Rotary File - July 2, 2013
VISITING ROTARIANS
Karen Franklin—IC Noon
GUESTS
Kris and Conor Henry—Conor is outgoing exchange student about to leave for Korea
Mark Ashby—Guest of Dean Carrington
MAKE-UPS
Everyone who attended the year ender will be credited as will members who attended the June Board meeting.
Month opener: Liz Nichols, Mark Patton, Chris and Vernette Knapp, Andreas Soemadi, Roger Christian, Dave Parsons, Paul Ellis
Children’s Museum Golf Tournament: Randy Willman, Toby Hyde, Casey Cook, Mike Messier
Past DG Luncheon and Gavel passing, Jefferson—Chris and Vernette Knapp, John and Deb Ockenfels
International Conference, Lisbon—Nancy Pacha, John and Deb Ockenfels
Past DG Luncheon—John and Deb Ockenfels
ANNOUNCEMENTS
We celebrated July birthdays with 4 Rotarians and guests.
July 2 was the first meeting as President for Casey Cook. He is a fan of history and will try to share little known historical facts. He mentioned that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 when Adams was 90 and Jefferson 83. Jefferson was Adam’s first vice-president by virtue of coming in 2nd in the vote count. The relationship was contentious because they were philosophically very different. They learned to appreciate each other over time, but it goes to show that they were both humans before they were icons.
Everyone owed a buck for the great Polio+ article in The Wall Street Journal. It pointed out that those participating in eradication in Pakistan are heroes because there are people losing their lives over polio eradication. Randy also pointed out that John McKinstry was pictured in the paper with a group that went to Joplin, MO to help with tornado damage repairs. Bryan Clemons was pictured handing out an award. Roger Christian was on the radio. Jim Swaim announced to a group of social service program directors that he plans on retiring soon.
See Deb Dunkhase if you would like to sign up for handling programs for a month.
The club is setting up a series of apprentices. Shelby will be apprenticing with Deb Dunkhase to help with programs. If you are interested in apprenticing with Jack for Sgt-at-Arms, Elaine for Club Secretary or Gary for the Treasurer position, please let Casey know soon.
Casey presented an award to Vernette Knapp that was received at the International Conference in Lisbon. She was nominated by the District for the Spouse Partner Service Award for exemplary humanitarian service through Rotary, and she was one of the people given this prestigious award.
Karen Franklin indicated that the IC Noon Club will be sponsoring the new downtown program. Right now just city staff are involved, but Nancy Quellhorst would like to raise the visibility of Rotary by having Rotarians present at city events to help answer questions for visitors. The Noon Club will pay for vests or shirts to help identify Rotarians as ambassador volunteers. There will be an orientation at the end of July or early in August. Contact Karen Franklin to sign up.
The Ockenfels had a great time in Lisbon. They noted that the International Conference will be in Sydney next year and there will be a large delegation from District 6000. Planning for a block of rooms at a hotel and special district activities are already under way.
PROGRAM
Casey decided to do something special for his first meeting and invited all past presidents from this and other clubs who were present to answer the question about what was the most memorable moment in their presidency.
Jean Bartley: We celebrated the club’s 20th anniversary at Brown Deer during her presidency.
Nancy Pacha: Rotary centennial year happened at the tail end of her presidency, and the conference was in Chicago where we had a great attendance. People from Xicotepec also came to that meeting, and also visited Iowa City, as did a variety of international guests.
Brad Langguth: went to Calgary for International and they had a great time there with their kids.
Peggy Doerge: The year she was president all 4 IC clubs had women presidents.
Jim Peterson: His was the first year of everyone being a Paul Harris Fellow as a result of a points swap meet.
Karen Franklin: She fondly remembers the International conference in Birmingham, England and how different it is attending as a president compared to going just as an individual member.
Pam Ehly: She spent her first board meeting looking at the budget and realized that we had let spending get out of control. That was fixed during her year, and we have also had great member growth over this past year.
Dave Parsons: was the first non-IC Noon Club appointed president. They discovered actually later on in his presidency that he was not legal because he never was a director first. His was the first year after the vote to allow women and it was fun starting to adjust everything from membership to the song books to be gender-neutral. Our first woman member was Mary Oxford.
John Ockenfels: noted that his nervousness about taking the presidency was quickly overcome because everyone chips in and makes the job a breeze. John also noted that we have a high percentage of past presidents still active in the club—very unusual compared to other clubs. It is a good indication of what a positive and productive group we continue to be.
Gary Haymond: remembered the Brisbane convention and his whole family found it the best trip of their lives. He discovered that being president is all about getting out of way and letting the club run itself.
Nenu Piragine: was president of her club in Argentina. Her father became a Rotarian when she was 9 years old so grew up with Rotary. She was the first woman in her club and its first woman president. She found it memorable attending the 2005 international conference in Chicago.
Mike Messier started his year at the international conference in Chicago. He echoed others that being president is a terrific way to become educated on Rotary. The most significant activity was the introduction of community grants in his year.
Randy Willman: This club is about relationships. You get to know everyone a little better by serving as president.
Chris Knapp: Buenos Aires was the location of the international conference. He met someone there who had actually helped Pete move an ambulance to Honduras. Small world! When Chris needed to take a break from his presidency to help Pete get home from Honduras after a stroke he was gratified that the Club went on just fine.
Deb PVA: She was president at the turn of the century when everyone was worried that there would be problems. Nothing bad happened. She attended the Singapore Conference and got to know the Pachas really well because that was also the year Gary was President of the Noon Club.
Larry Freeman was president at West Liberty, but t was not a great experience because the president before and after him both got transferred and he ended up with three terms.
Our 25th Anniversary will be in January 2014.
Liz Nichols, Notetaker