Gallipolitan
President Bonnie McFarland opened the regular meeting of the Gallipolis Rotary Club promptly at 7:15 am. ADG Matt Willis gave the invocation. Grae Schuster read the ‘Rotary Minute’ focusing on our Foundation’s international work with student exchange and Group Study Exchange.
President Bonnie recognized our visiting Rotarian today, Bill Knight, from the Pt. Pleasant Rotary Club. Bill announced this week is the Mason County Fair and Pt. Pleasant Rotary is manning their ice cream booth selling as much ice cream as possible for their club fund raiser. It won’t be long before Gallipolis Rotarians will be working out at the BEF Festival!
Past President Deb Rhodes announced that our club’s application for a District Simplified Grant has been approved to sponsor our Books For Children Project. This grant funds the books we place in the county elementary school libraries in honor of our weekly program speakers. We need to evaluate if we need to cut back our grant request to allow the District to use some of our funds for other projects in our District.
District 6690 GSE Team—DG Ram announced this week that our District is taking nominations for this year’s Group Study Exchange team to India scheduled for January, 2010. Our District needs quality team candidates and a Rotarian to step forward to be the team leader.
Board Minutes on the Web—President Bonnie reminded everyone that the complete minutes of the last board meeting have now been posted on the club’s Blog page. One of the big advantages of using the blog format is that all information is retained and can be sorted by either ‘Newsletter’ or ‘Board Meeting’. This means you can look back in time to all the documents that maintained on the blog. There is a ‘search’ function that will look back with key words.
Holzer Hospice Softball Tournament—Kevin Petrie announced that Holzer Hospice will be holding their annual softball tournament in September and recommended the club sponsor the event. This would be a good visible community sponsorship as our club name and logo will be printed on the T-shirts. The club’s board members will meet after the meeting to discuss this event.
Coin Box—Emily Dailey turned in a heavy coin box to benefit the Rotary Foundation. This is a reminder to every member to use this convenient method of catching loose change to help with our support for the RI Foundation. Margaret Evans has additional boxes if you need one.
Split-The-Pot—Shirley Doss ran STP for our meeting today and our small pot was only $4.00! The lucky ticket holder for the small pot was Cleeland Willis. Cleeland missed the ‘big one’ of $129.00 by drawing the Queen of Clubs! So close! The Foundation Fine was assessed by Cleeland against anyone who isn’t going to play golf today!
Fellowship—Emily Dailey ran club fellowship this morning and immediately fined Margaret Evans for arriving late to the meeting. Deb Rhodes bought a ‘Happy Buck’ in honor of her anniversary. Chuck Clark was singled out for an upcoming birthday. Chuck chipped in a couple of bucks and had the entire club sing ‘Happy Birthday’. Our Sergeant of Arms also reminded the club that Chuck recently retired, so our Birthday Boy paid another fine. Emily concluded with a few words of wisdom.
Program—President Bonnie introduced our speaker for the morning, Rotarian Shawn Siders, who spoke to the club briefly about himself
and his career at Ohio Valley Bank. Shawn described his early years growing up and settling in Point Pleasant. He started with OVB in the mail room, just as many an executive has started his career. He moved up to a teller position in Rio Grande, and in Pt. Pleasant and continued his education at Marshall University in Business. Upon his graduation from Marshall, Shawn started working for Rotarians Katrinka Hart and David Nadler where he continues today.
Shawn is performing the duties of Assistant Treasurer for Katrinka and has helped the club improve our billing system by incorporating email and direct draft of club dues. Shawn will be providing a monthly report to the membership starting in September on the financial status of our club. This address to the club completes Shawn’s requirements for his blue badge. Congratulations, Shawn, we’re glad you’re a Gallipolis Rotarian!
Final Note—ADG Matt Willis announced that the word of the French 500 Medical Clinic is spreading in our Rotary District. It was mentioned when he recently visited at the Jackson Club and they are considering how they can financially support this local service. Word is also spreading beyond within our District. Congratulations, Mel!
Farm Festival—Event chair, Paul Koch, gave an update on the club’s plans for the BEF Festival. Please include your family members in your plans to help this year. We need ALL THE HELP and everyone’s involvement!