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Saturday, Sept. 23 will be our clean up day - meet at Balto Sepela Park at 10:00 and a pot luck will follow.
Rotary is encouraging donations to Shelterbox if you are wanting to help out all the people affected by the recent hurricanes and earthquakes.
Oct 2 will be the visioning meeting, a great chance for club members to decide the direction of our club and the work we do in the community and internationally, the more members involved the better.
Oct 5 is the South Wine Tasting at Aladdin's to benefit the Downtown Soup Kitchen Hope Center, the tilt skillet we now know what it does, and how it works thanks to Mike.
President Ben is collecting good looking business clothes for donation to Clare House, both men’s and women’s clothes are needed as residents go out on job interviews.
Membership month is in full swing, invite a friend to lunch.
Betty Cronin is looking for members to participate in the Dictionary Project. I can tell you it is a lot of fun.
Jonathan is collecting school supplies for North Star Elementary. There are 18 classrooms that will need supplies, there is a printed supply list if you are interested. Jonathan offered a big thank you to Neil for the street sweeper for the Saturday clean up.
Rich Wilson had a Plug for a fun community event to raise funds for the Hurricane areas. A musical Concert on Wednesday Sept 27 6:15 to 8:15 at Trinity Church (12310 Lorraine St. at Huffman)
Ted introduced his guest Carolyn Ferguson with major giving of the Rotary Foundation
Debra Britt was happy to announce there was no damage to the Florida condo and sad to say “See ya in the Spring”
Michael had not only a make up at South but was the program with the drug K9 and officer.
Jess was happy there were chocolate chip cookies
Bruce gave a $50 check to Debra Mason, who’s Football Mania Ticket held the 3 worst team scores. Way to have a first week Winner
Debra Mason invited the club on Sept 30 to the PAC for the chorus scholarship program, this is always fun, and you will get to see Kids complete, a mens quartet perform, and the Alaska Sound Celebration perform, before they are off to the big competition.
Cathie Sträub was happy to celebrate her 29th anniversary.
Dodie was attending her last meeting for about 5 weeks she will be vacationing in Europe.
Clean Water - Rotary can Provide it
Karl is working on a global grant, The BOD has committed $1000. to get the process started. The Main objective is to provide potable water to an impoverished area of Kenya. The beneficiaries are: Megwarra is a small town in Narok County Kenya. The Siana Boarding Primary School, with an enrollment of 1300 students and 35 faculty, the Seventh Day Adventist Girls’ Rescue Center with approximately 100 girls in residence, the Siana Girls’ High School, with 36 students and 5 faculty, the surrounding Maasai community within a three-kilometer radius has 178 households with a population of 740 people, and the Megwarra Dispensary, a level one government clinic for the community, located on the grounds of the Siana Primary School. More information will follow.
More than 775 million people over the age of 15 are illiterate. That’s 17 % of the world’s adult population!
September is Basic Education and Literacy Month! To help support basic education and literacy, Rotary members make amazing things happen, like:
“When you teach somebody how to read, they have that for a lifetime. It ripples through the community, one by one.” Mark Wilson Rotary Club member
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Akila is from Jakarta, Indonesia. She is 17 years old, and she would be a Senior at her school. She loves to draw, watch movies, travel, and write. When she wrote her YE letter, she was working on her first comic. Her school days include her subject studies, breaks, visiting with friends, and a prayer time with her friends, as she is Muslim. She is a member of the student council and she works in the technology and information area for school. She loves to design posters and banners for school.
Akila writes poetry won first place in a poetry competition, and hopes to rise to higher levels of competition. She’s traveled quite a bit, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea.
She likes to think of herself as a strong, solid friend who will help in any way she can, but she also recognizes that she needs “me” time. She wants to explore art as a career, but she’s concerned on making a living doing that. She’s very excited to learn about our culture and to share hers with us.
Akila’s first host family is Nate and Leah Boltz, and their daughter Anna. Leah is a member of the Downtown Rotary club. The Boltz’s hosted Kaja last year, and we are very lucky to have them as the welcome family for Akila. She will be attending South High School with another exchange student from France, Lucie.
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On Sunday, July 9th 2017, our club sponsored the 25th annual Alaska Flag Day celebration. Alaska Child and Family hosts this annual event celebrating Alaska's state flag, which was designed by Benny Benson, an Alaska Child and Family alumnus, in 1927.
Several AIR families attended the event, which was held at The Jesse Lee Campus.
Stay tuned for more opportunities to sponsor, support, and attend events for important community services through AIR!
Sandra Wicks from Anchorage East Rotary Club was our speaker on June 23rd. She presented on the distribution of water filters in rural Mexico, outside of Puerto Vallarta, using district grant funds.
The water filter is basically a gravity filter attached to a bucket. The Sawyer .1 filter, takes out sediment and 99.9% of organisms, but does not filter out heavy metals. The filters cost around $50 each, but purchased in bulk brings the price down. A new filter cleans about 12 to 19 gallons per hour. The photo tour made us feel like we were there. Thank you Sandra.
WhoAmI - Steve Strait
The Who Am I presentation for the AI Rotary meeting was long-time member and past president Steve Strait. We learned that Steve moved to Alaska in 1956 with his family. They built their first house on the wrong lot off Abbott Loop, which was way out in the woods back then.
Steve attended the University of Idaho for a degree in broadcasting. He even admitted to being Trygve's roommate briefly. Steve set out on a short holiday to Australia then New Zealand and ended up meeting his wife and staying for many years. They moved to Kotzebue to set up rural radio stations. He has two kids born in Alaska who now live in New Zealand, whom he visits in February each year. Steve currently works in rural Alaska media, operating two radio stations.
One more Paul Harris award
In Jan Ingram's last official duty as Foundation Co-Chair for AI Rotary last Friday, she presented past president Al Biss with his Paul Harris +3 pin.
Thank you Al for supporting Rotary Foundation and congratulations on this achievement.
President Bruce has returned from the Rotary International conference in Atlanta and by all accounts had a great time. Bruce and his wife Becky (also in attendance at the meeting) were sporting very snazzy t-shirts from a 3 KM walk/run that both participated in.
They met many great folks and we may even see some of them in Alaska at some time. Next years convention will be in Toronto and the year after that in Hawaii!
Another commendation for last year
Kevin Fimon stepped up to accept an additional commendation for our club for meeting all of its goals for the Polio plus campaign during Kevin's year as President.
A Special Rotarian of the Month!
President Bruce presented a special Rotarian of the month to Greg O’Keefe for everything that he has done for our club over the years. Bruce wanted to bestow the honor before Greg moves to Oregon, which will happen as soon as the house sells. We will miss you Greg! Please stay in touch!
The Greek Dinner!
Bob Huston lived up to his words from last weeks meeting and invited all members to a Greek dinner at his house for $100 per person, half of which will go to club administration and the other half into the guests Paul Harris plus an additional 100 points toward their Paul Harris, a win-win for anyone that attends. A signup sheet was going around. Check with Bob if you missed it, there may still be some room left.
While Bob was at it, he presented President Bruce with some additional souvenirs, which included a Rotary club flag from Greece and being Knighted?
Thank you Michael Duxbury for a very informative and action packed presentation on the Opioid epidemic in Alaska. Thank you also for all your hard work, dedication and enthusiasm to keep all of your fellow Alaskans safe from the drug predators that are trying to harm all of us.
Mike brought along Mocha, an Alaska State Troopers K-9 rookie that in just one month on the job has identified illicit substances that lead to more than ten seizures of money and substances for the statewide drug enforcement unit. Mocha’s handler gave us a brief demonstration of his training tools and then had Mocha find an object that he had previously hidden in the room. Very impressive!
We heard about the severity of the problem in Alaska and why fentanyl (a very powerful synthetic opioid) is such a big problem and it takes only trace amounts to cause death.
Everyone at the meeting received a packet to help safely dispose of old medication in our home. Those who stayed after the meeting also received training and a Narcan kit that included instruction and naloxone nose spray to help save the life of someone who may have overdosed. Those that have been saved using these kits have become some of the best advocates against opioid use within their communities.
Thank you Mike and we’ll help pass on the information.
Other meeting news:
President Elect Ben Schulman presided over his second meeting while President Bruce was heading to Atlanta for the Rotary International Conference, and it looks like Ben is ready to take on the coming Rotary year.
Joe Zimmermann’s guest, Delana Wesen, is one of six Alaskan graduating seniors chosen to attend the Naval academy this year. Delana has been the Interact president for the past four years at West High School and gave us a quick update of her clubs accomplishments, which included raising funds for a shelter box and supporting the protection of elephants.
Jan Ingram, with help from sergant at arms Trygve, auctioned off two Denali sightseeing flight tickets from K2 aviation that their radio station KLEF had received. Jonathan Tarrant was the lucky high bidder.
Both Bob Huston and Penny May have returned from Greece. Penny auctioned off a nice package of items from the trip, including a bottle of Raki, which is apparently served after dinner in Greece. The package also included a Tshirt that proclaimed that “Raki! Is the answer, but I don’t remember the question!” Bob promised a Greek dinner package that will be auctioned off at next week’s meeting.
Penny also reminded everyone that Chuck’s celebration of life will be held on Saturday, June 17, at 2 pm at her house. We hope the sun will shine on all the memories.
Thank you to Jim MacKenzie for a very enthusiastic and informative presentation about NeighborWorks Alaska. Their core values include stable housing, for thriving families and strong communities.
We learned that the organization was formed around a kitchen table by locals in the early 1980’s. The group was primarily interested in improving the city’s neighborhoods, in particularly Spenard for starters. Today they have evolved into a statewide support group for affordable housing options, with the goal that everyone has a place to call home.
NeighborWorks Alaska creates opportunities for those without homes and teach classes on renting homes, on buying a home and educating new homeowners on the responsibilities of long term home ownership.
Paint the Town is one of their flagship hands on projects, that helps homeowners in need with sprucing up their home and lifting their whole neighborhood. Thank you Jim for letting us know how all the hard work pays off.
Rotarian for the Month of June - Jay Tung Jr
Having been a member of our club for only 3 years, Jay has contributed in countless ways, particularly in his role as our Sargent of Arms, which he is particularly good at and it looks like he will continue on as for the next rotary year.
For this distinguished honor, Jay received the coveted insulated rotary bag, the rotary coin with the four way test, a gift card to Barns and Noble and some genuine Kona coffee. Thank you, for all you do Jay!
Trygve Erickson, the third “volunteer” for a WhoAmI presentation this year, presented a professional presentation to us that was exactly 3 minutes long! We learned that he is an Alaska original, his father worked for the FAA and his mother for the Anchorage school district and they lived right downtown Anchorage.
Tryg’s early passions were skiing and flying and he took his first flying lessons when he was 13 and had a private license by the time he was 17. He attended college in Washington State and was getting ready to attend Law School when he got a job at the Captain Cook hotel as a desk clerk to make extra money. He worked up to reservation manager and enjoyed the job so much he stayed for five years.
Tryg then worked for Motorola for 31 years in sales and communication, which served him well in 2004 when the MOA asked him to become Director of Communications. He is currently working for his third mayor and it looks like they are going to keep him on.
Rotary has always been part of Tryg’s life. His father was a long time Rotarian and Tryg has had 43 years of perfect attendance himself; has held every office in our club except for secretary and was president for Rotary year 1983-84. He is married to his wife Kim, a former president of our club (2001-02), and has five kids (including “bonus” kids).
Special guest at our meeting, Col Suellyn Wright Novak the current President and Executive Director of the Alaska Veterans Museum will retire at the end of 2017 and is looking for someone to step up to the position. Anyone who is interested or knows someone that would be good for the position, please let her know ASAP so she can start training.
Debra Mason was happy that her choir was able to perform at this Fridays citizenship ceremony and also reminded everyone about the golf tournament in June.
Fred Barlow was proud to report that 154 engineering students graduated from the school of engineering at UAA this year.
Dick Boysen invited everyone who will be in town over the Memorial Day weekend to join his singing group plus former members of the Band of the North to the ceremonies that will be held at JBER.
