Rotary Club of Durango High Noon

Meeting Minutes – Thursday December 2, 2004

 

Guests: Kim Workman (mgr. of the Manna Soup Kitchen), Annette and Milton (youth exchange students), Justin Osborn, Leanna Jaworski, and Tom Spezze.

 

Announcements:

1)      Kim Workman requested volunteers to help prepare and serve Christmas Dinner. Last year they served over 200.

2)      Mike read a thank you from Animas Valley for the 3rd grade dictionaries. Special thanks to Dick Pearson for storing the pallet of dictionaries and Ward Holmes for his public relations efforts concerning this worthwhile project.

3)      Turns out a couple of our members are not opposed to exposing it all for a good cause. John Anderson and Bob Salzer are among the 12 highlighted “Mature Men of La Plata County”. It’s all for a good cause to benefit Operation Healthy Community. Get your own autographed calendar this Friday, December 3rd 5-8pm at Open Shutter Gallery. Call 382-0585 for details.

4)      Ward Holmes was introduced as our new President-Elect Nominee who will be serving as president our 2006-7 Rotary year. Congratulations Ward! And thanks to all the nominees as well as the election committee (Bob Chaput, Steve Redding, Bob Salzer, and Jill Wark).

5)      HNRC Holiday Party is next week, December 9th 5-8:30 at the Diamond Circle Theatre. Good food, spirits, entertainment. RSVP today to David Ganevsky, Nancy Vanderwal or Steve Govreau. WILL SANTA BE THERE?

6)      No noon meeting next week due to the party!

7)      Thanks again to Nancy Vanderwal for heading up Operation Ornament for our group.

8)      Red Ball – see Cathy Crum to get your corporate tickets. If you have a business or manage one, get on the ball!

9)      Wow, what a party. Kudos to Susan Sanders for hosting another fine Rotary social gathering!

10)  San Juan Basin Health needs volunteers to provide immunizations. More details will be forthcoming or call Mike McGuire.

 

Sgt of Arms: Jeff Brown took up duty and immediately raised fines on behalf of the Manna Soup Kitchen Christmas Dinner Project. Lots of happy dollars. Congratulations to Jim Jennings for selling his business and Nancy Vanderwal for buying it!

 

Program: Today’s speaker was Tom Spezze, Manager of the Division of Wildlife in Southwest Colorado whose headquarters is in Durango. Tom addressed a couple of the more than ten prioritized areas of concern (as determined by public input). Did you know that 80% of the DOW’s budget comes from hunting and fishing licenses? The rest comes from government taxes on ammo and related sales. Of primary interest is the incidence of Chronic Wasting Disease and its impact on hunting. Turns out that a proactive monitoring program is in place and there been only a couple of incidences of CWD in this division. So far CWD has had no impact on hunting in this division, in fact hunting increased this year. Another concern is illegal poaching for trophy deer and elk heads. A couple of years ago over 200 headless carcasses were discovered by patrols. This past year there has been increased winter patrols and only 1 discovered to date. Motive? Greed. Each head can sell for $10-20,000! Species protection, animas management, fishing, whirling disease, hunter satisfaction, and education all remain among high priorities with ongoing projects for the DOW. The DOW has been working to expand its communications with the public and to obtain public input. Sportsman advisory groups have been instrumental in helping to shape the new DOW hunting licensing bills now soon to be considered.

 

Future programs and events:

12/9  No Meeting   (Rotary holiday dinner)

12/16 Program - American Red Cross

12/23 No Meeting

12/30 No meeting