SPOKES VOL. LXIV NO. 41 May 1, 2018
Jean Stein was our greeter this morning.
President Renner opened our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and Art Ayers offered our invocation.
Guests:
Our guests this morning were Dominic Gueltieri and our speaker, Kelley Dendel both from the Otsego Rotary Club. Don Shook also joined our gathering. We also welcomed back snowbird Bob Stickland and long missing Korky Ingersoll. Glad you are back!!
Spotlight:
Our spotlight this morning was Bob Herrera talking to us about the upcoming millage renewal request for South Haven Public Schools. The request will fund nearly half of the district’s budget over the next six years. It applies only to non-homestead property. The request is on the ballot next week, May, 8th. Please remember to vote!
Music:
We did not sing this morning because of the tightness of the schedule this morning, much to the disappointment of the folks from the Otsego Club as our singing reputation has spread around the state.
Announcements:
- Friday is another Blessings in a Backpack loading day. Lincoln School at 1:45.
- Our annual education fundraiser, “South Haven Future” was a success with over 80 people in attendance and about $1600 in money raised on the silent auction. If you did not attend, please send your $100 donation to Rhonda as soon as possible so we can finalize the event.
- Our club has met the Rotary International challenge to plant a tree and our tree will be planted in Riverfront Park in the next few weeks.
- McFadden’s Friendly Motors will be hosting a car show on Wednesday, May 2nd at the dealership from 5:00 to 8:00.
- St. Joseph’s Rotary club will be celebrating their 100th birthday on Saturday, June 16th with the Rotary International president as the featured speaker.
- After you have finished reading your Rotary Magazine, think about dropping it off in local offices for people to read as they are waiting for appointments.
Tom Rummel had the lucky ticket this week and then proceeded to draw the four, winning the pot! Rhonda Wendzel had the $2 ticket.
Fines:
- Don Hixon’s lovely wife Marion is celebrating her 2nd 41st birthday this week.
- Tom Renner celebrated four birthday’s in his family this week, even though he had to think a few minutes to remember them all.
- Tom Rummel’s son Alex celebrated his 16th birthday. In addition, Tom reported that the SHHS Robotics team had a great weekend at World’s, finishing 7th in their division before losing to the eventual champ form Kalamazoo, sponsored by Stryker. Tom was proud that this team was totally student led.
- Jim Davis announced that his oldest son was celebrating a birthday this week.
- Korky Ingersoll’s oldest son turned 42 this week.
- All of the birthdays were celebrated with a well done Ludington style version of the birthday song.
- Dan Liehr was pleased to announce that Ameriprize will be donating $250 to our club in recognition of his service to our community.
- Bob Stickland donated a happy dollar but had to borrow a dollar from Barry Winkel to do it.
- Jeff Melvin was pleased and proud to announce that he and Tammy will soon be grandparents for the first time!
- Dan Thompson’s son celebrated his oldest son’s 40th birthday.
Tom Renner introduced our speaker this morning, Kelley Dendel, by reading a selection about the founder of Camp Warner when he first decided to purchase the land.
Warner Camp, located just outside of Grand Junction, provides a wide variety of camping experiences in a Christian setting on a year round basis.
They have an RV campground open from May 1st through October each year.
They also have a five week camping season for youngsters ranging in age from 3rd through 12th grade.In addition to water activities, campers have a climbing wall, zip lines, a rope course and 200 acres of pristine land to explore.They can accommodate up to 300 campers in the summer time.
Camp Warner is one of only a few camps in Michigan that works with the Angel Tree Foundation to provide camping experiences to children who have a parent who is incarcerated.They have an endowment that is used to pay for the camping experience for these kids.The biggest problem with this program is getting transportation to and from the camp for those that are eligible and able to attend.
The camp also provides cabins to ministers and lay volunteers from churches for reflection and study.
South Haven Public Schools also use the camp facilities for their annual 5th grade camp and as the home course for Cross Country meets.
The camp is funded by area churches, grants and camp registrations.
Kelley was also asked about the Otsego Rotary Club which meets twice a month and provides scholarships, an annual Easter Egg Hunt and other community activities.They have about 30 members.
President Renner thanked Kelly for her informative presentation and provided her with our speaker’s gift.
We closed our meeting with the Four Way Test.
Next week’s program: Preserving a Community Treasure with Peter Terlow from the Southwest Michigan Land Conservatory (Art Ayers)
Next week’s Greeters: Scott Mark and Bob McAlear
Editarian: Dene Hadden