July 11, 2011 Spokesman
The July 11, 2011 Kirkland Rotary meeting was called to order by our new President Brandon Honcoop. I led our Pledge to the Flag
ANNOUNCEMENTS
· Patti Smith, our “Head Duck 2011” thanked the many folks who participated in the Parade, set up Sales booths and sold tickets all day, those who set up the race course in the morning, facilitated the little duckies in their racing, then cleaned the whole race course up, did the record keeping, banking, and announced the winners. All felt the race was a success this year and we will have about $35,000 to do good works in the 2012-13 Rotary year
· Dan Bartel reviewed our wonderful experience with Jason Wang, our exchange student from Taiwan who is leaving this weekend. Jason gave a very nice talk about his recent student trip to California.
· Gerry Campo announced help is needed for our annual Kirkland Rotary Picnic Monday July 25 at Everest Park.
· Barb Seaton circulated a Get Well card for Diana Lanspa who had back surgery last week at the U of W Medical Center.
FOUNDATION RECOGNITION Don Dicks summarized our Rotary Foundation participation for the last year as follows:’
· There was increased number of donors from the club this year and reached 43 members or 59 %
· We surpassed our goal of raising $10,000 with a year end $13,400.
· Two Kirkland Rotarians received special recognition for reaching new milestones in Paul Harris Fellowship. Terry Cole received a new pin with 3 sapphires signifying $3000 in giving after originally becoming a fellow. And, Bill Taylor now has a ruby stone signifying $6000 after original induction.
· We now have 23 current Paul Harris Fellows in the Club and many more members were recognized as Rotary Foundation Sustaining Members, a new category for having given at least $100 in each of the last two years.
PROGRAM Our new District Governor Ann Liberato made her official visit to our club this evening. She started by discussing her hopes for this District 5030’s year of 2011-12. Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee wants us all to “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity”, because, really, we all have the same needs, hopes and inspirations. His main three areas of emphasis will be family, continuity (building on our successes), and change since that is what must happen always.
Ann plans to bring this theme and the areas of emphasis to our District and hopes accomplish this in multiple ways. She wants to involve more Rotarians with our District Program and facilitate club-club interaction through communication. She encouraged us to use the District webpage (Rotary5030.org) and our new, very versatile database, DaCdb.org (Da Club DataBase). This system has the District Directory (We all should view and also insert our data) but a host of new services including a social media piece, an opportunity for Rotary communication and even advertising our businesses. There will be increased visibility of Rotary Programs including a Youth Summit, a new Literacy Group activity, the Rotary Academy, and others.
DG Ann emphasized two District areas of emphasis that particularly need our support and involvement. First, the Literacy Action Committee has made outstanding advances this past year and desires to enlarge significantly with club help. New Generations is a fifth area of club service that is particularly supportive of young people, young Rotarians, and other areas. Of course, Ann encouraged us to go to the District Conference which will be in Coer d’Alene, Idaho in April next year. She quoted wonderful rates especially for our rooms and golf.
TICKET DRAWING AND ADJORN Jim Going, Tsar of Joker Pool, did his usual excellent exhorting our participation in this tradition. Alice Volpe yet again had the winning number pulled by departing Exchange Student Jason. But, she only pulled the Jack of Clubs rather than the Joker. Our meeting ended about 7:40.