foundation to meet our annual goal (for this Rotary year our annual giving goal to the Foundation is $13,000).
You all should have received an email from Faron Barr on November 27, asking you to consider giving to the Rotary Foundation in honor of Giving Tuesday. Faron included a lot of great information about the Foundation and its projects. Even though Giving Tuesday is past, we hope that you consider a gift to the Foundation. I don’t know about you, but I am always inclined to learn more about the Rotary Foundation, so in the next few months, you will be learning about the Foundation as well through speakers and testimonials from our members that have given.
So, my ask to you not only includes giving to the Rotary Foundation, but if you are already a donor, would you be willing to provide a brief testimonial at club meeting about why you choose to give to the Foundation? If so, please contact me at my work email (marlou.wegener@bcbsks.com) or you can also reach me on my cell phone - 785-230-4378. Please consider this as it will definitely make an impact to our members!
We started off the 2024 program year on January 5 by hearing from Roger Aeschliman, who presented on major gifts to the Rotary Foundation! And I hope to hear from you about wanting to give your testimonial about why you give to the Rotary Foundation. Thank you for your consideration.
Marlou Wegener
P.S. Oh, and if you are ready to go ahead and contribute to the Rotary Foundation, you can go to https://my.rotary.org/en/donate!
Club Information
Fridays at 7:45 AM
Washburn University
1700 SW College Avenue
Topeka, KS 66621 United States of America
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