Weekly Minutes from Club Meeting 08/04/2015

Bulletin from Club Meeting 08/04/2015

Members:

Marigny de Mauriac

CJ Jumonville

Dan WIlleman

Bob Vaughn

Caryne Eskridge

Karl Koppy

Penny Menge

Kristy Hebert

Anna Simpson

Chuck Simpson

Randy Spitler

Yoko Toda

Jason Sanchez

Guests:

Lyle McEwen, visitor, guest of CJ.  Lyle recently moved to New Orleans and works in a chiropractic clinic in Kenner.  He is hoping to become more involved in the community.

Wendy Parsons, President, Rotary Club of Leamington Ontario

Chuck Parsons, Past President, Rotary Club of Leamington Ontario, and Wendy’s husband.

John Cornwell, District Governor 6840 (and speaker)

Tyrell Cornwell (John’s wife)

Darius Sampey (Rotaract at Tulane)

Victoria King (Rotaract at Tulane)

Recap of Zone Leadership Seminar:

An idea that was very much taken on was the concept of club “mini-grants,” giving newer members a small grant $250-$500 to lead any project they wished, so long as they involved 5 older club members.  Penny Menge, who has been made grants co-chair, is also interested in designing a New Member Orientation program.

There will be a Zone Seminar in Baton Rouge on Thursday, Sept. 24-26.  There will be a “food fest” on Thursday evening, the 24th.  Our club has committed to making a drink.  More details will be discussed as they become known.

Recap of White Linen Night:

An excellent service by the “A Team” of Meredith and Victoria.  Jason and Yoko also helped.  $247 was collected, compared to $435 last year; however, last year we had 9 members staffing 4 bars.  So this was a very good result.

Aug. 29 District PR, Foundation, Marketing Seminar:

We will have several club members attending, which means we will have fewer available for the Aug. 29 Katrina +10 Day of Service.  We require 30 people to create a “team”; otherwise, each individual must register separately.  Jason is attempting to build a team for a project in the Freret Street corridor.

Habitat Build Day:

Oct. 10 is a Habitat Build Day with the Rotary Club of Metairie.  Rotaract at Tulane will participate.  We will post more as this gets closer.

Anniversary of the 2011 Rotary International convention:

A reunion of the convention will take place on Tuesday, Sept 22 – at the same time as our meeting.  Past Rotary International President Ray Klinginsmith will be the guest speaker.

Raffle ticket sales:

Push to the end!

New Business:

Guest Speaker John Cornwell: Rotary District 6840 Governor

John spoke on the Rotary International theme, being a Gift to the World, and how he felt it was personally inspiring and should inspire us.  He spoke of being the first son of 5 children of his parents, neither of whom completed high school, but who had to work to support their family.  He was able to go to school on scholarships, and he felt that his parents had been a gift to him for instilling in him a love of reading.  That the people who gave him scholarships – people he never met – were gifts to him.  That gifts do not come wrapped in boxes, but that people are gifts by the actions that they do for others.

He also had a roll of Kodak film, and gave the following analogy on Rotary.  John said he felt there would never be a lack of people willing to serve in life, but how would they serve?  Under the Rotary banner, or in some other way?  Kodak made the mistake of thinking it was in the picture film business, and today is almost bankrupt.  But today people take more pictures than ever – just not on film.  Kodak failed to understand it was in the preservation of memories business.  Had it seen this, perhaps Kodak would have embraced and adapted to today’s digital formats faster.  Rotary, equally, is a service and vocational club – but it is losing membership in America as it fails to have people recognize it.  It is contingent upon all Rotarians to be ambassadors and publicists for our service.

Visiting Rotarian:

This week we had the pleasure to host Wendy and Chuck Parson’s at our weekly meeting.  The Parsons are members of the Rotary Club of Leamington Ontario.   Leamington is a small city in Canada about 70,000 people, south of Detroit.  Known as the “tomato” capital of Canada, many people worked for the Heinz ketchup plant, which was shut down by Warren Buffett – giving their club suddenly a lot more community projects to do.  The club is very active in Rotary Youth Exchange, operating as a clearinghouse for numerous districts that will send and receive 350 students every year.

Awards:

Caryne Eskridge received her Service above Self award for her work as a coordinator for our club’s service with Ogden After Hours.  Caryne is about to move to New Haven, Conn., where she will be embarking on a two-year program at Yale University.  We will miss her and thank her for her service.

Randy Spitler was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow for donations of $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation.

Upcoming Speakers:

*We are looking for speakers for August and September dates