Durango High Noon Rotary Club
October 11, 2001
Club
President Steve Wheeldon opened the meeting with an individual moment of reflection, followed by the
pledge. Guests were introduced, with
Chip Lile presenting Donna Dignan, an employee of his and a volunteer fire
fighter who raised $1,750.00 last weekend for relief efforts in NYC. Chip commented that her effort was in
keeping with a recurring theme at the recent District Conference that 'One
Person Can Make a Difference."
Steve presented Donna with a Rotary 'Mankind is our Business' pin.
Guests included Kenneth Walker, Ken Fusco, Donna
D., Kate McGuire (Mike's sis), Jiri Klubal, Jim Whitley and Puifai.
Steve
briefly recapped the District Conference held last weekend in Telluride. He saluted Nancy Hammond, Dean Brookie,
Leonard Gray, Jeannie Wheeldon and Steve Osborne for their special above and
beyond efforts on behalf of our club.
My guess is that at least one person from every club represented when home
with a photo of the High Noon Rotary Wheel!
Jeannie received an additional acknowledgement
from her husband, in the form of Rotary key chain, for her extra efforts
filling in for Rotarians that were unable to serve at the convention as they
had planned.
At the conference, our club was presented with
two awards, a Presidential Citation and the Significant Club award. The latter honor was the only one given in
the entire district of over 50 clubs and is the highest award given. Steve accepted on behalf of Tom Galbraith.
Announcements include a reminder that there is
no meeting on October 25th, as we are hosting our first (annual?) Octoberfest
at the Fairgrounds. We all have tix to
sell and Paulette reminded us to circle on the ticket whether it is a child or
an adult meal. People will be admitted
after 7:00 PM (no dinner) for dancing, which continues until 9:00 PM.
Jeannie announced the UNICEF/Rotary Trick or
Treat campaign that will collect funds for Polio + for the next two Halloweens.
The Fun Committee will coordinate this effort and, in keeping with the name of
the committee, will meet at 5:30 PM, October 16th at the El Rancho.
Rotarians reached into their wallets at the
meeting and added $342.00 to the $1,750.00 raised by Donna Dignan.
Steve asked Carl to recognize those with birthdays
from October 1-14. They included Mark
P., Mary Barter, Bill H., Jim M. and as an added attraction, the birthdays of
the spouses of Bill W. and Jay H. Bill
appreciated the reminder saying, "gimme a phone".
Carl assessed fines, with Wayne B., Dick P. and
Nancy H. receiving the recognition.
Sorry, didn't catch the reasons.
Mike M. asked where the scroll of signatures had
disappeared to. Contact him if you know.
Steve indicated that the various Rotary exchange
programs are the most important and basic of Rotary International. He then introduced Paulette and Chessa who
in turn introduced Puifai, the student from Thailand sponsored by our
club. She made a slide presentation that
included her family,home, school and the city of Bangkok. Puifai recited the full name of Bangkok and
it sounded more like a paragraph than a name!
She told us of a number of differences in homes in
her country and her in Durango.
Kitchens are smaller there, but the photo of her room confirmed that
teenagers are the same the world over.
They wear uniforms, do more homework and a single school includes grades
K-11. While Thailand is 98% Buddhist,
Puifai and her family are Catholic.
Private schools, like the one she attends, teach
English from the first grade, while public schools start in the 7th grade. If you live in the country, you typically
receive no education at all. She plans
to attend college, but hasn't selected a field of study. She enjoys school and would like to study as
long as possible.
Puifai found it strange that our only Thai
restaurant had no Thai employees. Food
for thought!
Indicating that Telluride was cold (19 exchange
students from the district attended, including Puifai and Tsubasa from the
evening club) gave Paulette the opportunity to appeal to the club to arrange
warm winter clothing for Puifai and to provide funds for 1/2 of a ski
pass. See her for details.
Steve presented Puifai with the mug we give to
those giving programs and there was an exchange of banners. Puifai thanked the club for our
support. My wife and I had the
privilege of taking Puifai and Tsubasa to the conference and we found them both
to be fine young ladies and terrific ambassadors.
Jack Walls gave the club an update on international
programs. While he and his wife served in
the Peace Corps, he saw the needs in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. He is contacting former Peace Corps
associates in these countries to help identify projects that we can tackle. Jack made it clear that he would make sure
that whatever we support will work and that we know how and on what our
investment is spent!
A hold-over project is the 'cloud catcher' that
collects condensate for drinking water.
It is planned for Peru.
Jack indicated that in the future, youth exchanges
would be more closely coordinated with the evening club.
Mike Schafer indicated that the club has an 80%
participation in the Paul Harris foundation, a combination of current Paul
Harris Fellows and sustaining members that are contributing monthly. He reminded us that the foundation is what
makes projects possible. Shouldn't we
all be working toward becoming a Paul Harris Fellow?
Given the decline in the stock market, Rotary
International is experiencing a period of no earnings. However, Steve reminded us that our District
sent $333k to RI this last year. Our
support of the RI foundation is more important than ever!
Paulette reminded us that the deadline for
submitting names of students as candidates for an exchange is the end of
October. The exchange process promotes
world peach and understanding. Send an
letter to congress letting them know how you feel.
Bob Volger announced that the evening club is
making a road trip to a meeting with the Cortez club. Need a make up? Bob has
the details.
Next week we hear from the Durango Community Action
Television folks, with entertainment from Ft. Lewis in the form of a snippet of
'Kiss Me Kate'.
Carl offered some timely humor and Puifai sounded
the Rotary bell to close the meeting.
Thanks to Roy Crow and Bob Chaput for
producing the bulletin for the last two meetings, while I visited with kids,
grand kids, mom, brother and sister-in-law and attended a training session in
Seattle.
Due to the events of September 11, the GSE team
from Sweden had schedule changes and they were unable to attend our
meeting. Bob Volger, John Marshall and
their families had the pleasure of hosting the team leader and a member
respectively. Take a look at the Team's
website, http://hem.passagen.se/jopo/gse/ (that's right, no www) for pix of the
members, their bios and itinerary. They
intend to post photos taken during their visit to CO so we should be able to
follow their adventures if they get access to computers and the time to use
them during the trip. This was a bright
and accomplished group of young professionals.
If you haven't hosted a GSE team member you are missing a great opportunity!
What's coming up?
10/16
FUN COMMITTEE, EL RANCHO, 5:30 PM.
10/18
DCAT
10/25
NO MEETING, OCTOBERFEST DINNER
11/1
Pam Moore-Hardly Angels
11/8
Barber Shop quartet
11/15
Club assembly/ Russell Parker,
Vocational Service
11/22
NO MEETING
11/29
Ken Fusco... youth exchange
12/6 NO MEETING
12/13
Senator Isgar
12/20
????
12/27 NO MEETING
1/3 Peace Corps
1/31
Dr. Mary Fuka, Quetzal Biomedical