SEP 11, 2012 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Club Assembly

Assisting Dan at today’s meeting were:

Greeters – Mary Ellen Reihsen and Carole Kralicek
Scribe – Jim Kosmo
Song Leader – David Laird
Piano – Dennis Boom
Invocation – Jean Vukas Roberts
Introduction of Guests – Darrell Butterwick

Before the Assembly, the club welcomed two new members: Patrick Sullivan, Partner, HighMark Wealth Management, introduced by Immediate Past President Doug Bruce and Annette Kuyper, Director of Military Outreach, Department of Military Affairs, introduced by Ed Coleman.

Even long time, highly active members were impressed with the depth and scope of St. Paul Rotary activities, programs and benevolence as President Dan orchestrated a coordinated symphony of presentations by each of the club’s 12 Board members who illustrated how 185 people impact the world.

Local Rotary programs include:

* 3,000 dictionaries handed personally to elementary students
* Selecting St. Paul Teacher of the Year
* Honoring 300 middle school students at a club meeting
* Hosting nearly100 top high school students at Camp RYLA
* Awarding $20,000 college scholarship annually
* Publishing downtown walking tour brochure
* Maintaining gardens in Cleveland Circle
* Raising $9,000 and creating smiles with Rose Sale
* Assisting Salvation Army Bell Ringing
* Pack supplies for Mano-a-Mano
* Hosting students in Youth Exchange
* Sponsor students to India and Japan
* Supporting GSE teams
* Building and delivering Statue for Peace for sister city Nagasaki, Japan
* Funding schools and water project in Guyana
* Helping 660 farm families with water project in Laguna, Bolivia
* Helping 1,000 people in IIalo Greening Project in Ecuador

Special note was made of the Club’s support for Feed My Starving Children that included purchasing a semi-trailer to enable FMSC to conduct 87 food packing events nationwide with 103,211 volunteers packing 23+ million meals, enough to feed 62,000 children for a year, so far. Additionally, the club’s packing events at Summit Brewery brought together 2,500 volunteers to pack 500,000 meals to keep 1,500 children from starving.

Local projects are in addition to participation in Rotary International projects. During the past year St. Paul Rotary provided $37,000 to the Paul Harris Foundation, $7,000 more than budgeted.  Just one of RI’s projects, the battle to eliminate polio, has achieved incredible success, nearly eliminating the crippling killer disease from our planet. Now we take on peace and hunger.

Just to prove that Rotary is not all benevolence, President Dan pointed to the vast array of business and social activities club members enjoy including the Holiday Party, family fun night at Pine Tree Apple Orchard, golf and tennis outing at White Bear Lake Country Club. And, that’s not to mention a scintillating weekly series of entertaining and educational speakers.

What can 185 people in St. Paul do? There is no limit.

Using a statistic-laden PowerPoint presentation the leadership team described program after program and Treasurer Randy Kroll then talked numbers and no one nodded off.  Kroll noted that the St. Paul Rotary Foundation has committed to provide $54,700 this year in support of club activities based on anticipation of a $5,000 increase in annual donations.

President Dan stressed that the power of our club is in how many people are engaged, as illustrated by the fact that more than 60 members actively participated in today’s program as club officers, directors, committee chairs and committee members.

See the entire slide presentation by going to our club website (www.stpaulrotary.org) and scroll down to the “Download” section.

Jim Kosmo, Scribe