Posted by Dene Hadden
SPOKES VOL. LXVI NO. 5                                                                               August 6, 2019
 
 
We were greeted by Rosalie Plechaty and Bob Brickman
 
President Odland opened the meeting with the “God Bless America” and Tom Renner provided the invocation, including a moment of silence for the victims of gun violence in El Paso and Daytona.
 
Guests:
 
Our Guests this morning included prospective member Kaleigh Eddy.
 
Getting to Know You:
 
Chris Wellington was introduced this morning.  She was born in Illinois (in the same hospital as Tom Renner) and moved to the Grand Junction/Bangor area where she was raised, including a stint in Don Hodgman’s biology class in high school.  She received her BS degree from Sienna Heights University and has worked for Bronson South Haven for 23 years.  She and her husband, who she has known since she was eight years old, have raised two sons and have three grandchildren, including the first girl in the family in 55 years.
 
Announcements:
  • Pancake Breakfast Information:  Our next breakfast will be August 11th at the airport.  This is our biggest fundraiser and we need all hands on deck.  Don Hodgman thanked those that have special pre-breakfast tasks, including Art and Tony with supplies, Larry and Bob with the signs, Nick, Tom Fleming, and Barry Winkel for various jobs.  A signup sheet was passed around.  Set up will occur on Friday. It would be great if we had 8-10 folks at the airport about 9:00 AM Friday morning to set up tables and chairs.  We are still looking for a utensil washer. There will also be an auction at the breakfast.
  • No Meeting August 13.
  • Vince Duggan’s membership application has been accepted by the Board and he will be inducted in August, barring any problems.
  • We are still missing a couple of September programs.  See Mark if you need a program.
 
Songs
 
Jim Davis was our song leader this morning and is one of our newer selections, published in 1921, “Ma, She’s Making Eyes at Me”.We followed that with “Give My Regards to Broadway” written by George M. Cohan for his musical play Little Johnny Jones which debuted in 1904 in New York.We finished with one of our favorites, “Smile, Sing a Song”.
 
50/50
 
Bob Boerma had the lucky ticket but then ran out of luck, drawing the queen.Deb Davidson is quietly collecting a small fortune by again winning the $2 drawing.
 
Fines:
  • Jerry Gruber celebrated his 83rd birthday by opening a rental business.
  • Jim Bradford and his lovely wife Julie are celebrating their 42nd anniversary this week.
  • Bob Stickland has a birthday this week!
  • Dene Hadden’s granddaughter Allison is celebrating her 16th birthday tomorrow.
  • Nick Tuit’s granddaughter is 22 this week and is teaching overseas.
  • All birthdays were celebrated Ludington style.
  • The basket was passed but there was some mention of the Cub’s being in first place, but no mention of the Tigers, Lions, Red Wings or Pistons.
 
President Odland held a Club Assembly this morning.
 
Mark began with a review of the survey we took last spring.  We had a return of more than 80 % on the survey, which is astounding!
 
IN general, the survey disclosed much satisfaction in the things our club does, from meeting time and place to the level and effort of our fundraising and how we spend the money we raise.
 
The two areas with the weakest support, and it was still solid, were music and breakfast.
 
Breakfast concerns seemed to focus on cost and variety, but variety went from more to less and there was general agreement that the cost was very reasonable for what we get.
 
The concerns about music were about the quality of some of the tunes, their age or their appropriateness in this day and age.
 
We do have a committee that is reviewing our song selection and will have new programs put together in the future.  Ideas should be forwarded to Bob Boerma or Sue Duval.
 
On September 3rd our program will consist of several members of the West Michigan Men’s Chorus singing songs that we might consider adding to our programs, from “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” to the “Armed Forces Melody” to “King of the Road” plus many others.
 
The second part of the meeting dealt with By-Law changes.  These changes focused on the definition of a member and would allow the Board of Directors to authorize a Satellite club if it became appropriate to start such a club to increase club membership and add diversity to our membership.
 
We were also presented with a proposal to increase the number of directors on the Board to allow more members to take part in the leadership of our club.
 
In addition, it was proposed that anytime we have a major service project, that project would take the place of the Tuesday morning meeting that week.  Most Rotary clubs do this now.
 
Member Tom Renner made the motion to accept these changes to our by-laws.  The motion was seconded by member Bob Copping.  President called for a voice vote which passed without objection.
 
Jerry Gruber thanked Mark for his well-run meeting and presented him one of our member’s business pens!
 
We closed the meeting with the Four Way Test.
 
Next week’s program: Larry Lewis will introduce the President of Vibracoustic, Kelly Reynolds.
 
Greeters:  John Hamilton and Ted Weber
 
Editarian:  Dene Hadden