SPOKES VOL. LXV NO. 26 December 18, 2018
Bob Stickland and Dan Thompson were our greeters this morning.
President Odland opened the meeting with “America the Beautiful” and Art Ayers provided the invocation which included praise for the news that Missy Thompson is in full remission from her cancer and prayers for Glenn Pietenpol and Richard Swanson.
Guests:
Our guests this morning included District Assistant Governor Dyann Chenault and soon-to-be member Ross Woodhams.
Spotlight:
Our spotlight this week consisted of the induction of two new members.
Mark Odland and Bob Straits introduced Rosalie Plechaty. Rosalie has been involved in non-profit work her whole life including her time in South Haven. We welcome Rosalie into our club.
Mark and Tom Ruesink then introduced Jim Bradford. Jim a graduate of Hope College and former resident of Holland has helped at a number of community events before being invited to join our club. Welcome aboard Jim.
Election of Officers
Per our bylaws, we held our election of officers this morning. A slate of officers was presented by the executive committee. Additional nominees were called for. Hearing none, Larry Wittkop moved to unanimously close nominations and elect the slate of officers as presented. The motion was seconded and the vote was called and the motion passed with no dissentions.
Our officers for 2019-2020, to take office on July 1, 2019, include:
Mark Odland, President
Dan Thompson, President Elect (President 2020-2021)
Steve Larsen, Vice President
Rhonda Wendzel, Secretary
Bob Straits, Treasurer
Tom Ruesink, Sargent At Arms
Tom Renner, Immediate Past President
Dene Hadden, Paul Hix and Richard Swanson, Board Members
Announcements:
- We will be working the Thursday Night Dinner at the Congregational Church on December 20..
- December 18th is the Rotary Open Door Christmas Dinner at the Methodist Church. Don’t forget to serve your shift tonight!
- Got your warm clothes? We are scheduled to Ring the Bell for the Salvation Army on December 22nd. If you forget your time, contact Bob Stickland. Bob reported that we already have a $600.00 donation.
- We welcomed back Jean Stein from her operation. She is doing very well and is off her pain medication. Welcome back Jean!!
- Don Hodgeman let us know that the city has installed a camera on the ice rink and you can watch people skate – and check on your kids and grandkids – by searching for southhavenicerink.com .
- President Odland let us know that Richard Swanson suffered a stroke on Saturday evening, his second in a week. He is recovering but must use a walker. His speech is fine.
Songs
Jim Davis got his birthday wish this morning, getting to lead us in song!He began with the old Irish tune, “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”.The 1912 tune was used as the opening song on the radio show Duffy's Tavern later in the century.Our second song was a reminder of the weather we won’t see for awhile, “April Showers”.The song was introduced in the 1921 Broadway musical Bombo, where it was performed by Al Jolson.If you want to hear the Spike Jones version of this song (We do it better), click this link: https://soundcloud.com/sammyjones-1/spike-jones-april-showers-happy-new-year-dec-17-1948 .We finished, much to the delight of Navy veterans Jim Davis and Dan Thompson, with “All Hail to Rotary”.
50/50
Ross Woodhams drew Mark Odland’s ticket this morning but Mark was only able to find the seven. Deb Davidson had the $2 winner.
Fines:
- Tom Ruesink announced we had raised $1900.02 for We Care as of last night and he was collecting more money today.
- We helped our longest standing member, Jim Davis, celebrate his birthday with a beautiful rendition of the birthday song. Jim was joined by his son Randy and a big bouquet of balloons.
- Bob Stickland is celebrating the birthday of his wife, son and son-in-law this week.
- Korky Ingersol let us know that his wife is celebrating her 47th anniversary this week.
- Tom Fleming and his son both celebrate their birthdays on the same day this week.
- Tom Fleming reminded us again: Don’t forget that Big 10 Tuesday has commenced and you can save $.10 a gallon on gas from now through basketball season. Tom also gave each of us a free car wash for Christmas and spoke to us about the benefits of a Shell Mastercard.
- The basket was passed to allow our speaker a little more time.
Mark Odland introduced our speaker, our own Melinda Gruber with her topic, “Insights from a Health and Aging Fellow.”
Melinda has been accepted as a Fellow at the Health and Aging Policy Fellowship in Washington DC. Her passion is the care of people with serious medical problems and end of life comfort. She believes that this fellowship will give her insights into how policy and politics are reflected in our health care system.
She has concerns about how viable our health care system is and would like to do all she can to make sure the system is the best that it can be for patients.
Her fellowship included an interview in order to be accepted and two orientation sessions plus two training session. The second training session was just completed and lasted six weeks.
During that time she was able to watch oral arguments in the Supreme Court and pay her respects to George H. W. Bush in the Capitol rotunda. All of her meetings were in the Capital or the Library of Congress.
Her mentor, Dr. Sherry Ling, is a Medicaid director and in addition to providing Melinda with guidance for her fellowship studies, gave her a tour of the Medicaid facility in Maryland.
Melinda’s fellowship will focus on policy about serious injury policy, especially payment.
She was in Washington during the November elections and suggested that there were a number of interesting discussions beginning, from what will happen to the Affordable Care Act and issues surrounding the reauthorization of the Older Americans’ Act. Melinda hopes to see movement away from paying for services to paying by value.
President Odland thanked Melinda for her interesting presentation and presented her with one of our valuable speaker’s gifts.
Mark Odland thanked all of the current officers for their service, including Rhonda, Bob Straits and Tom Rummel. Also Dene Hadden for Spokes, who announced that Art Ayers will be doing Spokes for the next three months. Mark then closed the meeting with the Four Way Test
Our next meeting will be January 8th, 2019.
January 8th program: Jim France: An Update on the South Haven Library Constuction Project.
January 8th Greeters: Jerry Portman and Art Ayers
Editarian: Dene Hadden