The meeting was called to order by Co-Chair Bill Leske.  There were 20 members present (Zoom and in person).  Moha was once again in attendance; he will be inducted soon.

 

There were no anniversaries  or birthdays celebrated.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: The Club presented outgoing caterer, Donna Goodman, with a special award of a $1000 donation to The Rotary Foundation in her name plus a flowering plant for all the good work she did as the Club’s caterer for over 20 years.  She again made very nice comments about her experience with our Rotary Club and its members over those years.  She said that she would miss us but not the “shopping and chopping” and all the other work incidental to providing meals for 20 to 30 people. Then she said that she was donating $121 to our Rotary Foundation as a show of her appreciation for the way that Rotary dealt with her and her staff over the years.

 

 

Keith Reed announced that he was giving a donation to the Club’s Foundation in memory of his brother, Caren L. Reed, who passed away this last Tuesday at age 86.  Caren was a commercial banker with the Continental Bank from 1956-1990 at which time he was one of three bankers who started the Private Bank of Chicago where he was a Senior Officer until his retirement in 2000.  That bank is now the CIBC bank.  Over the years he has dealt with several members of our Club.

 

SPEAKER:  John Thomas introduced the speaker John Ripka, Winnetka Fire Chief.  John gave a very informative presentation accompanied by a detailed power point, which would be available upon request to Rich Lalley.  There are several levels of services provided by the Winnetka Fire Department (hereafter WFD) but the Winnetka Resources Level is capable of handling 90% of the calls received by the department. The next two levels,  Auto Aid and Mutual Aid, take care of almost all the spill over work. It is seldom that the WFD has to resort to Cook County Resources or a Declaration of Disaster, although that was done when the Covid pandemic hit the area, but that action has to get approval from the State Governor and Federal officials as well.

John gave as an example of how the WFD is often called to help other towns/areas.  Rockton, Illinois had a very serious chemical plant fire which used all the town’s available resources, so WFD was asked to send its firefighters to cover the Town’s normal firefighting duties for an extensive period of time. John said that the WFD has an outstanding reputation throughout the State as an experienced and effective department.

John also was proud of what the WFD did to give 10,000  Covid vaccine shots to first responders and the general population age 16 or above at New Trier West campus, all with its own staff of paramedics.  He said few fire department had the skills or approval to give these shots.

In answering questions from the floor, John said that the WFD has about 18 paramedics/firefighters and that they all have the skills and experience to do all parts of those jobs, including being able to drive firefighting vehicles and ambulances.  He said that these employees average about 30 years of age and tend to be ready for retirement after 30 years of service.

 

MEETING ADJOURNMENT: At 1:35, Bill gave the Rotary 4 Way Test and adjourned the meeting.