Highlights of December 1 Meeting

 

 

 

 

Dick Myren asked Jim McGown to draw the winning raffle ticket to win the weekly pot of $25.  Should the Ace of Clubs be drawn, the lucky winner would win an additional $50.  Jim Erickson was the holder of the stub of the ticket drawn.  When he attempted to draw the Ace of Clubs, the card he drew was the Four of Spades.

 

 

 

 

 

Owen was very glad his Eagle Scout project was a success.  A local contractor supplied most of the materials needed to assemble the artificial fish habitats that he was told were very much needed at the urban fishing ponds throughout the community.  Owen taught the younger scouts how to make them.  They were delivered to and handed off to the park ranger, and were not involved in the actual installation into the ponds.

 

 

 

 

Elected unanimously as officers to begin serving July 1, 2023 were Colleen Coons, who will serve as Club President, Logan Harper will serve as President-Elect 2023-24 and as Club President 2024-25.  Diane Ware will begin to serve a two-year term as Treasurer July 1, 2023.  Elected in December, 2021, Carla Krcmarik will continue in her two-year term as Secretary through June 30, 2024.  Directors elected in 2021 to serve two-year terms from July 1, 2022 thru June 30, 2024 were Logan Harper and Jay Stuckey.  Unanimously elected to serve two-year terms as Directors beginning July 1, 2023 were Don Boucher, Dave Brauchler, and Bryan Goetzenberger.  With Logan's election as President-Elect, his Director seat will be vacated July 1, 2023, and the board will be responsible for appointing someone to fill that vacancy.  

 

 

 

The most noticeable aspect of Shelly's job is that of being the "party planner" for the club.  On June 29, the club will be celebrating our 50th anniversary.  A planning kickoff took place Monday, November 28.  It will be a People of Action dinner.  It is hoped that the anniversary celebration will kick off an annual celebration  honoring a Rotarian as well as a member of the community at large.  Shelly asked that anyone with experience of getting nominations from the community should volunteer to be involved help.  She is particularly looking for a nomination form.  There will be lots of jobs both large and small and she encouraged everyone to say "yes" if asked to help.

She will be gathering as much historical information as possible.  For those members who have been around a long time, it's time to go through those boxes and see what kind of historical Mesa West treasures can be found.

 

She is also working on the post-holiday celebration ith details to come.

 

December 29 is a 5th Thursday.  We will gather at a local establishment for social hour that evening.  Location to be announced.

 

 

Six members of Mesa West recently participated with 25 students and doctors in our first Gift of Hearing mission at a school for the deaf in Guaymas, Mexico.  Participating Mesa West members were:  Bob Jensen, Chuck Flint, Polo Santiago, Jim Schmidt, Ray Smith, and Erica Williams.

 

A detailed report will be presented early in 2023 at a club meeting.

 

 

The Rotary Vocational Service Fund of Arizona is a 501(c)(3) non profit.  It is a multi-district Rotary project in the State of Arizona.  It is a Qualifying Charitable Organization enabling individual donors who are Arizona residents to get up to $400 dollar-for-dollar credit offsetting their state income tax obligation, and married couples filing jointly to get up to $800 tax credit..  TRVFA provides grants to fund vocational education to enable the beneficiaries to get to the next level of a living wage.  

 

Bryan has had the opportunity to interview several candidates to help them climb the ladder and simply needed help to do so.

 

 

The Sponsor Program idea actually came from Past President John Eagleston.  In the four years Allan has run the campaign they have raised an average of $50,000 each year.  The fortunate thing is that 80% of club members have participated with donations, but 34% of the total funds raised have come from sources outside of our club.

 

We've had some fun with it in the past with the team captains creating team names.  One year we had a steak and beans competition.  He hopes to have a like incentive this year when the campaign is kicked off in January.

 

Allan will be presenting a program in January on giving.  It will include the sponsor program, and TRVFA.

 

 

If we want Rotary to thrive in the future, we need to train our replacements.  We sponsor a high school Interact club at Westwood High School in Mesa.  Their goal was to meet twice a month, but so far, they haven't missed a week.  Members helped Mesa West volunteers on Veterans Day by distributing water and flags at the parade.  The club officers each also serve as Assistant Governors on the Interact District Council.  

 

Each year, two RYLA camps are held - one in October and one in January.  In October, Westwood HS Interact had fifteen delegates at RYLA.  The camps provide leadership training.

 

We also sponsor a Rotaract Club at Grand Canyon University.

 

We are also involved with Rotary Youth Exchange.  Our inbound student this year is Fanny Leinard from France.  She is attending Campo Verde High School.  Our outbound student this year is Jaylee Alvin, who is spending her year in Spain.  She is loving her host family and school.  The students benefit from being immersed in another culture and learn to be fabulous ambassadors.

 

 

Jay is responsible for booking speakers for our club meetings.  He has openings in February through June and encouraged members who had ideas about speakers who could provide awesome programs to get in touch with him.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our most recent hands-on community service project was November 19 at Midwest Food Bank where volunteers packaged Frosted Flakes into individual serving-size bags.  He has tried to have a service project each month.  With our holiday bell-ringing responsibility, he is taking a project planning break in December. 

 

He is open to ideas for spring projects.  In April we will be participating in a district-wide bunk-bed build for Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

 

 

We are at the point in the visioning project where we are working on what steps now need to be taken as action plans are developing.  He gave a report on the recent survey to determine our visioning motto.  He said 33 members responded.  He said it was close, but a clear majority did favor the motto:

We have brought in 5 new members since July 1 - Polo Santiago, Gabby Turner, Gina and Mike Schroeder, and Debbie Koeneman.  We have lost two members.  Jim Le Cheminant had to resign because of conflicting commitments.  Dan Coons  transferred to another club.  We currently have 67 active members and 4 honorary members.  The club is growing, we are up 3 for the year so far.  Pam inserted that she wants to beat Dan Coons' record of bringing in 12 members in one year.

 

 

 

John offered to help anyone set up their My Rotary account and establish automatic giving to support The Rotary Foundation through the Annual Fund as well as PolioPlus.

 

Our club's annual giving goal for the Annual fund is $15,000.  Year to date, we are at $7,450 with 53% of current members participating.  Our club's all-time giving if $485,915.

 

Our Mesa West PolioPlus goal for this year is $10,000.  To date we have given $2,040, with only 29% of our members haven given this year to date.

 

It is known that giving increases with participation in "My Rotary" accounts.  In Rotary District 595, 47% of members have My Rotary accounts.  In Mesa West, 73% of our members have set up their My Rotary account.  We need to convince the other 27% to do so.

 

In other areas of giving that Mesa West Rotary Members ideally should support, John reported that 33% of our members have already contributed $7,147 to Mesa West Rotary Foundation this year with 33% of our members represented in that giving.  17% of Mesa West Rotary Club members have given a total of $3,540 to The Rotary Vocational Fund of Arizona since July 1.

 

 

At the end of the last fiscal year, our club's foundation had $232,974.84 in total assets. About half of that is restricted to the Guaymas Hearing Project for a period of time.  Sponsors contributing to the foundation pay for our charitable service.  The $58,200 spending budget approved for this fiscal year includes:

 

$13.500 for Community Service

$16,500 for International Service (this includes $12,000 budgeted for the recent Guaymas hearing mission)

$5,000 for Vocational Service - to be donated to The Rotary Vocational Fund of Arizona

$23,200 for Youth Service (includes $12,000 budgeted specifically for scholarships)

 

During the prior fiscal year, $70,000 was transferred from the Mesa West Rotary Foundation to the District for them to manage the Aqua Africa Global Grant under the supervision of the District Foundation Committee.

 

Mesa West Rotary Club and Mesa West Rotary Foundation are two separate legal entities with separate boards.  The foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit.  The board of trustees of the foundation must be approved by the Mesa West Rotary Club Board of Directors.  

 

 

Dick had statements reviewed at the most recent board meeting on the table for interested members to look at in detail.  He provided some highlights.  He said we are operating on target.  The dues structure the club has adopted is working.  He thanked Jeanie Morgan for her work on the budget and dues structure.  The bottom line - we are in good shape financially

 

Members who were not present and would like to see the reports shared can reach out to Jeanie Morgan