SPOKES VOL. LXVI NO. 20 November 19, 2019
We were greeted this morning by Dene Hadden and Tony Martorano.
President Odland opened this week’s meeting with “My Country ‘tis of Thee” and Art Ayers followed that with another of his heartfelt invocations. President Mark took a few minutes to thank for the wonderful work Art does as our “chaplain”.
Guests:
Our Guests this morning included prospective new members Steffin Davis and Mike Livovich, Tess Garapher from Girl’s on the Run and our speaker Dave Doetsch.
Spotlight: Girls On the Run
Tess Garapher from Girls on the Run spoke about the program and its South Haven chapter. Girls on the Run is a national organization that is focused on the all-around growth of young girls from the early grades through middle school. The programs combines the personal and social growth of these girls along with a physical activity designed to be fun and show the girls that they can accomplish what might seem to be a difficult task. The South Haven program is one of the largest in southwestern Lower Michigan with around one hundred girls involved.
Our club presented Tess with a check for $500 for scholarships for South Haven girls who might not have the resources to participate otherwise.
New Member Induction
This morning we had the honor and pleasure of inducting two new members into our club.
President Odland introduced Steffin Davis and his sponsor Jim Davis (who is our longest standing member, having belonged to the club since 1961) and Mike Luvovich and his sponsor Tom Renner. President indicated how pleased we are to have new members like Mike and Steffin and outlined their responsibilities to the club and its members. Their sponsors presented Mike and Steffin with their pins, hats and Rotary shirts. Welcome and congratulations!
Announcements:
- November 21st is our Chamber ABO at the Moose Lodge with the Moose. Sign up is being passed around.
- December 10th is our Holiday Party at the Yacht Club. You must be signed up by November 30th.
- December 17th is the Open Door Dinner at the Methodist Church
- December 21st is our day to do the Salvation Army Bell Ringing
- The Boy Scouts have volunteered to work our Thursday Night Supper at the Congregational Church in early December
- Glenn Pietenpol statue dedication on Saturday, November 23rd at 11:30 AM
- The Rotary Foundation is offering a matching grant for donations to their foundation over the next few weeks. A quick way to get to your Paul Harris award!
- Nick Tuit was presented a check from the District 6360 Foundation for $250 for winning the District raffle last month. Nick is going to donate his winnings to our scholarship fund.
Songs
Jim Davis had the unenviable task of leading us in song without music this morning.He dug right in and did a terrific job.We lead off with “I Want a Girl”, a 1911 hit that sold over five million copies of sheet music.We followed that, again a’ Capella, with the 1910 hit, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” which was another big hit in 1911.More recently, Shirley McClain sang the song in the 2012 season of “Downton Abby”.We finished with “That Rotary Wheel”.A job well done by Mr. Davis and his choir!
50/50
This week Stu Comiskey had the correct ticket but Lady Luck abandoned him when he drew a card, providing him with the worthless Queen instead of the wealthier “2” of “4”. Dan Thompson wasted no time grabbing the $2 prize once his ticket was called.
Fines:
- Only one birthday today – Tom Renner’s granddaughter Abby turns 18.
- It was mistakenly pointed out that Tony Martorano missed his November birthday. Tony’s preferred birthday is in January but he paid anyway since he will not be here to pay for his birthday then.
- Rhonda Wendzel made up her absence last week at the Lansing Waverly club.
- Steve Larsen is looking forward to a trip to Israel in a couple of weeks.
- Tom Fleming announced that it is Big Ten Tuesday!! He said it’s a great time to buy gas from Shell this week, even after the market restored itself yesterday. Lots of discounts!
- Ross Woodhams, after spending last Tuesday morning taking his mother-in-law to a surgery appointment last snowstorm, is pleased to announce the surgery went well.
- Bob Stickland was wearing his “Michigan” shirt today.
- Scott Mark “can see clearly now” after eye surgery.
- Bob Straits was excited to cheer for the Utes!
- Larry Wittkop has switched his allegiance from MSU football to the Spartan basketball team.
- Bob Boerma and Tom Ruesink had hunting stories from last week, but neither brought back Bambi. Tom did have a story or two about “Charlie’s Soup Kitchen deer camp.
- Paul Hix spent last Tuesday stuck in his driveway.
Ross Woodhams introduced our speaker today, Dave Doetsch from Midwest Family Broadcasting
Dave presented a couple of old time radio stories about live DJ’s, 45 records and advertisements on “carts”. In those days everything was on site and DJ would have to sort through 45’s to find the songs they wanted to play. Now everything is on servers stored in secure locations.
He stated that they are really not in the radio business but in a business that provides “meaningful content” to its listeners/readers/observers. They do this using many media sources from radio to Facebook, Twitter, Tic Toc and others. They also put out content a podcasts. They can also do targeted email blasts.
Now they do not sell radio stations but a product line of advertising and information. He said the goal of his stations is not to be the biggest but to have the biggest local impact. They want their local radio personalities to become community influencers so when you have an event you want to go to them to get the information out.
Surveys have indicated that 92% of people listen to the radio at least once a week and even twenty-somethings and younger will listen if the music and content are attractive to them, hence the birth of 99.9 Live radio station. He indicated that time spent listening to other formats has reduced radio time by about a half hour per week. Many of these other formats have to pay much higher royalties to play music. Even in radio he said that royalties are his biggest expense.
All of these changes have changed his businesses income stream and who they hire, although they are always looking for good sales people.
The most interesting statistic he presented was that the #1 use for devices like Alexa is to tune into radio stations.
Dave passed out a sheet that listed all seven of the local radio stations and three other entities Midwest Family Broadcasting maintains in our general area.
President Odland thanked Dave for his exceptionally interesting presentation and presented him with one of our valuable speaker’s pens.
We closed the meeting with the Four Way Test.
Next week’s program: Barry Winkel will introduce Erica Morrison from We Care, Inc.
Greeters: Deb Davidson and Paul Hemmeter
Editarian: Dene Hadden