APR 3, 2012 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Joan Holman

Greeters: Kit Hadley
Scribe: Michael-jon Pease
Song Leader: Joe Kovarik (America the Beautiful)
Piano: Todays’ host - Bill Given
Invocation: Ron Phillippo
Introduction of Guests: Scott House. The only guest present was prospective member Ann Frisch.

President’s Remarks: Dan McKeown presided, thanking Bill Given for hosting the meeting today. Bill is donating what we would pay for the lunch to the Centennial Fund!

Thursday’s Vocational Speaker is Carole Kralicek, the Wardrobe Lady. She handles auctions and estate sales. Bring an item and she’ll appraise it for you.

Next week’s program is Jeff Hamiel, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

With deep sadness, Dan announced the sudden death of Lake Elmo Rotarian John Deir. John was in the process of becoming District Governor for 2013-14. Please keep his family and his Rotary friends in your prayers. Funeral arrangements are pending.

John Fesler is in the hospital (we are waiting to hear which one) with back problems.

FMSC: Doug Hartford reported that there are still shifts available for the Feed My Starving Children packing event on April 27 (6:30-8:30 shifts) and April 28 (11:00 and 2:00 p.m.) Our goal this year is to pack 125,000 meals.

New Member Introduction: Scott Nelson introduced Keevan Kosidowski. Executive Director of the Regions Hospital Foundation.

Camp RYLA:  John Bradford reported that we have a great group of campers returning as junior counselors. 31 of the campers this year are from Saint Paul (that’s 30%!). The increased Saint Paul attendance is due to the scholarship and hard work reaching out to local schools by our members. We do need more Saint Paul Rotarians on the RYLA committee. There are two other great opportunities to be involved this year:

BBQ gathering on April 22 followed by an ethics discussion with the campers

Spend a weekend at the camp (new this year!). For $50 per person, you can enjoy a private room and shared bath facilities at the camp – great for kids and grand kids. Contact John if you’re interested.

Program: Bob Cardinal introduced Joan Holman (Holman.com) who spoke enthusiastically about Internet Marketing Secrets. 

Joan started with the inspiring story of Amanda Hockings from Austin, MN whose books were rejected by 50 publishers.  Hockings self-published one e-book through Amazon’s free Kindle upload app. Priced at 99 cents, her first 8 books earned her $2.5 million in less than two years. She was then approached by a traditional print publisher and offered a $2 million contract for four more books.

Other highlights of the talk included:

Internet use is growing exponentially: 55% of Americans are online everyday (and 93% of those online check Facebook). LinkdIn is the place for professionals to network.

More and more, people are accessing the internet using tablets (such as the iPad) and smart phones. Tablet sales have surpassed PC sales for the first time ever. We are in the midst of the next Dot.com boom!

The blogosphere is growing rapidly and more businesses are turning to self-published blogs to engage customers and promote themselves.

Businesses can be destroyed by bad online reviews and “hater” sights. If you’re doing business, it’s important to monitor and manage your online profile.

Your domain name has become important real estate – the domain “netquotes.com” just sold for $40,000,000!

The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 p.m.


Michael-jon Pease
Scribe