MEETING NOTES -- April 21, 2010

The Auction is moving along great as well.  There's a condo stay in Hawaii donated by Dennis Mihalka and there was a beautiful, hand-crafted rocking horse on display today.  The horse was made by Howard Taylor and Clair Carter and purchased by Don Brooks.  Don is "leasing" it to the next generation of Rotarians in hopes that whoever "leases" it, donates it back to RER for auction at a future date.  Fund raised from the horse will go toward the Jackie Brooks award.

Twenty one Rotarians have signed up for the Visioning Session on April 29^th.  A report of the plans will be made at the May 26^th regular meeting.

The Enterprise Student of the Month was presented with her awards.  Taylor Husted is a senior at EHS and very involved in band, choir, Starship and anything music.  Congratulations Taylor.

RECOGNITIONS:  Curtis Newcomb bought a new mountain bike and is going to enter the Lemurian race this Saturday at Whiskeytown.  Twenty six grueling miles of mountain bike trail.  Good Luck Curtis.  Your webpage editor will be out there cheering you on and taking photos since you will be racing against her son.  Curtis has met his commitment, so this was just a GOOD LUCK recognition.

Spring Break Trips continue to haunt our club.  Seems Roger Whittaker has an educator in his home and he also took a spring break jaunt.  This time is was LakeHavasu and Death Valley.  He paid $101.00 for that trip.

Mary Burger and her care home A Brand New Day were honored at the "Best Places to Work in ShastaCounty" event.  One of Mary's employees was deployed to Afghanistan and while she was there Mary and her staff sent messages and baskets and reminders of home and how much she was missed.  This employee then nominated Mary for the award.    Mary was honored, but still had to pay $65.55.

Seems Queen Bev and Allyn Clark were also honorees at the Best Places event.  TurtleBay won the best non-profit place to work.  Jerry Peters fined Bev and Allyn $50 each, plus himself because he's on the TB Board, but he paid for everyone.  A $150 recognition for Jerry.

Anna Bengtsson was one of the driving forces behind those business awards so she had to pay $24.74 for her part.

Today's presentation was by the ever so witty and fun Dr. Ray John from Haven Humane, whose biggest accomplishment was marring our very own RER member, Maggie John.  In 2003, Ray retired from Bishop Quinn as the principal/administrator/big cheese and then Maggie got tired of him calling seven times a day and told him to go back to work. 

He went to work for the Good News Rescue Mission for four years, and then did a semester at SycamoreSchool as principal fill-in.  Laying at home recovering from shoulder surgery and while in massive pain from a staph infection, he took the job at Haven.  He says he doesn't even like dogs!

Needless to say the Haven Humane Society was lucky to get Ray and after 20 months at the helm the organization is running in the black and the employees are happy.  Haven does many things besides animal rescue.  The $2 million organization answered 6, 187 calls last year, they go to Doggie Court once a month with "bad owners", do licensing for the City of Redding, spay and neuter feral cats and domestic ones, rescue, adoption, and the list goes on.  The center even has a wild deer sanctuary in Igo.  Ray says that the biggest accomplishment for him is that the society has "Stopped Feeling Sorry for Itself"!

The 50/50 chance to win was won by Bill Evanhoe, AGAIN.  If you buy ten tickets every week you get to spin!  He didn't win this time.  The gift was won by our Student of the Month's grandma!  Yeah.