The ‘Getting Organized’ First Club Assembly
President Bonnie McFarland welcomed assembled Rotarians to our regular meeting. Our attendance was a bit light today, hopefully due to vacation schedules. Many of our regulars were not with us today. Kurt Dailey provided the invocation for our meeting.
Rotary Education Moment–Margaret Evans provided the first installment of an on-going Rotary Education Moment for the club today. This update on Rotary is to help all of us become more acquainted with the workings of Rotary and a weekly specific glimpse into one interesting area. Thanks, Margaret!
Update of Recent Board Meeting–If you are reading this on-line you probably noticed the entry prior to this and have hopefully read the minutes of the recent board meeting. One of the great benefits to our ‘blog’ format, is that everything is organized in chronological order and everything is saved in one place. If you want to just see minutes of board meetings, all you have to do is click the CATEGORY on the right column for Board Meetings. This will arrange all the minutes from past board meetings in chronological order. Bonnie reminded the club the board voted to support Generation Gallia with a $50 donation. In addition the Board voted to make a $100 donation to the Rotary Foundation Polio Plus campaign on behalf of our new District Governor, Ram Gawande.
Split-The-Pot–Matt Willis ran STP for our meeting today and our small pot was $6 to the lucky winner which was . . . Margaret Evans! Margaret missed the ‘big one’ of $101 by drawing a card other than the Queen of Hearts (actually, your intrepid Secretary didn’t catch which card was drawn today!). Our Foundation Fine was assessed against anyone who did NOT attend either of the two shows this weekend at the Ariel.
Kurt Dailey Named Sargent of Arms–President Bonnie reminded club members that she has appointed Kurt Dailey as our club’s Sargent of Arms. Kurt will be overseeing our meeting and attending to fines for minor or not so minor infractions of protocol. Our club has not had an official overseer since the Lou Ford days. Kurt offered the concept of the club issuing a special Sargent of Arms debit card! Sounds like he expects to be busy! New members, fear not, as this is all done in good humor and to keep our meetings lively and interesting.
Fellowship–Gordon Amsbary led club fellowship for today’s meeting. Gordon ‘crooned a tune’ to lead into his remarks. Today is Bastile Day according to Gordo and the club learned of other interesting facts about this day in history. Debbie Saunders missed out on a fine, but made it in the door this morning before the bell rang! Our new member, James Wellington, bought a happy buck today in honor of the birth of a new son! Congratulations, James!
Program–President Bonnie kicked off the meeting as a Club Assembly as an important planning tool for our club’s new year. She emphasized that our faithful attendance at the club meetings is an important part in building a great club. It’s the members! It is her goal to involve ALL members in much of the workings of the club this year and we are off to a great start.
Matt Willis spoke briefly about the upcoming visit of District Governor Antaram Gawande from the Athens Noon club. Matt reminded the club that Ram is passionate about Rotary and our District. We will be hosting our DG and his wife, next Monday evening at Dave’s American Grill, at 6:30 pm and then at our regular meeting on Tuesday morning. Members need to remember to be on time so we can provide our District Governor with as much time as possible for his visit and address to our club. A tour of the Holzer Center For Cancer Care and the Healing Garden will occur after the meeting.
Bob Hood next briefed the club about the workings of the club’s Scholarship Committee. He has been committee chair for several years, taking over from Herm Koby’s leadership. Bob described the committee’s work as fairly quiet and routine until the final month when the committe evaluates the candidates and awards the scholarships. This year our club was able to award six $1,000 scholarships to six high school seniors from Gallia county. The committee’s work has been moved up to allow these scholarships to be announced at graduation ceremonies for the area high schools. This year, Jodie Anderson will be assisting Bob and his committee.
Chuck Clark next reminded club members of the new Rotary year theme by RI President John Kenny, ‘The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands.’ This is a message that really resounds with members and is a call to action. Chuck called members’ attention to the current Rotarian magazine and the articles about President Kenny and this year’s theme. As an important token to every Gallipolis Rotarian, our club is providing a theme pin to be worn next week for our District Governor’s visit and at every meeting during the year. Chuck emphasised how important it is to wear this pin out in public and to call attention to what Rotary is doing. We all need to talk up Rotary and let our friends and neighbors know what our club is doing.