THE GALLIPOLIS ROTARY CLUB

Members attending included President Shirley Doss, VP/President-Elect Jodie McCalla (via phone), Treasurer Shawn Siders, Secretary Chuck Clark, Lee Saltzgaber, Kevin Dennis, and Resty Alonzo.

President Shirley recommended we have a club representative to attend the District Conference in May with PDD Mel and Lydia.

Some discussion was held regarding the District’s Ethics Seminar which we have not supported in the past.

Treasurer’s Report—Shawn Siders distributed  and explained the monthly treasurer’s report regarding club expenditures.  The Board discussed the month’s expenditures and account balances.

Secretary Chuck Clark reported the club’s average attendance for January, 2012 was 70.7% which is down from past months.

Spaghetti Dinner—President Shirley announced the club has fulfilled its obligation in holding spaghetti dinner fundraisers for the past three years.  The event has created awareness, but the club lost money on the events.  There will be no dinner this year, but the club may cook up and sell jars of sauce to raise funds.

Relay For Life—Some discussion was held on the feasibility of supporting the Relay this year with a ‘Lip-Sync’ benefit to be held at the Ariel Theatre.  Through Shirley’s position on the Ariel board we can obtain the venue for little cost making this fundraiser possible.

Rotary Scholarships—VP Jodie McCalla has released the scholarship information to all area high schools for this year’s candidates. Information is on our web site as well as the club blog page.  Deadline for scholarship applications is March 16th.

Lee Saltzgaber made a recommendation that the videos at the Silver Screen VII be additionally tagged with a phone number as well as the club meeting time.  While these are short 30 second videos, Chuck Clark will make this addition to the videos and provide these to the theater.

There being no further business before the board, the meeting was adjourned.

The Gallipolis Rotary Club, for 41 consecutive years, has offered a scholarship program to benefit graduating high school students from Gallia County schools entering the world of higher education. 

Selection of scholarship winners is by the scholarship committee composed of members of the Gallipolis Rotary Club.  The committee members review applications and rank the applicants based on grades, school activities, work, need and the student’s effort and clarity in completing the application.  Applicants must be residents of Gallia County.  In the past, scholarships have been awarded to graduating high school students.

The deadline of for return of the application is Friday, March 16th.  The scholarship application can be downloaded from the Gallipolis Rotary website at: www.gallipolisrotary.org/scholarship.  Students may return this application by e-mailing jodie.mccalla@gmail.com or returning by mail to Gallipolis Rotary Club, P.O. Box 214, Gallipolis, Ohio 45631.

Rotarian Kevin Dennis and Matt Eurell presented an interesting program today at Gallipolis Rotary about the Gallia Strong Tower program.  Rotarian Kevin Petrie introduced our speakers.  The Strong Tower program is a Wednesday evening ministry of Vinton Baptist Church and is open to anyone with ‘hurts, habits, or hang-ups!’  While one may initially think it only applies to victims of substance abuse, it welcomes victims of addictive behaviors, and hurts such as divorce, isolation, and physical and mental abuse.  Participants meet in a safe, non-judgmental environment first in a large group and then in specific small group sessions.

Rotarians heard first-hand from Matt Eurell, a program participant and success story.  Matt spoke about his experiences in hitting rock bottom and then finding his way back through Strong Tower.  He emphasized the importance of finding positive people who can show hope to a struggling individual.  He confessed setbacks, but starting anew, with new people in his life, new surroundings helps make success achievable.  Kevin closed his presentation speaking about the documented success rate for faith-based programs such as Strong Tower.  Thank you, Kevin and Matt, for the interesting program!

President Shirley Doss welcomed Rotarians to the meeting today and asked Secretary Chuck Clark to play the sample PR videos which are now showing at the Silver Screen VII.  These 30 second spots were produced by RI exclusively for promotional purposes by the local clubs.  These videos will continue to show through May and are funded by a PR grant from District 6690.

Fellowship—Gordon Amsbary ran our club fellowship for the meeting.  We had a member birthday today—Cleeland Willis, who was serenaded by a quartet composed of Paul Koch, Emily Dailey, Melissa Kimmel, and Margaret Evans who gave an excellent performance of Happy Birthday for Cleeland.  Gordo informed club members this month is ‘National Heart Month’ and today is ‘National Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbor Day.’  Gordon collected a fine from Bonnie McFarland for a recent picture in the paper.  Sammy Lopez offered up a buck for Gordon’s own MISSING membership pin!  Paul Koch was ‘dinged’ for arriving after the bell.

Happy Buck—Bonnie McFarland bought a Happy Buck in honor of the help she received from Rotarians Sammy Lopez and John Ellison for their valuable assistance in some community health presentations recently.

Split-The-Pot—Jim Morrison ran our STP for the meeting today selling enough tickets to push our small pot up to $8.00 today!  Our lucky ticket holder was Paul Koch.  Paul missed the ‘big one’ of $22.00 by drawing the Queen of Clubs.  Now that was close!  Jim had a little trouble with an ‘exploding’ deck of cards at the end, but the fine was assessed against anyone who did NOT arrive after the bell!’  Touché, Paul!

President Shirley reminded members the monthly club board meeting will be held directly after the meeting.

Here are the program assignments for the next few weeks:

Feb 14        Regular meeting
Feb 21        Lee Bauman
Feb 28        Cleeland Willis
Mar 6          Dave Nadler
Mar 13        Jeff Lanham
Mar 20        David Smith
Mar 27        Margaret Evans
Apr 3          Dan Whiteley
Apr 10        Kurt Dailey
Apr 17        John Ellison
Apr 24        Debbie Rhodes