SPOKES VOL. LXIV NO. 48 June 19, 2018
We were greeted by guest Steve Miles (subbing for Bob Herrera) and Bob Stickland.
President Renner opened our meeting with “God Bless America” and Art Ayers offered the invocation.
Guests:
Prospective members Tom Noverr and Steve Miles were our guests this morning along with the always welcome Jane Copping.
Spotlight:
Bob Brickman spoke about the very nice ceremony held by the St. Joseph Rotary Club to celebrate their 100th anniversary. Bob and Mark Odland and their wives attended to represent our club.
Music:
In Jerry “Fingers” Gruber’s absence, we hired an engineer to operate our rather stubborn CD player. Bob McAlear gave it his best shot and while we did get some strange noises from the machine, Bob Boerma was able to put together a pretty good performance of our three songs, “Five Foot Two”, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and a rousing “R-O-T-A-R-Y” which uses the Mickey Mouse theme song music which seemed appropriate this morning.
Announcements:.
- Our Change of Officers’ Dinner is next Tuesday at Hawkshead. Social Hour at 6:00, Dinner at 7:00.
- We are reminded of the Senior Services Millage for Van Buren County that will be up for a renewal and increase in August..
- Sign up for the July 1st Pancake Breakfast was passed around. Make sure you have your name on the sheet!
- Golf sign up was passed around. If you discover you can play, or find others to join us, please let Steve Larsen know this week.
- July 4th Parade marshalling list was passed around. If you can help, we are short folks on a couple of intersections.
- Mark Odland let the membership know that they would be receiving a survey in the next day or so. Please take a few minutes to fill it out.
Steve Larsen served as our Sergeant-at-Arms this morning and asked Marty Graber to pull the winning ticket which happened to belong to Don Kitchin. Don’s luck ran out at that point as he drew the queen. He did draw the $2 winner for his tablemate this morning, Bill Roberts.
Fines:
- Rhonda Wendzel was pleased to announce that it was her daughter Ashley’s birthday today.
- Art Ayers also had a birthday today.
- Bob Boerme will be celebrating his birthday later this week.
- We selected one of our better Ludington Style birthday songs to honor this week’s birthdays.
- Bob Copping revealed that he couldn’t afford to tell a joke this morning.
- Tony Martorano and Dene Hadden celebrated the SHHS Softball team’s successful season and MHSAA State Runner-up trophy.
- Tom Fleming’s grandson received his varsity letter in golf as a freshman.
- Korky Ingersol was pleased to announce that his daughter’s Dragon Boat team finished in first place last weekend.
- Tom Rummel had a great week! His business won a business award from the Chamber of Commerce, his son Joel graduated from high school and wife Donna accepted the position of Curriculum Director at Bangor Public Schools.
- Don Kitchen paid for missing last week’s meeting, even though they tried to be there.
- Art Ayers related that a group from his church, including our own Stu Comiskey, is in Haiti doing mission work this week.
Art Ayers introduced our speaker this morning, our own Marty Graber.
Marty, who joined our club in 2006 has worked in Kenya since1980 and in Ngoswani in particular since 2004.
Our club has been a strong supporter of Marty’s work in Kenya, both spiritually and financially since the beginning as part of our commitment to international service.
We have funded five classrooms in the in Ngoswani which now serves 350 students.
We have also contributed to the development and construction of the new Maternal and Child care facility which should open later this year.Construction of the 6,000 square foot facility is complete and includes two operating rooms, a laundry and patient rooms.
There is a desperate need for facilities like this as young Maasai girls are often wed at 11 years old and are pregnant by 14, before their bodies are ready.The nearest hospital is a three hour ride and Nairobi is five hours away.
The next two projects are first to secure a steady source of power as the electric grid is usually only up and running a few hours a day a few days a week.The plan is to set up both solar and wind power system so they can have power 24 hours a day.
The next major purchase, at a cost of $24,000 is for a digital X-ray reader.
Marty has sponsored the education of doctors, nurses and technicians so the hospital will be fully staffed by qualified and honest people.
In addition, Marty will fund the first two to six months of operation of the clinic.
Health insurance is a possibility for the Maasai and will help pay for running the facility.
At the conclusion of Marty’s presentation Art Ayers presented him a check for $2000 to Marty to help pay for the digital reader.
We closed our meeting with the Four Way Test.
Next week’s program: No morning meeting. Change of Officers Dinner at Hawkshead beginning at 6:00 (Social Hour) and 7:00 (Dinner)
July 3rd Program: Paul Hemmeter
Next week’s Greeters: July 3rd: Art Bolt and Dan Thompson
Editarian: Dene Hadden