President Chris Krueger opened the meeting with Bert Millett offering the invocation and Polly Cady leading the Pledge of Allegiance. She thanked Bob Jensen for greeting members and guests as they arrived for the meeting. Ray Smith led everyone in singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to start celebrating Valentine's week!Guests
Visiting Rotarians, Erwin and Joan Reiman from Rapid City, South Dakota were present. Dil Brinton from the Mesa Club was present and introduced our soon-to-be-member, Lola McClane. Bert Millett introduced his guest, Tony Caliendo, who recently joined Bert's practice, Orangewood Law Group, as a partner. Bruce Dransfeldt, from Chandler Horizon Rotary, was back as a visitor. Dick Myren introduced Tom Mellen, visiting from Farmington Maine Rotary. Rik Bucy was visiting from the Soldotna, Alaska club. PDG Lloyd Gnirk from District 5650 was visiting from Omaha, Nebraska.
Drawings
Jim McGown won $10 in the weekly attendance drawing, since $5 had rolled over unclaimed from the January 31 meeting. Dr. Ron Thompson handled the weekly raffle. He announced that the lucky ticket holder would win $37.00, and if they were lucky, and drew the ace of clubs from the remaining cards in the deck, they would win $447.00. Having pooled their money to purchase raffle tickets, the three musketeers, Jack Rosenberg, John Benedict, and Steve Ross held the winning ticket. They appointed John to attempt to draw, but he drew the wrong ace - the ace of spades.
Happy Bucks
John Benedict reported that while caring for his daughter's dog, he took the dog on a walk and tripped over a speed bump and sustained an injury requiring stitches, but not a cast. Dick Myren paid his traditional Rod Daniels tribute $1 - happy to be a member of Mesa West Rotary. He paid an additional $1 because he was going to have to leave the meeting early. Penny May was happy to be back at Mesa West Rotary, although she clearly wished she was still on her recent island vacation to the Cook Islands. Penny explained that one of the major differences in meeting places for Rotary between Alaska and Arizona, is that in Arizona there are no coat and hat racks. John Pennypacker was happy to be heading to his niece's rehearsal dinner later and would be enjoying her wedding on Friday. Bruce Dransfeldt paid to promoting their annual hole-in-one fundraising competition. CLICK HERE to see a You-tube video about the event. He also announced that he is preparing tax returns for AARP at the Chandler Library. Allan Cady was happy that Larry Fitzgerald will be coming back to the Cardinals. Polly Cady was happy to be a Rotarian and had enjoyed their recent visit to the Verrado Rotary Club. Donna Goetzenberger announced that even though her Short Term Youth Exchange Chair and Inbound Chair had both resigned their positions, she was happy to have recruited Machel Considine from Tempe Kyrene Rotary to fill one of those positions and was very thankful that Dan Coons had attended her recent Youth Exchange Committee meeting. Donna is trying to expand her committee to a larger number of working members, so the volume of tasks involved in managing Youth Exchange can be accomplished by a broader number of Rotarian volunteers. The additional workers will make the program much more manageable and sustainable. Donna also reminded members that Colton Cagle, the current Interact District Governor, and a member of Westwood High School Interact Club (which is sponsored by Mesa West) will be an outbound Rotary Youth Exchange Student next year. One of his obligations for being selected is to come up with three host families to house an inbound student next year. They do not need to be in the Westwood High School district. Interested members were urged to contact Donna. Rotarians were urged to spread this opportunity to others outside Rotary. Lucinda was happy to have recognized her 2005-6 District Governor classmate, Lloyd Gnirk from Omaha, visiting our meeting. Dil Brinton with the Mesa Club announced that their club would be celebrating their 97th birthday soon and hoped many Mesa West Rotarians would celebrate with them. Chris Krueger was happy that one of her employees was going to receive the Chairman's Award from her bank that afternoon, and she might have to leave before the meeting was over to be there for the occasion.
Announcements
- Allan Cady announced that the Sponsorship Campaign is just over half way to our goal of raising $40,000. Allan really believes we could raise $50,000 if members were to really get behind the program this year. He had a progress thermometer prepared by Paige Goetzenberger to illustrate our progress. He said there were brochures on the table, and Dan Coons had printed an additional supply for the meeting, and he was happy to report there is some action starting to happen.
- Dick Myren announced that he had thank-you notes to hand out from Rod Daniels, who had prepared notes for those Rotarians who had reached out to him recently following the loss of his wife.
- Dan Coons announced that he had visited the Westwood High School Interact Club. They were selling stickers to raise money for Crutches 4 Africa. Dan brought some of the stickers to the meeting to sell for $3 each. Members said it would be easier and faster to buy them for $5 each. Dan sold all the stickers he had brought to the meeting plus some invisible stickers at that price. Crutches 4 Africa is an Interact District 5495 service project. All Interact clubs have worked to collect mobility devices and raise money for them to be transported to Kenya to be delivered by a team of Interact Ambassadors and adult chaperones who will travel to Kenya this coming summer. The mission is coordinated with a partnership of Kenyan Rotarians and Rotaractors and Crutches 4 Africa, a US non-profit which strives to fill mobility needs in deprived communities of Africa.
- Melody Jackson announced a grand opening of a new revolutionary skin care business one of her friends was starting.
President Chris Krueger called the meeting to order asking Ryan Ellis to offer the invocation and Warren Williamson to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. She thanked Lola McClain for serving as greeter for the meeting. Lola is on her way to becoming a Mesa West Rotarian, but has not yet been formally inducted.
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The mission of Rotary International is to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through its fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.
