The Rotary Club of Kirkland held an in-person meeting September 23, 2024, at the Kirkland Eagles Club. Past President Joanne Primavera presided at this meeting and called the meeting to order at 6:19 p.m. Gary Cohn led us in the Pledge.

Attendees: David Aubry, Bob Auslander, Cody Baker, Gary Cohn, Sue Cohn, Don Dicks, Jocelyn Ellison, Doug Evanson, Rashmi Garimella, Margie Glenn, Isabelle Kalisa*, Chris Kelly-Storbeck*, Kate Koslosky, Jim Meniketti, Kristin Olson, Rick Ostrander, Joanne Primavera, Daniel Sada Caraveo, John Storbeck, Manassey Tetteh, and Rick Walter. *Attended via Zoom.

Guests: Daniel Pflager returned for his second visit to the club. Dave’s spouse Anna Aubry joined us for the meeting. And our speaker, David Lynx of the Kirkland Arts Center, joined us for dinner and the meeting.

The Rotary Club of Kirkland will operate a booth at the Kirkland Downtown Association's Pumpkins in the Park event on Saturday, October 26, from 11a.m. to 3 p.m., with contests and prizes and club members will be dressed up in costumes. There will be treats for kids and prizes for the grown-ups as well. Click HERE to jump to the volunteer sign-up through the Club Calendar online volunteer system, or contact Membership Committee chair, Cody Baker, or the Community Service Committee chair, Rick Walter, to join in this event to promote Rotary in the Kirkland community.

Rotarian John Storbeck is chairing the Programs & Speakers Committee this year. This committee is responsible for planning topics, recruiting quality speakers, gathering promotional information about the topic and speaker, promoting the programs to members, assisting the speakers' prepare for and deliver content to members, and following up to gauge the success of the program. John is asking members to contribute suggestions for speakers in support of the program this year. Rotarians may click HERE to send John an email regarding a speaker or program. Rotarians may click HERE to drop a detailed speaker and program referral into the Speaker Suggestion system. Quality programs are critical to ongoing member education and enjoyment of club meetings. John is asking for your ideas about speakers and quality program topics.

The Holiday Gift Wrapping Party & Annual Holiday Dinner is scheduled for Monday, December 16, 2024. The club's holiday event typically begins at 5:30 p.m. with gift wrapping, with dinner to follow, and then the club holds its annual meeting for this Rotary year. Stay tuned for information on location and dinner cost, and how to participate in the gift purchasing and wrapping this season. Holiday gifting supports John Muir Elementary School families whose circumstances the school staff determines make them eligible for holiday gift donations. Click on the red wrapped box to make a holiday gift donation to the Rotary club.

During the past three months, club members have been sampling three venues suggested and researched by Rotarians: Fraternal Order of Eagles, L'Experience Paris, Sparrow Restaurant, and Kabab House. During the regular meeting on Monday evening, September 23, the 21 Rotarians attending the meeting voted 61.9% in favor of selecting the Fraternal Order of Eagles as the meeting place for the club. This decision means the Eagles is the regular meeting place for the club until the club's membership selects a different location for meetings. Of the 21 attending, 13 voted for the Eagles, 4 voted for Sparrow, 2 voted for Kabab House, 1 voted for L'Experience Paris, and 1 abstained.

Acting President Kate Koslosky is charged by our club's Bylaws with the appointment of the club's annual board nominating committee. It is to be comprised of the president-elect, vice president, and at least one past president. Because the president position is temporarily vacant due to Pete's absence, as vice president Kate is responsible for the appointment. The committee is responsible under the bylaws for organizing a proposed slate of officers and directors for the forthcoming year. The slate will consist of the president-elect, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and five members of the board of directors who are chairs of the avenues of service committees.

During the year past presidents are stepping up to preside at meetings while our president is away from club activities. Thank you to those all of the past presidents who've volunteered to lead meetings during the year. There are several other roles that are necessary for smooth conduct of our meetings, whether in-person or virtual. Please sign up for several "open" meeting duties for this year. Our club needs your contribution to make the meetings effective and enjoyable for all of our membership. The meeting responsibilities matrix is available to you in the "Members" drop-down menu on the home page of the club's website. Like the committee table, the responsibilities table is updated regularly as club members add their names to the duties throughout the year. You may click HERE to jump to the table from this article.

Due to the club's three-Mondays per month meeting structure, the club board's decision not to hold a meeting on October 7 when the Kirkland Rotary Foundation chose to move its gala and auction from October 7, 2024 to the federal holiday on October 14, 2024, there is be only one club meeting during the month of October. It is on Monday, October 21, 2024. As a result there will not be an edition of The Spokesman published until October 22 or 23, 2024. Then there is a bye week during the fourth week of October. That means the next regular meeting after October 21 will be Monday, November 4, 2024.

This month we say a fond farewell to one of our members who finds it necessary to leave the club. The membership bids farewell and following seas to Laura Loomis who will not continue with us as we sail on into 2024-2025. Laura has informed the club that the small lighting business husband Charles and she operate is swamped with orders and she cannot take time away from their family endeavor at this time. We will miss Laura and keep the light on for her (pun intended?) when she feels the time is right to return to the Rotary mission. The Rotary Club of Kirkland's year continues with 35 members (30 Active + 1 Honorary + 1 Active - Corporate Primary + 1 Active - Corporate Alternate + 2 Active - Spouse/Partner).

The club held 10 meetings during the months of July, August, and September 2024. Overall club attendance for the months were 57%, 50%, and 39%, respectively. The attendance ranged from even to 8% lower than the past year during the three months in the third calendar quarter. Club membership in the third quarter fell to 35 active (including honorary) members. While attendance is running a bit behind last year's third quarter, it is generally ahead of the same quarter two years ago.

The club’s board of directors met on Thursday evening, September 19, 2024 at the Banner Bank offices in Bellevue. Highlights included discussion about the status of outstanding club dues payments, the new budget reports from QuickBooks, the election of a new treasurer, approval of revised signature authorities, approval of a revision to the club's bylaws for finance, approval of an application to the foundation board for a grant of $10,000, and reports from various officers and committee chairs.