NOVEMBER 6, 2012 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
A Career in Amateur and Professional Hockey

Club 10 Business Report

Vice President Jim Kosmo brought the meeting to order at 12:31 p.m. on a windy fall Election Day Tuesday in downtown Saint Paul.  Jim Field led the assembled Rotarians in singing America The Beautiful accompanied by Bill Given on the piano.  Steve Nyhus provided the invocation evoking said Election Day.  Nancy McKillips facilitated the introduction of visiting Rotarians and guests.  Today's Greeters were Dion Powers and Michael-jon Pease.

Past President Doug Bruce gave a Nominating Committee report including the names of the members of the committee.  He asked that all Club 10 members interested in serving as an officer or director should let the Nominating Committee know of this interest.  The Nominating Committee will present the Official Ballot at the November 27th meeting.  Vice President Jim read from a letter from one of our Centennial scholars at Stanford University as evidence of the significant things that Club 10 members have accomplished. The letter ended with a sincere thank you to Rotary for the support of the scholarship.

Bill Handschin introduced Foundation Month and provided an overview of fundraising efforts supporting both the Rotary International and Saint Paul Rotary Foundations.  Doug Hartford reminded those assembled that this is the third anniversary of the "Feed My Starving Children" trailer donated by Club 10 during the Centennial Campaign.  The trailer has been used in 98 mobile packing events in 13 states involving 110,000 volunteers packing more than 24 million meals.  He asked members to reserve the weekend of April 27 and 28, 2013 (Saturday and Sunday this time) for the next packing event at Summit Brewery.  Sarah Kolar collected Happy Dollars today.

Chuck Whitaker introduced today's speaker, Gordie Roberts, retired professional hockey player and current coach of the Elk River High School hockey team.  Mr. Roberts was born in Detroit, MI, close enough to Canada to benefit from playing both there and in the United States during his early hockey career.  He left home to play junior hockey at the age of 15.  Later, he signed with the Hartford Whalers in the World Hockey Association at the age of 18 to begin his major league career.  He shared the lessons learned from the great coaches that he has been privileged to work with during his playing career, lessons that he in turn has used to mentor young professional players and to teach high schoolers.  Mr. Roberts learned key principles of coaching from Coach John Tortorella of the Phoenix Coyotes, where he served as Director of Player Development.  He believes that these principles can transfer to the business world.  The coach or boss must communicate that he/she is in charge; respect for the players; systems utilized; care for the players; intensity; and, the role of each player.  Individual coaching moments should feature the message intended and a teaching point communicated with enthusiasm.  Mr. Roberts also described the attributes of other great coaches he had the opportunity to play for:  Glen Sonmor ("enthusiastic"); Herb Brooks ("made individual feel special"); Bob Johnson ("one-to-one motivator"); and, Scotty Bowman ("great use of players").  Mr. Roberts became head coach at Elk River High School in the fall of 2012.