MEETING NOTES - November 10, 2010
Team Nine East hosted our Veteran's Day meeting – led by captain Gordon Flinn. Realtor and community volunteer extraordinaire Barbara Harrison was honored as this week's Community Builder. She's given decades of service to youth, most recently through her volunteer work with Kool April Nites, Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Shasta County Women's Refuge and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Redding East Rotary honored the veterans in the club for their service to our country..service to us all.this special holiday week. RER veterans on hand to stand for their due ovation included Pat Wallner, Jim Salini, Howard Taylor, Charlie Clinkenbeard, Milt Schultz, Brian Crume, Bill Brown, John Oakes, Ed Harrison, Jim Westerberg, and Roger Whittaker. Please forgive your editor if there are any errors in this listing! We have the privilege of having a large group of people to recognize!
President Charlie recognized Laura Redwine for being a movie star..well, not exactly. But she can add a new job title to her resume-video technician! A film crew is using the Redwines' Rickert Ranch in Cottonwood as the location for shooting a Western. Apparently the only real movie star in the family is Laura's husband, who was allowed an on-screen role, likely because of his vast experience compared to Laura. He took drama in high school! For the privilege of having her home life uprooted and being married to a movie "star", Laura paid $25.
Condolences were offered to Allyn Clark, for the unexpected loss of her mother last week. Also the club sends get well wishes and concern to member Randall Hempling, just starting a 4-month bout of chemotherapy so we'll be missing him at RER activities, and to Jerry Peters, whose dad is battling throat cancer.
President Charlie thanked Allyn for her organization of the wine donations for the North State Eight Rotary clubs hospitality room at last weekend's District Conference and he thanked Dave Ercolano and Chad Thompson for attending the conference. Apparently our hospitality was well received by all conference attendees and the Redding East Rotarians did their part to try to step it up in the food, fun and fellowship category. Such a sacrifice on behalf of our club!
Sue Metcalfe reminded all to sign up for the fabulous RER Holiday Party planned for Friday, December 10th. The club will begin fellowship at Bill Haedrich's house with cocktails from 6:00 t0 7:00 pm, followed by dinner at the Tierra Oaks Country Club from 7:30 to 9:30 pm and then dessert at President Charlie's house. All three venues in this "progressive dinner" party are in Tierra Oaks. Cost is only $30 per person and already 95 people have signed up to come out and play!
Ed Harrison was the luck 50/50 drawing winner - but then he turned out to be a loser in the marble drawing - which meant he's a winner in our eyes! Next week's drawing will now be worth more than $525!!
Enterprise High School student of the month was Maria Dionicio. Maria is a 4.0 student and very involved in the music program at EHS.
Because this is Rotary Foundation Month, RER honored our latest Paul Harris Fellows. The inimitable Jim Salini inducted Ed Harrison's grandson Carson into the Paul Harris Society, while Ed himself was honored for his 8th Paul Harris award! In case you're wondering, that means his pin has TWO rubies. Also honored were Gordon Flinn and Marge Beck, in absentia (for her Paul Harris Fellow +2).
The program, also in honor of November's Foundation Month, was presented by District 5160 Foundation Chair Candy Pierce, who began by explaining that the RI Foundation of today is not your father's RI Foundation! A Future Vision strategic planning process has resulted in more local/District control of granting funds from the RI Foundation, which Candy reminded us all is actually our money. To demonstrate the success of the change, she shared that in the 35 year period from 1965 to 2000, RI Foundation awarded 10,000 grants, pretty impressive! Even more impressive is that from 2000 to 2008, only eight years, another 10,000 grants were awarded!! The local grants process has also been simplified with a new Pilot Program in place this year, for which RER is eligible thanks to President Charlie and Foundation Director Chad having attended all the training sessions required for our participation/eligibility. On the international scene, grants are for longer terms, they're larger, and the focus is on projects that will remain sustainable long after Rotarians have left the site. Candy also shared the RI Foundation is doing more PR and Outreach now.
We all know that the RI Foundation asks all Rotarians to give somethingevery year to the Foundation to support our projects, locally and around the world. Our donations sit in the Foundation's investment fund(s) for three years, earning interest and building up the funds that are then distributed to fund the projects. After three years, 50% of ALL our gifts come back to our District to fund local projects and 50% goes to grants in support of Rotary International projects. Because of that 3-year earning power, Rotary is able to assure that 100% of member donations goes to support actual projects..Rotary's work on the ground! The interest earned is what covers administrative costs within the Foundation.
Candy closed to reminding us all that Rotary is a powerful organization that can and does, literally, change the world! And it is only able to do so because of our support!!
The weekly gift from Team Nine East was the universally popular $25 and was won by a mystery Redding East Rotarian, whose name will likely be remembered by club members who are under age 50 and have not suffered the requisite memory lapse issue.