Rotary Club of Eureka Burl October 20, 2014

Ted Welton led us in the pledge, and Mike Leggins gave the invocation. He asked us to remember Tom Schallert’s nephew who became a paraplegic due to an accident.
We did not have any visiting Rotarians. Carlton Nielsen brought Deborah Claesgens, the new Director at the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation.

Lisa Pireau

Our exchange student, Lisa Pireau from Belgium, regaled us with her trip with 42 other past and present exchange students to San Francisco. She said San Francisco was the most beautiful city she had ever seen.
Kathy Smith announced the CR was having its 27th annual Science Night. They have 26 demonstrations, experiments, and activities for kids of all ages to participate in. It is also an opportunity to meet with faculty and staff, as well as to visit their classrooms and labs.
Bruce Smith announced that we are looking for raffle items for our annual Christmas party. If you would like to participate look him up in our roster book.

Lisa Slack announced the 100th Anniversary of Northwest Pacific Railroad in Humboldt County co-hosted by the Timber Heritage Association, the Clarke Historical Museum, and Eureka Main Street. The original Golden Spike will be on display, speeder rides will be available, and much more.

Keith Crossley

Keith Crossley gave us the Foundation Minute. Friday, October 24th, is World Polio Day. Keith challenged us with what we can do in Rotary’s effort to end polio. This is Rotary’s number one goal. If you have any questions or would like to know how to donate to help end polio please see Keith, or go to endpolionow.org.
President Gregg led us through a slide show of the progress on the Boys and Girls club roof replacement portion of our annual project. Teen Challenge, McMurray & Sons roofing, Schmidbauer Lumber, and Recology have all been a part of this effort. The rest of the roof portion of the project should take another 3 to 4 weeks. Please consider stopping by and take a look at the progress that has been made in making the Boys and Girls club a better place for kids.
President Gregg then showed a number of slides with photos showing deteriorated conditions at several of the Eureka City Schools campuses.
He then had a number of us on our feet for travel. The initial criterion was if you had traveled greater than 500 miles during the summer or since. Several members ponied up dollars for trips to Rome, Oslo, Azerbaijan, New York, Italy, etc.

Our President Elect

President Elect Jay Bahner announced our club’s annual fundraiser and raffle to occur on February 14. CC Market will be doing the catering which will consist of tri-tip, chicken, and a vegetarian option. Jay is looking for drawing, live, and silent auction items. As it is on Valentine’s Day you can guess the theme. For a bit of trivia Jay informed us that Valentine’s day is the second largest spending holiday of the year bringing in $20 billion.

We have a winner

Raffle Interlude: Steve Allen won the bottle of Rotary Red, and Russ Harris mad an unsuccessful attempt to draw the joker. The pot is up to $180.
Program
Adam Dick is one of the founders of Dick Taylor Chocolate with his business partner Dustin Taylor. They are currently located in the Almquist lumber building. They make the only whole bean chocolate in Northern California. They came up with their business plan on the way back from a wedding in Santa Barbara after seeing a video on the chocolate industry. Their original chocolate making experimentation started in Adam’s laundry room where they made “really bad chocolate”.

Adam Dick

Adam described the current trend in high end chocolate to be migrating along similar lines as coffee and beer. Coffee went from everyone drinking Folgers like products to higher end beans, more specific brews, and a better quality product. Beer has gone through a similar migration from Budweiser like comparables to products with a much wider array of styles, better quality ingredients, mare specific flavors, and a high price tag. The higher end chocolate industry has started to move in a similar direction.
In 1879 a device called a conche was developed which enabled chocolatiers to create a smoother chocolate that could be turned into bars. Previous to that chocolate had been predominately consumed as a drink. Large scale production began soon thereafter and currently 5 companies control the majority of chocolate production in the world. Most chocolate that we eat originates at one of these five companies and is resold to producers. In the early 2000’s the “Chocolate Renaissance” began with the sourcing of higher grade cocoa beans.
Dick Taylor Chocolate started making single source chocolate starting in 2010. Single source chocolate is made with all of the beans involved in that batch coming from one farm or plantation. He added that chocolate making is a very machine intensive endeavor. They have outgrown their space at Almquist and are moving into the old Alternative Building Concepts space at 4 West 4th St.
They currently produce about one ton of chocolate per month, and only a small percentage of their chocolate is consumed in Humboldt County. They have distribution points as far away as England and japan. Locally you can buy their products at Eureka Natural Foods, both Co-ops, Wildberries, and Murphys.



Jonah Folkins

 In closing President Gregg noted that Pat Folkins had been to four Giants World Series games, all of which the Giants lost. He went on to ask Pat to go nowhere near San Francisco for the next few weeks.
Respectfully Submitted,
Carlton Nielsen