The Kirkland Rotary Club meeting of February 25, 2013 began at 6:30 p.m. and was led by President, Patti Smith. 

Chris Morgan led the Flag Salute.  David Aubry was the greeter.

Guests:  Rick Walter introduced Patrick McKenna, an attorney in Kirkland.

Student of the Month, Briana Balke, is from Lake Washington High School.  Since this was her last meeting with Rotary, Briana thanked the club for choosing her as the student of the month.  Briana loves to work with children with disabilities and plans to make working with them as her career in life.  Briana introduced her parents, Carol and Keith Balke.        

Announcements:

John Pruitt announced Summerfest is going to expand from just Saturday to include Friday night and Sunday.  John gave pros and cons of having the race on Saturday or Sunday.  His straw poll was overwhelmingly in favor of having the race on Sunday.  This means that everyone who voted is committed to the weekend of August 9-11, 2013…..and to the days leading up to that weekend to raise funds for the duck race.

John, Scott Becker, and Jason Overleese gave a pitch to find new sponsors.  Just give them leads and they will do all the work of encouraging your lead to be able to advertise their name on all of duck tickets and other promotional material.

Steve Shinstrom needs scribes and greeters.  (Steve attended his 2nd meeting after breaking vertebrae in his neck….he looked very cute in his neck brace, but will be happy if he gets it off on Wednesday at his next appt).

Dan Bartel will send out an announcement about our last Club journey to Northwest Harvest on March 9.  Those who wish to carpool will meet at the 70th St. Park and Ride at 8:00 a.m.

Patti Smith announced

1. The club needs a volunteer to head the Joker Pool.

2. There will be a clean-up for our section of the Kirkland Corridor on a Saturday afternoon.  (If it is raining at noon, the clean-up will be cancelled).  Afterwards, we will all meet for libations. 

3.  Chuck Brockway is having surgery and won’t be able to help with Miracle League this year.  Patty Sims has agreed to be the chair, but Patti would like members to volunteer to help her.

Scott Becker announced that Patty Tucker, widow of former member, David Tucker, fell and is in critical care at Evergreen Hospital.  She is in room 2518 and visitors are welcome.

 

Program:  The program tonight was very timely.  Ginger Wireman, works for the Washington State Department of Ecology.  She works with the Federal clean-up at Hanford.  Ginger gave a very interesting speech about the clean-up and was very frank about the pit-falls and successes of cleaning up the facility.  It is going to take years and billions of dollars to finish the process. 

Ginger gave two tourist suggestions:  Go on a kayak trip down the river past Hanford.  She said this is a fifty-two mile section of the Columbia that is not hampered by power dams and the section is perfectly safe and beautiful.  The other is to take a wine tour (which our club loves) and also visit Hanford.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m.

Joanne Primavera

Scribe