There were 17 members present and 5 attending on Zoom. Guest was a high school friend of Joe Fell, Jack Doyle, who had a distinguished career in several military positions.
BIRTHDAY/ANNIVERSARIES—Tony was not present but had a recent birthday. Anniversaries of Club membership were Lee Padgitt (28), Jeanne Beckman (33) and Mike Wursburg (38).
ANNOUNCEMENTS—It was announced that John Thomas has recently been discharged from the hospital and is rehabbing nicely at home-- cards were circulated among attendees to welcome John back home. Barb announced that November 18 is scheduled for the Good News Partners project of packing 100 bags of groceries to be used by the needy for Thanksgiving meals. Patti complimented Rich on the great job that he and the Wilmette Harbor Rotary Club did in getting coats to Afghan refugees being housed in Indiana and supplying coats to several other charities who distributed them to needy children.
HAPPY BUCKS: Robert Mardirossian donated to honor the former Chicago Cub who not only played on the winning World Series team (the Braves) but was also the MVP of the Series. He said if someone could name that player he would increase his donation. ( Fortunately this scribe just happened to have read this story in the morning paper and came up with the player’s name—Jorge Soler who, along with Kyle Schwarber, was supposed to be part of the “Cub’s outfield of the future”!! The scribe also donated in honor of those Cubs who had a happy ending to their 2021 season!!)
DIG N GRIN—Fred is always good for some humor that makes you think and ponder. This time he had a series of questions with non-sensical or surprising answers—e.g. why can a raging forest fire be started by one careless camper, but it usually takes several campers to start even one campfire? What was going through the mind of the person who took the first taste of milk from a cow? How did the song Jimmy Crack Corn become so popular when “no one cared”, not even Jimmy!!
STATE OF THE CLUB: Both Greg and Bill led a spirited discussion on what our Club could do better. The central theme seemed to be that more people needed to be more active and that some of the ones who have been doing the heavy lifting need some help and relief. For example, Heidi Sibert has been leading the Kids Against Hunger project for about 11 years. Last March 19, the Club packed several thousand meals. Heidi has this project well organized but would welcome some help. Laura Cunningham volunteered to assist Heidi.
David gave a nice review of the Program Committee’s job of getting speakers for our noon meetings. This is a major job but Rich has helped the process by referring us to several speaker bureaus. John Thomas has done a great job, especially in getting a number of local speakers to talk about organizations/activities on the local scene. David brought in several representatives of colleges, universities, theaters, and restaurants. He mentioned that speakers will want to make sure they have around 40 attending their presentations, which could be a problem for our meetings which average between 20 and 25.
Robert gave a thoughtful picture of the Membership Committee and the importance of every member being on at least one committee. He thought that Membership and the Annual Benefit committees are among the most important to get membership involvement. He suggested that we go to the local churches, medical care providers, accountants, lawyers etc. for new members as well as speakers.
In the public relations area our Club probably relies too heavily on the talents and efforts of Rich to publicize the Club’s activities, programs and speakers. Rich definitely needs help with setting up our weekly meetings on Zoom and other communications activities.
We do some work in the International area with our Ecuador project and our member Rick Boerjesson taking supplies to Peru in connection with trips that his family takes to that area. We are also trying to get an International organization to apply for one of our Foundation grants.
Regarding Community Service projects, Barb has been leading this effort for almost 10 years.
She has been able to coordinate several activities with her own Volunteer Center, but she thinks there are many other organizations that we could team up with on various programs—e.g. other Rotary clubs like we do for the Glencoe Community Gardens; working with other clubs on building pollinator gardens in the local communities.
Regarding the Club Foundation. Brooke Peppey has headed that activity for several years and recently David Grant has taken over this job. Liz Taylor is now heading up the Club’s financial oversight committee. Marie Kulpers is heading up the nominating committee for new Club board members and officers which are scheduled to be installed in December. We need a Spring Benefit Committee to plan our benefit at the Kenilworth Club next May.
Then there are several “behind the scenes” jobs that could use some assistance. For example, Bob Baker is always at the attendance table handling the Club’s financial activities, Tom Evans helps with the meeting reminder notices, and there are the 3 or 4 people that do the summaries of the meetings. We use to have a greeter for each meeting and a Sergeant at Arms to help prepare the meeting room (our new member Mora then volunteered to help with the meeting room preparation).
At this point in the meeting Wes, along with Mora, suggested that we update the existing brochures and memos describing the Club committees/functions, people assigned to committee positions and membership list. Then at 1:35 we all recited the Rotary 4 way test and adjourned the meeting.
