October 15, 2012 Meeting Notes
Posted by Peter Lemmon
on Oct 15, 2012
In President Tim’s absence, Steve Spiller brought the meeting to order, and then kept the Club standing until the Hotel started serving dinner. Scott McFarland led us in the flag salute and Kelly Quinn gave us an invocation. There were no guests. Steve Sauer gave a “Ball Drop tickets” sales report: $2,500 has now been raised; one more weekend of sales; and, volunteers are needed! Kathy Egenes was recognized for 12 years perfect attendance, and she shared a Rotary Moment with us—after hearing about the Botwa Pygmies on NPR with no mention of Rotary; she was happy she new the “inside story” and Rotary’s own Dr. Kellerman!
Steve then turned over the meeting to Jon Byerrum, who was our day’s program, as he heads up the Rotary Foundation Committee for our Club. He led us in a Foundation Drive, which resulted in pledges by all in attendance (and many who were not but were represented) toward the Foundation and members’ Paul Harris Fellows. Jon invited all to attend the Rotary Foundation Dinner on Wednesday, October 24th with cocktails at 5:30 at Miners' Foundry, the sole reason we are dark on 10/22. So sign up if you haven’t already!! Jon inspired us with another story of the Botwa Pygmies (also heard on NPR) and one on Polio Eradication, which made him feel very proud to be a Rotarian—especially one in Dr. Kellerman’s own county. Jon filled our minds with statistics on the history and progress of Rotary’s polio eradication efforts, and then he had us all take a pop quiz of only 3 minutes, after which Wyn Spiller’s table was declared the winner, with an almost perfect score for 19 questions. “We can’t all travel to Uganda to help the Botwa Pygmies personally, but we can all give to the Foundation and help in that way,” Jon said. He went on: “We can’t stop the polio eradication efforts now, when we are almost “there” because 10 Million children will contract polio within just a few years if we do that.” So everyone donated. Great job Jon!