February is a special birthday month. Not only is February the month that Rotary was officially founded in 1905, it is also the Rotary Club of Portola's charter month. Our club was sponsored into Rotary on February 16th, 1938 by the Rotary Club of Quincy. Our club has an 82 year legacy here in the community and we are getting stronger every day! This month's social on February 27th will celebrate our charter with a fabulous chili cook-off. Team 2 is organizing this event, so if you want to show off your chili cooking skills contact Kim Wilbanks, Team 2 Captain.
On January 7th, Missy Leal came to the club to talk about our current District Service Grant to build raised gardens/flower beds and install picnic tables and benches at C Roy Carmichael School. The project will beautify the school, while at the same time providing an "outdoor laboratory" for students to grow their own plants. In addition, it will enhance safety on the playground by blocking child access to bulky air conditioning equipment. Also, the tables and benches will replace old and un-serviceable ones. This is an exciting project that is partially funded through a matching grant from The Rotary Foundation. President Matt has been the driver on this project - THANKS, MATT!! Lumber for the project has been purchased, and the boxes are being built at Portola High School by the wood shop class.
The monthly board meeting was held on January 14th. Our club is in great shape financially. In addition, the board approved a grant to the "Plumas to Pacific" program for up to a maximum of $1,000 if they still need assistance. Elizabeth will check with the school to determine what if any support is still needed.
Our lunch meeting for January was held at the PHS library since the City had plowed in our club house, blocking access. Jessica Nelson, with the Golden State Electric Cooperative, gave a fantastic presentation on the how coops work, and how they serve folks here in California.
The big news of the meeting was that we had a winner in the Marble game! Rachelle Ramelli was the lucky one! Jessica Nelson's son Enzo helped Rachelle out by pulling the white marble out of the bag. Rachelle generously donated all of her winnings (ove $100) the the PHS basketball teams.
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Enzo and Rachelle celebrate the white marble at the January 21st meeting.
On January 28th, the club held a special breakfast meeting to go over our recent member satisfaction survey, and our Club Visioning exercise. Kim gave a succinct PowerPoint summarizing our member's satisfaction with the club. Good news: we got a very good "report card". In general folks are very satisfied with their club experience, however the survey did point out some areas where we can apply some effort and energy to make our club better, stronger, and more satisfying to its members. This info. has been passed on to the appropriate committees and work has already begun to make our great club ever GREATER!!
President Matt went through a PowerPoint of our Club Visioning exercise. This presented us with an exciting and attractive path to more "Fun through Service". The visioning will be presented to the board of directors on February 11th with the intent of establishing real tangible goals as we move ahead.
That's all for this month, see you in February!