SPOKES VOL. LXV NO. 40 April 16, 2019
We were greeted by Ted Weber and Bill Roberts this morning.
President Odland opened the meeting with “America The Beautiful” and Tom Renner provided the invocation.
We welcomed back Matt Shaffer from his health scare. He is still recovering but is doing much better.
Guests:
Our guests this morning included prospective member Debbie Howe and our speaker Brian Bosgraf.
Spotlight:
No Spotlight this morning.
Announcements:
- President Odland has updated directory sheets for new members for all members to include in their directory.
- Our educational fundraiser dinner is scheduled for April 27th at Beeches Golf Course.
- Scott Mark has more than 30 items for door prizes and auction items but could use more if members have items that they can secure.
- Nominations for Rotarian of the Year and Citizen of the Year are being accepted now and the deadline is fast approaching. Please get you nominations in!
- On April 26 at 10:00 at Black River Park we will celebrate Arbor Day by planting a tree. This marks our second year doing this and hopefully this will become a tradition for our club.
Songs
Larry Witkop was our song leader this week as our song list featured his theme song, “Stodala Pumpa” This tune, an old eastern European (Hungarian) drinking song has been adopted by many people as a drinking song, including Larry and our Rotary Club.In honor of member Kevin Schooley we then sang a lively version of the 1907 hit “School Days”.We finished with “Sing Rotarians” sung to the tune of the Otsego High School fight song.
50/50
We welcomed back Sergeant-at-Arms Tom Ruesink this morning!For the third week in a row, Bob Straits had the lucky ticket and for the third week in a row, he failed to win even a single dollar, drawing the 10 rather than the 4, or even the 2.Speaker Brian Bosgraf won the $2 prize.
Fines:
- Steve Larsen introduced prospective member Debbie Howe who is the executive director of SCORE, an organization of retired executives.
- Dan Liehr expressed the loss all of us felt at the destruction that occurred at the Cathedral of Notre Dame last night.
- Bob Copping was happy to report that the bell towers survived the fire, keeping the story of the bell ringers of Notre Dame alive and continuing.
- Ross Woodhams let us know that there is a Jazz Festival at the high school all day today and tonight the Jazz band from Grand Valley State University will present a concert in Listiak Auditorium.
- Scott Mark reminded us that he would be happy to get more door prizes or auction items for the Educational fundraiser.
- Tom Renner was pleased that the Cubs won last night and that one of the auction items is a pair of Cubs tickets to a game on August 3rd.
- Joel Rummel announced that son Joel turns 19 this week and that his business and the Masons are hosting an ABO on Thursday at the Masonic Building. RSVP through the Chamber.
- Korky Ingersoll celebrated his daughter’s birthday/
- Jean Stein’s son has a birthday on the 21st and her grandson on the 22nd.
- Steve Miles was pleased to announce that their daughter has been accepted into a Doctor of Audiology program in Oregon.
Bob Copping introduced our speaker, Brian Bosgraf from the Michigan Maritime Museum.
Brian, founder of Cottage Homes in Holland, has long been active in lakeshore activities, including the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, Pilgrim Haven and the Maritime Museum.
He talked about the growth of the Museum over the last ten years, especially since the addition of the Friend’s Good Will. They are debt free, have a two year financial reserve and long and short term strategic plans.
They began their current planning after a “South Haven Harbor futuring event a couple of years ago, that was the result of the Geisler family looking to get out of the marina vision. This led to the Nichols family also thinking about their future. Longtime supporters of the Museum, the Nichol’s decided to sell their riverfront property to the Museum and that will be closed in September of 2020.
In addition, the current museum building is old and was only a temporary building when is was moved to the current location.
As a result of these occurrences, the museum board decided to move forward with a plan for the museum.
The focus of the plan is to build and develop a world renown museum that is capable of hosting events.
As a result, they have begun an $8 million dollar capital campaign that will replace the current museum building, add a building at the “point” of the property, develop docking and add or improve other buildings on the property. The new museum building will include a learning center and an event area. Currently they have received pledges totaling $3 million dollars and hope to have $6 million pledged by the time the public campaign begins this summer. Contraction should begin in the fall of 2020 and be complete by the following summer.
President Odland presented Brian with our fabulous speaker’s pen and thanked him for his interesting presentation.
President Odland closed the meeting with the Four Way Test.
Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, April 23, 2019.
April 23 program: Dan Leihr: Denise King from Hospice of SW Michigan
April 23 Greeters: Richard Swanson and Nick Tuit
Editarian: Dene Hadden