Gallipolitan for October 20th
New Member Induction—Gallipolis Rotary inducted a new member at 
our meeting today. Rotarian and Sergeant-of-Arms, Kurt Dailey, conducted the membership induction ceremony and welcomed Andrea Gannaway into our club. Andrea will hold the classification of Secondary Education and will be managing the badge box for the next few meetings in order to get to know everyone. Welcome to the club, Andrea!
President Bonnie McFarland opened our meeting of the Gallipolis Rotary Club promptly at 7:15 am. Matt Willis provided the invocation. Our guests today included Christopher Marrazon, a family practice physician, and our speaker, Meghan Barnes from the OSU South Center.
Club Elections–Bonnie reminded members that club elections for leadership positions for Rotary Year 2010-2011 will be held the first two weeks of November. The first ballot is our traditional general election with a run off ballot the following week.
New Club By-laws—Our club will be voting next week to adopt the new club By-laws which were approved by the board of directors this month. If you would like to receive a copy of the new by-laws via email, contact Secretary Chuck Clark at cwclark@suddenlink.net.
Welcome Back Jim Philippe—Members welcomed Jim Philippe at the meeting today after a long absence. It was great to have you with us again, Jim!
Split-The-Pot—Jim Morrison ran STP for our meeting today and the small pot was $7.00. Our lucky ticket holder today was PDG Mel Simon! Mel carefully drew for the Queen to try to win the large pot of $201 and ‘narrowly’ missed it by drawing the three of clubs. The deck is getting smaller and someone is going to win the big pot in the next several weeks! Mel graciously donated his small pot back to the club. The foundation fine was assessed against anyone who did not read this month in the elementary schools!
Rotary Auction for Relay For Life—Dan Whiteley reminded everyone that now the Farm Festival is behind us remember to donate some of that ‘stuff’ that hangs around your garage or basement or attic to Rotary! If you bring it to the meeting, Dan will take it off your hands and get it auctioned off that week at the Middleport Auction. Proceeds will benefit Rotary’s Relay For Life Team! We have had a good start so far so LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT THIS GREAT PROJECT!
Fellowship—Cleeland Willis ran club fellowship for the meeting and eloquently waxed philosophically in his introduction. Turning to business, Cleeland fined Paul Koch for his tardiness this morning. Paul already had his dollar out and was not tardy in paying the fine! Mel and Lydia Simon are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week and the club gave an ovation of applause for the occasion. Under Happy Buck$, Past President Debbie Rhodes volunteered a dollar in honor of the yesterday’s ground breaking for Tammi Brabham’s newest venture at the SR 850 exit of US 35. Cleeland concluded with his thought for the day.
Farm Festival Video—Chuck Clark presented a short video of photographs from the Bob Evans Farms Festival which featured the music of the Soggy Mountain Boys version of “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Several members inquired when this will appear on the club’s website. Chuck will check with Jodie Anderson about that!
Program—Jim Morrison introduced our speaker today, Meghan Barnes, from the OSU South Center in Piketon, who spoke to our club 
today about the Center’s business development efforts. Meghan emphasized the Center concentrates its business development efforts in the 10 counties in southern Ohio, and currently has 17 start up companies housed in the Center’s business incubator. The Center has room for 8 additional startup business in its facility. Most of these new enterprises are technology based with the nearby uranium enrichment process and cleanup at the Piketon facility.
Gallia County’s own Silver Bridge Coffee Company won the top prize last year in the entrepreneur business plan competition last year. The competition for this year’s entrepreneurial award is open again, with efforts to include students in college business schools in the area. Meghan announced the Center will hold two training events in the near future at the Piketon location—Patent and Trademark Training and Technology Tuesdays featuring training in marketing with social networking tools.
Meghan also announced a new local project involving mini-grants for community improvement projects has been launched. Details are available from Debbie Rhodes and Jim Morrison. Thank you, Meghan, for the interesting program.