Tonight, we had a chance to see the new Naples Grape Fest shirts! Trish and Blanche were here to hand out the free Ts for volunteers and sell additional shirts and hats! They look grape! Naples Grape Fest will be here soon!

 

President Jack started the meeting at 6:05 pm sharp. We said the Pledge and sang America the Beautiful. The inspiration was a quote from Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moon (1930-2012): "I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine." That's 82 years of service to humanity.

 

Greeter Frank introduced our guests: Denise and Kevin Johnson (soon to be members) and this year's Rotary Exchange Student Romane Dehan from Belgium. She starts her year with the Smiths. There were 24 Naples Rotarians attending.

 

Announcements: One Rotary Summit is 9/6 in Avon. * Family Promise Golf is 9/6. * District 7120 Golf is Friday 9/12 at Reservoir Creek. Volunteer sign-up was requested. * No meeting next Monday - Labor Day. * Our Steak Dinner is 9/8 at the VFW- let Skip know you're coming asap. *  The Naples Grape Festival is 33 days away. Volunteer sign-up sheets were circulated.

 

Today's program was the first Club Assembly of the year: Meet the Board. Jack showed the list of officers for 2025-2026 and a list of committee chairs. Some changes are needed to the committee list: Jill is the Youth Exchange Chair and the Interact Chair. She is responsible for all paperwork and coordination of inbound and outbound exchange students. She is also the liaison between Interact and Rotary.

Carrie and Bill are Interact counselors (girls and boys respectively). Carrie is also an NHS Interact advisor (with Colleen Betrus) and the RYLA Chair for our Club and the District. She will do a program on RYLA in September. [Hope I got this all right!]

 

Sherry is the Public Image and Branding Chair. This involves using logos and other materials as specified by Rotary International (RI). She would like others to join this effort. Sherry has also gathered a group of four members to help coordinate the weekly programs.

 

John is the President of both the Naples Grape Festival and the Naples Foundation. He also interacts with the RI Foundation. He is also a District Membership Chair.

 

Cindy is the Membership Chair, since Rose moved to Victor last fall. A new Membership committee of seven has been formed to focus on advertising info pamphlets and creating a vibrant orientation and mentoring program for after new members join us.

 

Laurie chairs the District Oratorical contest that encourages high school students to prepare and deliver speeches. Laurie is dedicated to the kids of Naples Central and organizes backpacks from Rotary for students in need and books for every elementary child at Christmas.

Jack chairs the Vocal contest for the District.

 

Nancy, as Sergeant-at -Arms, is responsible for keeping the meeting in order, setting up the room, running the Ace of Hearts and Happy Bills.

 

Cindy spoke about her career and how it prepared her for the Secretary role. As a supervisor in the Microbiology lab, she led meetings, wrote the minutes,  wrote many procedure manuals and gave presentations. In addition to writing the Grapevine each week, minutes are taken for the Board meetings, Grape Fest meetings and she writes articles that are submitted to the District Grapevine. Other facets of the secretary role are maintaining membership records and taking and recording attendance in ClubRunner.

RI policy requires 50% attendance at meetings with 30% at your home club and make-ups within 14 days. RI however encourages Clubs to determine their own bylaws. Many Clubs do not monitor attendance at all. To encourage Club growth, we need to make it possible for working members to participate as they can. Our Club bylaws say 50% but are being reviewed currently.

We had 15 members who attained perfect attendance for the 2024-2025 Rotary year. Included were regular meeting attendance and make-ups such as board meetings, events, projects, committee meetings and conferences. Make-up time was tracked as best as possible and entered for each individual, a time consuming process. Cindy proposes to honor those who wish to aim for perfect attendance in this way: participating individuals can assist in tracking those make-up meeting dates by submitting the info to Cindy for entry in ClubRunner. Please let her know of your intent to participate and any questions you have.

 

The Ace of Hearts was $120 tonight. The winning ticket was Liz Bailey's, she picked the 9 of Clubs.

Happy Bills were given for the happiness of being part of this group, good information from the program, welcome to Romane and the start of college for the Grove boys. A trip to Camp O last Tuesday was fun and informative with lunch and a long golf cart tour of the Camp. We should be proud of our camp participation as 12 Naples Rotarians took part in the last 2 weeks. Thanks to the number of Club members who are taking on leadership roles. Nancy is proud of her 37th year on the porch at the Grape Fest. She continues to volunteer for "sit-down" jobs!

The Rotary Moment was a thank you note from Analise who received the Doc and Katie Award for her role in founding the Interact club at NHS. She recognized Sally Smith, Matt Frahm, Judy Miller, Charlie Grove and Marty Gordon for their assistance in making it all happen.

 

Jack led the Four Way Test and we adjourned at 7:10 pm.

 

See you all at the Meet and Greet at Lynnie Lou's, Thursday from 6-8 pm. YUM!