Northwind February 4, 2010
WHATCOM COUNTY NORTH ROTARY CLUB
NORTHWIND
MEETING TO ORDER:
President Chuck called the meeting to order at 12:20.
Rick Staab gave the invocation, encouraging everyone including the Lord, to have a Great Day.
GUESTS:
Leah's guest was Willa, and Marlene's guest was Jonathan Hutchings, a fellow Lummi Islander.
VISITING ROTARIANS:
Rocky announced the visiting Rotarians: George Tsakumis from Vancouver and Peter Self from Bellingham.
BIRTHDAYS:
Tim Carpenter's birthday was today.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: TYLER
: Still need keynote speaker for the Career Fair. Paul Cooley has secured the food aspect. Save the date: April 1, 2010.
PAUL
: The Group Study Exchange is moving forward for May 11-14, 2010. He still needs two more volunteers to home-host. It would be best if each visitor could stay put at the same home for the whole stay, it makes it much easier for them. Hosting does not mean you will have to chauffer the visitor around all week. Other volunteers, including Jim Bliss, will do this for the team.
RAY:
raffled a bottle of wine off to a lucky ticket holder, but the process got rather complicated, and I'm not sure who actually won the wine - I think it was either Jack or Dan Parsons.
DAN P.
announced that we will not be able to clean up our stretch of the highway until after the Olympics, now. He is working on a date.
TIM:
Superbowl pool squares are for sale, with a portion of the proceeds to go to the Foundation.
AUCTION COMMITTEE:
Dan, Tim and Ray: Ray is heading up the process to collect the auction items. Tim will be keeping track of who is coming. Names are needed ASAP. Cutoff for donated items is 2/26. Raffle money should be turned in to Dick Donahue. Each member was given an envelope with invitations and donation forms.
FOUNDATION MINUTE
: Tim also gave this, which was an explanation of the District Simplified Grant process. He noted that although matching grant funds are exhausted for the year, Simplified Grants are not. We can still put together a request for either a local or international project.
HAPPY BUCKS:
Tim: his first Eagle (I think this is golf, not illegal raptor hunting), and being a senior citizen. Marlene: her guest., Paul: Sun, Vitamin D, and selling all his tickets. Tim V.: Nice weather, and the Lummi Ferry possibly coming to Fairhaven. There will be an Appleby's coupon for 2/13 to benefit Hearts Toward Home, a veterans' program. Scott: Nice weather and a good JA Breakfast. Dan Baker: He sold all his tickets, and he is a really shy guys, so if he could do it so can you. He learned that you just have to ask. Jim Bliss was happy for a Ferndale reunion and $250 to the senior center. Chuck was happy for the Husky's letter of intent. (To whom??)
FINE MASTER was Jack Curnow:
The Wallace $5 rule was in effect. Ray was fined for messing around with the wine. Anyone who has NOT brought their child to Rotary, or who did not have a child was fined. Paul was fined for miss-pronouncing Haggen. And for a comment about Montana. Julie was fined for excessive "purpleness" at her table. Tyler for whining, and Rick Staab for stealing pens from his tablemates.
Gary Thomsic introduced Debra Akre and Jeana King, co-founders of Project Education, Inc. The project has had tremendous success with is development of a secondary school in Kenya. The project has two missions, secondary education for impoverished children and community economic development for long term sustainability.
Debra and Jeana described starting their foundation and their school from scratch, told several stories about the process, and cited achievements of their students' successes. They also discussed how they use American business processes like project assessment to determine the success and failure of their work. They found that in addition to the non-profit work of the school, they needed to start a for-profit arm in order to help local women develop profitable ways to market products that they produce. After an amazingly complex process they become one of a very few entities actually permitted to import true Kenyan Coffee.
The work of PEI was very inspiring! If you would like to learn more, they can be reached at :
Debra Akre, MBA, PHd President and Cofounder
4475 18th Crest
Bellingham, WA 98226
360-647-7006