We had a great group of 24 gathered at the Redwood for the evening! Frank greeted us as we welcomed Naples native and speaker Jon Trzeciak and our guest Chris Saucke, a newly retired teacher at NCS!

 

President Karen started the gathering with the Pledge, followed by Jack leading the National Anthem. Patrice shared a sweet prayer on the theme of a spring morning.

 

Jo Anne presented a quick update on the status of the Naples Grape Festival, which was only 68 days away! We have 96 arts/crafts vendors, 25 food vendors, 12 corporate sponsors and 4 community sponsors. The Beverage Garden will host 9 wineries, 2 breweries and 3 distilleries! The musicians are lined up, thanks again to Mike Joseph. Festival t-shirts and hoodies have been ordered and will be available for pre-sale mid-August. Naples Historical Society will sell shirts on Thursdays at Morgan Hose Building from 1-4 pm and at Monday Rotary Meetings. Most all of the needs are falling into place and the budget is looking good! Volunteers will be scheduled in August. The most important wish is for GREAT WEATHER on Sept 28th and 29th!

 

Camp Onseyawa takes place August 10-25th at Camp Whitman in Penn Yan. Volunteers are needed for set-up on August 10th and for the Carnival on August 18th. Anyone available please contact Frank Duserick or Micah Moore.

 

Rose announced that she will be happy to help with Light Up Naples but will not be chairing the committee this year. She asks everyone to consider taking on this great community event.

 

We have two Rotary Exchange students arriving here in a month, from Japan and Taiwan.  In addition, there are three Naples students heading out to Brazil, Thailand and Sweden! How exciting for all of them!

 

Liz is now Past President and had offered to hold the President Elect spot as well. Luckily, we recently have volunteers to fill the vacant positions of President Elect and Vice President! Jack offered to be President Elect and Carrie Grove and Judy Miller would like to be Co- Vice Presidents. These uncontested candidates were proposed to the membership and were unanimously approved by verbal vote. Congratulations!

 

Jon Trzeciak was our speaker this night. He is the son of Jon and Cindy Trzeciak of Cindy's Pies fame! He went to high school with Carrie and was recruited to speak to us about his interesting career path. He is a representative of a medical device company, Gore, which produces highly specific aortic stents used to save patients with aneurysms. He works with surgeons in the operating room, selecting the appropriate device specific to the patient's need. The devices correct the aneurysm from inside the artery, greatly reducing the surgical time and recovery. Jon gave a demo of the amazing technology with hands on assistance from President Karen! Jon's career path was an unexpected journey, once he found his passion, from radiology tech to interventional radiology to Physician Assistant! It's a far cry from his beginnings as a pie box folder! Jon's stories of his youthful "grape pie days" kept us very entertained as well.

 

The Ace of Hearts was $73. Alan had the lucky ticket but not the lucky card, drawing the 10 of Spades.

 

Happy Bills thanked Jon for his great presentation and the wonderful work he does. No one really wants to need his services though! Chris said she is newly retired and looking to get involved with the Naples community where she taught for 18 years. John and Sherry enjoyed a visit from their niece and nephew. And Coop was a help for John on hole 5 at Res Creek!

 

The Rotary Moment shared by Carrie was how Grady didn't really want to go to RYLA, stating that "I am not Charlie". He did go anyway and reported on the way home "Thanks for making me go." He has been in touch with the group multiple times since! Jack ran into a guy in a vintage Naples Rotary hat in Cheshire - it was Paul French and wife Linda. They enjoyed catching up.

 

Karen led us in the Four Way Test and adjourned the meeting at 7:05pm.

 

 

Please note: Monday July 29th meeting is at noon!

The calendar needs updating but I haven't learned how to do that yet! See you then!