|
President Chuck Whitaker called the meeting to order at 12:15
Past President Joe Kovarik led the club in a rousing rendition of the National Anthem, with the gusto of singing from the gold medal platform of the Olympic Stadium. Dennis Boom did the honors at the piano.
Bob Cardinal offer the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling as the inspirational minute.
Nancy McKillips introduced visiting Rotarians and guests. The club applauded greeter Shelly Rucks and scribe Michael-jon Pease.
In his remarks, President Chuck tantalized the club with hints of the upcoming attendance competition with Club 9 across the river. He encouraged attendance at next week’s meeting both for speaker John Suzukida, speaking on America’s Concentration Camps, and for the monthly cash bar, which is being anonymously underwritten by a club member.
Don’t miss your chance to add some of the club’s “legacy items” from old Rotary song books to club flags from around the world, to your private collection for a free-will donation. You may also make a donation. Items are displayed near the check in table.
Thursday’s Fellowship speaker is Deb Voss, Metro State.
Cindy Dupont, Visit St. Paul, asked for early bird Rotarians to help greet inbound Rotary Youth Exchange Student Ririko Nagaishi, who arrives from Japan at 5:43 a.m. on Monday, August 22nd.
Returning Outbound Youth Exchange Student Emma Mulhern shared photos and experiences from her year in Finland. She is a senior this year at Highland Park Senior High School, although she will be taking classes at the U to earn both college and high school credits.
Finland is about the size of Minnesota and Iowa combined, with a population roughly the size of Minnesota. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish. Over the course of its history, Finland has been governed by Sweden at times and by Russia.
Emma spent some time living on a cattle farm in a small town (pop. 10,000). She enjoyed trips to Lapland (to see Santa Claus, the reindeer and the Sami people), Helsinki and St. Petersburg, Russia. She met many other Rotary exchange students from Taiwan, Australia and the United States.
A 9-year hockey veteran, Emma played on a team in Finland, and the Wild sent them all Wild jerseys!
In closing, she shared a photo of a Rotary banner at one of the hockey events she attended, with the headline “Rotary does good.” As a second-generation Rotary Youth Exchange Student, Emma concurred.
Nancy McKillips collected happy dollars from Shelly Rucks (in honor of the upcoming “Rotary After Dark” happy hour at Landmark Jewelers on Thursday, August 25; $52 from Joe Kvarik (in honor of his birthday and his 51st wedding anniversary); Al Zdrazil (in honor of the this weekend’s Japanese Lantern Lighting ceremony at which his Taiko Drum ensemble will play); Jerry Miegs (in honor of the upcoming Rotary International Convention); Kristin Montpetit (who ran the 202 mile marathon from Winona to the Twin Cities!); Debbie Lee (in honor of her Canadian vacation in Alberta, which included the Canada Rotary Park); and Michael-jon Pease (in honor of Emma Mulhern and the many happy dollars her exchange trip generated and the many accomplishments ahead that would generate more, and her eventual Rotary membership!).
Joe Kovarik introduced District Governor Jim Hunt, a Rotarian with many international trips and service projects on his resume.
Hunt first shared the foundation of Rotary’s motto “Service above self”, built on the strategic plan values of Fellowship, Leadership, Diversity, Integrity and Service that grow out of the Four Way Test. He did share that younger members find the word “fellowship” old-fashioned and prefer “friendship.” At each table were word cloud print outs of our clubs values, with the largest words (that had the most votes) being Fellowship, Service, Community and Global. Hunt encouraged members to pair up and share with each other which values on the card meant the most. After two minutes of table talk, he concluded that it is easier than we think to talk about values, but it something we as citizens rarely do. He said that Rotary is good at identifying problems and creating solutions, but we rarely tell anyone about the good work we do, nor do we often talk about the problems and the values at stake.
Hunt then shared the circular flow he sees from projects/outcomes to Rotary’s public image that can drive membership and then funds for the foundation to create more projects.
Rotary’s strategic goal is to end Polio. During RI’s 30 year effort, Polio has gone from 1,000 reported cases per day to fewer than 20. We are two to three years away from having the last two countries in the world declared Polio free, although the response teams and immunization systems we’ve created will need to be maintained at some level to keep the disease eradicated.<
Rotary’s operational goal is membership. As we can see in our own clubs, membership in North American and Europe is flat. The real membership growth in recent years has been in South Asia and Africa.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael-jon Pease
|
