Northwind August 4, 2016
Posted by Marlene Sexton on Aug 13, 2016
Call to Order: President Dale called the meeting to order and led us in the flag salute. He also provided a reading from Rotary International president John Germ.
Invocation: Deb Wiggs provided the invocation.
Visiting Rotarians: Nancy Jordan (B’ham club) and Loren Vander Yacht, president of the Mt. Baker Club, and Kendall Olson, president of the newly formed Rotaract club. Welcome!
Guests: Stan’s son Don Brunner, Marcus Morris and Joe Franzen were today’s guests. Welcome to all of you! Great to know Don is back to the Whatcom County area, we are hoping to see much more of him now!
Returning Rotarians: Greg and Jill
Anniversaries and Birthdays: Ken’s birthday is July 30th and Laurie’s husband Ric also celebrates his birthday. Jim S. celebrates 6 years in Rotary and Ken celebrates 17 years.
Announcements: Dale provided a reading from Rotary International president John Germ and some thoughts about how we can continue to work on increasing our membership, including both corporate and individual members. He reminded us he is still expecting each of us to come up with at least one member suggestion.
Tim explained that we are collecting and then reissuing the Duck Race tickets for two reasons, one is to see where we are at this point, and the other is to re-issue the lower numbered tickets, so that it will be simpler to make sure that the ducks that go into the race correspond with the ticket numbers that have been sold.
We will be continuing to sell tickets up until a few hours (?maybe more??) before the race, as we expect the excitement to be building when the ducks themselves make an appearance. Time also noted that the race will be an all hands on deck situation, as we will have lots of tasks for not only selling tickets, but setting up the racecourse, etc. Please try you hardest to be there!
Eric noted that The last Duck Ticket push will be at the Fair from August 15-20. We will be able to sell our tickets at his booth conveniently located by the food court and performance state.
**The next board meeting will be at Sharon’s office on August 31rd. This will be at 4:00 and should be over by 5:30.
**November is Foundation Month so be thinking about Paul Harris fellowships. The dinner will be on the 10th at Northwood Hall. Mark your calendars!
Happy Bucks: Lots of people were happy, it’s summer and the sun is out. And the Mariner’s seem to be doing sort of maybe okay.
Finemaster: Tim fined those who has been slacking in the effort to sell duck tickets, as well as a number of other people that I missed.
Program: Our program today was provided by Bryce Henshaw of the Bellingham United Debate team. She spoke very eloquently about what a debate team is, what they do, and what the Bellingham group has been up to.
The Bellingham United Debate Club, (BUDC) is made up of participants from Sehome, Squalicum and Bellingham High Schools. Students do not need to find partners in their own schools. They travel to debate tournaments in Washington and Oregon from October through March. Between March and June, they recruit and in the summer, they strive to send debaters to summer debate camp. Whatcom County North Rotary provided funding to help the group attend the Pioneer Debate Institute, hosted by Lewis and Clark this summer. Debate and forensics are WIAA state-sanctioned activities. We are also members of the Washington State Forensics Association. The do two types of debate, Policy and Public Forum. Policy debate uses the same topic all year and emphasizes strategy, theory and research. The current topic relates to trade with China. The Public Forum debate topic changes monthly. Public Forum concentrates on persuasion, organization and speaking skills.
Public Forum topics have ranged from fact-based topics such as, “On balance, GMO-modified foods have more advantages than disadvantages” to more value-based topics, such as “All Americans should be guaranteed two free years of college education.” Debate is rigorous, competitive academic activity. Every year, over 130,000 students and coaches nationwide participate in speech and debate activities through the National Forensics League (NFL – www.speechanddebate.org).
Drawing: Greg Iwasaki won the drawing, but did not draw the Ace of Spades, so the pot grows to over $1,000!
N.B. Please accept my apology for a less than complete Northwind, I was trying to check in Duck Tickets and the same time as writing.