Rotarygram
November 3,2005
President Steve kicked off the meeting with a crisp ding of
the Rotary bell.
Guest introductions included:
Mike McGuire's introduction of marine biologist daughter
Tami McGuire, Phd.
Brian Wagner, Executive Director of the
Marcella Arcuri, our exchange
student from
Representative Mark Larson was introduced and asked to give
a summary of the election results as it related to Referenda C & D. The
description didn't sound all that cheery even though "C" passed (D
didn't pass). Its hard to imagine how gloomy it would have sounded had
"C" not passed. Go forth and appropriate wisely, Mark and
colleagues, and don't forget our roads in the southwest that need improvements
made.
Announcements included:
Tami Coddington announced our
Club's annual involvement with the Salvation Army's Christmas bell ringing and
collection efforts. Our station will be at the south entrance of the Wal Mart store with that other club collecting at the north
entrance to Wal Mart. Our week is
12/4-12/10. Sign up was passed around and appeared to be filling up fast.
Cathy Crum announced the annual Project Merry Christmas
which will be accepting used and new clothing, games canned foods, etc.
This outstanding community project usually helps about 1,500 kids each year so
pitch in and help some kid or family have a nice Christmas that they otherwise
might not experience.
Dave Ganevsky talked about the
High Noon Club's annual Christmas party to be held at the Diamond Circle on
Thursday night, 12/8/2005.
Steve Govreau described his son's introduction of the
American celebration of Halloween to the French and apparently was very
successful at 19 out of 20 houses notwithstanding Halloween is not celebrated
in
Mark Prouty played (very well I might add) Sergeant at Arms
and was very successful with fines in particular with the stunning 9R school
board election victory of Mike Matheson who offered to pay for all the votes of
his fellow Rotarians who, through Mark's calculations, gave Mike the votes that
enabled him to exceed the combined vote total of his two opponents by 104
votes, coincidentally the exact number of High Noon Rotarians..
Birthdays: Angie Beach, Wayne Bedor,
Jeff Brown, Patty Burkholder, Melissa Caskey, Kathy
Firestone, Tom Galbraith, Ward Holmes and Rick Routh.
Wedding Anniversaries: Patty Burkholder, David Downs, Steve
Govreau, Bill Hermesman, and Steve and Jeanne Wheeldon.
Club Anniversaries:
The Program for the day on the
Brian acknowledged that he was probably preaching to the
choir since he recognized so may of the faces in the room as being members of
the DAC family.
The DAC had been located in the Main Mall second floor until
1997 when it partnered with the City and acquired its current facility located
across from Steamworks on
Brian explained the workings of the DAC that includes 12
major exhibits a year which include many local exhibits with focus on local
kid's exhibits which highlight creativity. In fact 1/4 of their exhibits relate
to children. There will also be three exhibits that connect with local
events such as the motorcycle rally, cowboy poetry gathering and one that
involves furniture.
DAC Board President, Karen Thompson, then held forth to talk
about the operations of the DAC. The DAC has 900 members and an operating
budget of $483,000. Their main fund raising
comes from: 25% education, 25% fund-raising, 9% the Main Avenue Arts Festival,
9% Membership and a number of lesser sources. The DAC is currently
bursting at its seams in its present location. It was clear to this Club
that the DAC is a very important resource to our community and really enriches
our quality of life.
After taking a cell phone call from his 91 year old ward,
caretaker, Bud Deering told his closing joke with the
bottom line that your teenage kid getting a D on his report card isn't that
important in the grand scheme of things.
Steve closed the meeting and sent us on our way with another
crisp ding of the Rotary bell.