Not too much to mention, but they are important:

 

1.  Our agenda this Thursday the 19th will include a discussion of dues level for next club year.

2.  Jill Muegge is going to take over Secretary duties on June 1st.

3.  Tod's badge has been found!!  You would never guess where it was found

Neil introduced our speaker of the day, Kevin Boyle, President of the Templeton (Iowa) Savings Bank.  Kevin is a graduate of Iowa State and lives a few miles West of Templeton in the town of Manning where he is President of the Rotary Club of Manning.  Several people in attendance at this meeting are friends of Kevin, including Neil Kirby, Dan Palmquist, Chris Denny of Omaha Morning Club and Denny Duer of the Omaha West Rotary Club. 

 

Kevins topic for the morning was a tour of South Africa sponsored by the Iowa Farm Bureau that both Kevin and his Wife participated in during the period of March 13 to 23, 2016.  The itinerary of of the trip is shown on the the red highlighted line:  copy and paste into your browser

The itinerary contains several pictures about South Africa and the places the tour planned to visit. 

 

A post tour discussion of the trip, also on the Iowa Farm Bureau website is shown on the following Link, copy and paste into your browser.

 

Kevin's presentation dealt with the Country of South Africa in general.  The following observations are provided of Kevin's comprehensive talk:

1.  South Africa is in the middle of a 150 year drought

2.  The farm fields are still productive due to irrigation

3.  Wildlife and Tourism is a major source of income

4.  Elementary and Secondary schools are poor, however colleges and universities are top notch.

5.  The country has a drought year every third year, approximately.

6.  Many white farmers have concertina wire fences around their homes for protection.  (there are 400 private security companies)

7.  Major exports of the country are beef and lamb, imports include wheat, pork and soybean meal.

8.  Squatters are a major problem to landowners because of current law.

9.  The Gross Domestic Product is about $600 billion dollars, in contract Australia of $1.6 trillion.

10.  South Africa is the richest country in Africa, with an unemployment rate of 25 percent.

11.  A shanty town a few miles out of a major city has 1.2 million residents with an unemployment rate of 80 percent.

12.  South Africa's land area is equivalent to the combined are of US states of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

13.  The country's government consists of Executive, Legislative and Judicial, none of which are in the same city.

14.  The country is rampant with corruption at all levels.

15.  90 percent of the country's land is owned by 10 percent of the population.

16.  The production of grapes and wine in the country is a growing and prosperous industry

 

 

Kevin gave a nice slide show of the places they visited including tourist areas and privately owned farms.  View the links above or simply search the web with the following search words  (Iowa Farm Bureau South Africa) to get an idea of what he saw.  Kevin is shown in pictures below addressing our club and receiving an official WDC banner from our President Roger.

 

 

The Lunch Bunch consisted of club members Ariann Brown, Jill Muegge, Ron Mortensen, Jack Ott and Jim Tomanek.  Due to the lack of a speaker, we had a free flowing conversation that ranged from drones to downtown Elkhorn development, with a side trip to COPE.  Rex Moats will Chair the next Lunch Bunch at Sam and Louie's, I believe on the 25th but don't count on my memory, watch for the next official announcement by Jim.

The District 5650 webinar just concluded.  The 2014-15 financials were presented and approved for both the District and the Youth Exchange program.  The to-date 2015-16 financials for the District (operating budget) and the Youth Exchange were presented in detail and approved.  The District is in good financial shape and well within budget and reserve requirements.  The proposed 2016-17 operating budgets for both the District ($103,799) and the Youth Exchange program ($20,700) were approved as presented.  District Leadership - Madeline Madden was nominated and approved as the District Governor nominee.  District leadership for the next year thus is Gary Bren, District Governor; Tom Cardwell, District Governor-elect: and Madeline Madden, District Governor nominee.  The bulk of the meeting involved reviewing the rationale, process and proposals for a significant bylaws revision.  Primarily new bylaws were needed to allow district structural changes, modernize meeting methods, clean-up language for clarity and conform by-laws to present legal requirements.  A committee worked on the by-laws or most of the past year.  The proposed by-laws were open for comment in March.  After discussion, the new bylaws were passed with 100% of votes in favor.  The new bylaws go into effect immediately and will result in some changes at the District meeting in August.  District Governor Rod Bates encouraged one and all Rotarians to plan to attend the District Conference August 5 (eve.) and August 6 at the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln.  Speakers include Senator Bob Kerry and Senator Chuck Hagel.  All business being concluded, the webinar meeting adjourned at 8:20 PM.  -Roger Breed