James H. Pickering, since 2006 Estes Park 's Historian Laureate, and the author of over 30 books and articles on Estes Park and Colorado history, will be speaking about his most recent book, He Came and Stayed: Pieter Hondius, The Estes Park Years.
Our program on March 27th will be held in person, but a Zoom link will be provided.
Can you believe that March is almost over? April and May hold exciting events for us. In April we will have our dinners at member hosts’ homes, our 100% Paul Harris Award ceremony followed by Community Clean Up. Then the first weekend of May will be celebrated with our Duck Race!
Right now, Jack Ford and Guy Van der Werf are here at the PETS conference at Embassy Suites in Loveland. I am here as a spouse with my husband as he is President Elect for Sunrise Rotary Club. These conferences are always so inspiring and fun. I want to bring that excitement back home to all of you. Rotary does so much good locally, district wide and internationally. Those dollar bills you donated toward our 100% Paul Harris effort help thousands of people. Thank you for participating.
Rotary should be fun and exciting. I know Scott Robbins is working hard to bring joy to our members with his Saturday morning meetings the first weekend of the month. And our signature event, the Rotary Club Duck Race, will bring fun and excitement to the entire community. Please come join us. Always share your thoughts if you have ideas of fun things for our club to do. You can pass that information on to me, Jack, Guy or Scott.
Until next time,
Annie
Rotary Meeting Notes 3-20-25
President Anne Slack rang the bell at 12:00.
Invocation: Karol Rinehart
Pledge of Allegience: Annie
No Song—Madison was absent.
Annie acknowledged the Duty Roster, including Karol-Invocation, Tim Moore-Greeter & Guest Intro, Tara-Scribe, and Mike Connolly-AV Setup.
Guests of Rotarians:
Tim Moore introduced Dona Burke and Bill Howell
Joke: Scott Thompson
Birthdays: Dave Evans
Anniversary: Rick and Sandee Life (sadly, Rick’s father just passed away)
Announcements:
Beth- The Community Service Committee Meeting will be held immediately after this meeting.
Scott Thompson- The Duck Race Meeting will be held immediately after this meeting at the Quality Inn.
Scott Robbins.- Volunteers for the Duck Race: the sign-up sheet is available. Also, Hosts are still needed for the April 18th Dining Events.
Isaiah- Encouraging Duck Race donations via Associate Sponsorships. Also, the DUCK SORT will be April 10th after the meeting.
Program:
Annie and Beth presented the results of the workshops and goals for 2025-2028: Membership, Speakers, Service, Contributions (Fundraising) and Community projects. Votes were taken on prioritizing of these goals.
Adjournment:
Annie led the four-way pledge and rang the bell at 1:00.
Scribe: Tara Moenning
Heads-Up for April 3rd Program
On Thursday, April 3rd, we are inviting the five candidates running for the Park Hospital Board to attend a Noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Estes Park. They will join us for lunch at 11:30 am, and then each will present a 4-minute introductory talk, to be followed with questions from the members. Please be thinking about questions you might want to pose to the candidates, and have them written down so that we can lose no time in having them answered. Jack Ford and I will be hosting this event.
Tara Moenning
Break Down of Your 2024-25 Rotary Club Dues: $330
Amount Balance International Dues $100.00 $230.00 District Dues $ 52.00 $178.00 Room Rental $ 32.00 $146.00 Plaques, Awards & Socials $ 46.00 $100.00 Club Runner, CC Service Fees & Tax Prep, Advertising $ 31.00 $ 69.00 Speaker & Guest Meals $ 18.00 $ 51.00 Pins, Badges & Flowers $ 15.00 $ 36.00 PETS (President Elect Training $ 11.00 $ 25.00 Insurance $ 10.00 $ 15.00 PO Box Rental, Postage & Printing $ 4.00 $ 11.00 Misc Expenses $ 11.00 $ ~~~
From Mark Lee: An Amazing Project in India
Greetings from India. I had the opportunity to meet some new Rotary friends during my visit to India and wanted to share this with you. Even though I was not able to attend one of their regular meetings, these folks were very generous with their time and came to greet me and welcome me to their communities.
This is a group from the Rajahmundry River City Rotary Club in Andhra Pradesh. The current president and several past presidents came and in total 15 of their members came to greet me and discuss the opportunities for international collaboration. They presented me with a banner from their club, and I will bring it to our meeting next week to share with you. This club is in the city where one of my residence homes for orphans operates, and we discussed a potential project to install a water purification system at this home (more on this below). I think this club will agree to partner with us in this venture (assuming we want to). They also have many worthy projects that they briefed me on.
Rajahmundry River City Rotary Club group
I met this group in Batlagundu, Tamil Nadu. Their club is in that community. Both the current and past president and the current district governor came to greet me. We met at our home for girls that we run in this community. The person on my right is their club president and the person on my left is the District Governor. It turns out that many of their members are already supporting the girls at our home (which is called Shalom Home) with their time and talent. One of their members is a leading dentist, and he comes out to the home a few times a year to give the girls checkups. They also have several doctors in their club that do various health education events for the girls. The District Governor attended the recent celebration of India’s Republic Day at the home, and gave a talk on leadership to the girls. They are very enthusiastic to be connected with our club and want to find projects to collaborate on. The District Governor’s name is Alexander Dhanraha. He told me that their district is the fastest growing district in all of Rotary and that as recognition of this, the RI President came and visited their clubs last year and toured some of their large projects.
Meeting with the District Governor
When I left for India, my goal was to meet one or two local Rotarians and start to build relationships, and begin to explore opportunities for international collaboration. I was overwhelmed with the warm welcome and greetings that I received. In total, I met more than 25 new Rotary friends..
I will be back in Colorado and plan to attend the meeting on 3/27. See you then.
Thanks and Regards,
Mark
P.S., Here is a photo of the boys that live at Angel Home, our orphanage in Andra Pradesh. Whenever I visit, many of the alumni boys from this home come back to greet me. Currently, there are 45 boys living here, and their water supply is not safe for drinking water. They used to have a filtration system, but it was inadequate and failed about two years ago. The staff has to boil water every day to provide water for these 45 boys. I was thinking of proposing this as a joint project with our club and the River City club and possibly applying for an RI grant. I don’t really know how this works, but wanted to see if you think that might be a good project. There are many other needs, but since I know that both of our clubs do work on clean water, thought this might be a good one.
Boys at Angel Home
After the water is boiled, it must cool overnight and then the boys can drink it
Boiled water for drinking
Here is a photo of some of the girls that live at Shalom Home in Batlagundu:
Girls at Shalom Home in Batlagundu
The girl in the middle of the photo is named Sadhasri. I took this photo last Saturday, which was Sadhasri’s 15th birthday. She came to Shalom Home about a year ago. Her father died and her mother had no way to support her and they ended up homeless and living on the street. Since arriving at Shalom Home, Sadhasri has excelled in school and is excited for her future. She just finished her 9th grade final exams and placed first in her class.
President Elect Training Seminar
PETS
March 21 - 23, 2025
What a wonderful weekend we had at PETS. Jack Ford, Guy Van der Werf, Gordon Slack, and myself attended training to prepare for the coming Rotary year. Our President-Elect for Rotary International came from Brazil to support us, Mario Cesar Martines de Camargo. He was an exchange student as a young man in Minnesota, so had a little accent when he spoke. He came because he is distressed at our decreasing number of members in the United States. He said the best way to address the problem was to meet with all the PETS around the country and expose the Rotarians to the problem. He had been to 14 and was able to speak to over 4,000 President-Elects in the United States. His message to all of us is “Unite For Good”.
I took pictures and will add them to this article but the one I want you to see first and foremost is our Jack being presented with his certificate for being a President-Elect.
Jack receiving his certificate at PETS
Annie
RI President-Elect Mario Membership Trends
CesarMartines de Camargo
New Club Trends Dining at PETS
From The Chaplain
Do you know a Club Member who needs assistance? Maybe a ride to meetings, or just a phone call to keep in touch? Please contact Bill Smith 970-420-1033 or billsmithbronx1956@gmail.com.
