If you haven’t noticed, Mark Fleming, President-elect, is pretty excited about his upcoming year.  He and his board have some great ideas brewing even before their planning retreat meeting convenes.  If you haven’t committed to a particular area of service, you might give it some thought. 

 

As I complete the Share our Success forms, I can’t help but notice our weaker areas on the survey are ones that don’t have a chair, vocational service being one of them.  We could easily entertain co-chairs for a particular job and double the fun.  On the flip side, Mike Dobbins, Bob Kline, Doug McDonald, and Jeanne Puleo have done an outstanding job in their areas of service this past year!  Thanks to you all!  These folks didn’t accomplish this all by themselves.  Thank you, each and every one who had a passion for eradicating polio and helped us exceed our goal by 300%!!!   

 

I would love for each of you to boast of attaining Sustaining Member Status by the end of the year.  You accomplish this by donating $100 to The Rotary Foundation for the club year.  We are close to having all our membership accomplish this.  You could also sign up for Rotary Direct https://www.rotary.org/myrotary/en/take-action/give/ways-give and have $10 automatically deducted from whatever account or credit card you want to make it simpler.  Remember, a portion of the money you donate this year comes back to our district the year Doug is District Governor and helps him see greater success during his year.  We wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we did for the needy students and their families during the holidays had it not been for your generosity 3 years ago to The Rotary Foundation.  

 

Mark your calendars for May 14-17 for District Conference.  It is not too late to register and Harrah’s special prices are going fast (if not gone already).  They will be opening up new accommodation venues as well.  May 16 we will have the opportunity to hear our own Area speech contest winner Joe Fenner share about Dr. Kellerman during the district speech contest finals and Area music contest winner George Daly play his Music in the Mountains Young Composers 3-movement composition of salmon running from the ocean up the Yuba River, both hopefully winning District honors!  At brunch May 17, we will honor the lives of Ray Cook and Don Fultz in a very moving memorial ceremony.  By the way, they are looking for Sergeant-at-Arms for District Conference.  If you are interested in doing this for one of the events, half a day or the entire conference contact Larie Trippet at larie@trippet2.com.

 

Saturday, April 25, is Rotarians at Work Day and we will be working alongside area Rotary Clubs (at the invitation of Grass Valley Rotary) at Habitat for Humanity at Joyce and Whiting St in Grass Valley starting at 8:00 am (coming into Grass Valley, Hwy 20 turns into Empire Street, then turn right at first opportunity on Whiting Street, then right on Joyce before the “Y” intersection with S. Auburn Street).  There are multiple projects to include clean-up and weeding around homes, wetland and woods, repainting curbs, and digging trench for gas lines.  If you are so inclined and have construction skills, we will be adding siding and pouring concrete forms.  Please bring gloves and tools appropriate to what work you plan on doing.

 

Would you all have suspected that we have such an innovative company in our own rural community before hearing from Jim and Kathy Slouber Tuesday about their company, High Sierra Electronics?  They employ 32 and have just landed a large contract.  I have a daughter living outside Tucson and have seen the results of a heavy rain and very parched land make an underpass very dangerous.  Thanks to their warning system, lives have been saved!

 

This week we will learn more about Junior Achievement and how Penn Valley Schools are trend setters in our area!