Chris Freeman was our only Navy veteran in attendance and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Bruce Rupp gave us the invocation and asked us to keep Tom Schallert’s nephew and Wayne Wilson in our prayers. Tom’s nephew suffered a broken back and Wayne is still dealing with the challenges from an aneurysm. Bruce imparted the story of the history behind the Rotary motto.
Visiting Rotarians were Jim Siler, Rick Roberts from Southwest, and Dennis Reinholtsen from Fortuna.
Guests of Rotarians were Richard Grissom and Greg Sparks.
Our exchange student from Belgium came to the podium and told us about her experience with Homecoming at Eureka High. She failed to mention that she was also nominated for Homecoming queen and was one of the Homecoming Princesses in the parade, but President Gregg reminded her. This is the first time in recent memory that we have had an exchange student nominated to the EHS homecoming court. She is also playing on the Varsity soccer team. She’s is having quite a year already, and she has only been here 8 weeks.
Joyce Haynes from the Humboldt Senior Resource Center thanked the club for the Sign Smith Fund’s donation to their PACE program. The Sign Smith fund paid for several pieces of equipment in their new senior medical care facility. They are having their Grand Opening on Saturday the 18th from 10 am to 2 pm. Joyce invited us all to attend.
Richard Grissom from the Fieldbrook Volunteer Fire Department thanked the Sign Smith Fund’s donation of equipment for their rebuilding of their firehouse. Five Rotary clubs participated in the project and Chief Grissom said that there had been a tremendous amount of community support with the project.
Rick Roberts from Southwest Rotary invited us to their fundraiser on the 25th of October. It will be held at the Eureka Inn and features a Vampire Ball and Murder Mystery. The fundraiser is to benefit the Boys and Girls Club rehabilitation projects as well as Evergreen Lodge. Tickets are $55 and can be purchased at Redwood Capital Bank, Coast Central Credit Union, and at the Eureka Chamber of Commerce.
President Gregg re-introduced us all to Bruce Smith. Bruce is leading our Sgt.-at-Arms committee. He reminded everyone to read their emails as he has not gotten any responses to his requests for members to help set up and take down our meetings. It does not take much time and is necessary for our meetings to function well. We also need a few of our more technically inclined members to learn how the laptop/projector, sound systems, and digital camera function.
Brad Mettam gave us the Foundation Minute and talked about the role of expanding peace in the world that our Foundation does. We can now setup our Foundation giving on their new system at predictable increments so that we don’t forget to give. The Rotary Foundation Dinner North is on the 8th of November in Crescent City. Raffle tickets are $25 of 5 for $100.
Birthdays this week and recently are Jeff Leonard, Nancy Dean, John Fullerton, and Steven Lafferty.
Alicia Cox celebrated her 12th Anniversary as a member of our club.
Greg Williston turned in his Spare Change for Change canister which consisted of pennies, nickels, and dimes as his kids had all of the quarters.
Neal Ewald was our program from Green Diamond Timber Company. He graduated with a degree in Forestry from UC Berkley and has an MBA from HSU. He is the Senior VP for their western operations.
Green Diamond started out 124 years ago as Simpson Timber. The own 400,000 acres of timber production land in Del Norte and Humboldt counties. They are also the largest private landowner in both. He gave us a background on logging practices in which large bulldozers were the harvesting tool of choice, and they used napalm to burn slash after cuttings. Tree felling has changed a great deal in the last 20 years. They have moved to shovel loggers which are far less intrusive on forest floor. Roads have become more narrow as logging equipment has gotten smaller, and there is no more broadcast burning.
The Endangered Species Act has had a significant impact on forest management. Neal reminded us that the Spotted Owl was listed in 1992. As part of their habitat conservation efforts Green Diamond leaves about 25% of their acreage involved in harvesting standing, particularly in riparian areas. He showed slides of the two types of forested areas that he manages. The first he inherited, and the second they developed. The primary difference be between the two is that the managed forest acreage in the areas that they developed have larger trees and is less prone to fire damage because of pre-commercial harvest thinning. He also noted that the largest concentration of spotted owls on their lands is in the Mad River Watershed.
He spoke about the protests involving proposed harvesting near Strawberry Rock. The outcome was a process put in place to transfer those lands to a public entity. The protesters seem to not be taking yes for an answer.
Lastly, Neal addressed Green Diamond’s move out of the timber milling business. He cited competition that had contract with Home Depot and Lowes as one of the primary reasons for the decision. They will continue with their timber harvesting business. They are trying to find a buyer for their redwood mill and would like to see it converted to a Douglas fir processing facility. They also purchased the former Jeld Wenn forest lands in Southern Oregon.
President Gregg reminded us that growing membership is our primary focus this year. If we get our membership back up to 150 we can reduce our dues back to $400, we can replace the funding that had to be removed this year from several of our programs, and we will have the opportunity for camaraderie with fellow community minded business people.
With a ring of the bell one more meeting was off the books for Emperor Gregg.
Respectfully Submitted,
Carlton Nielsen
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| Emperor Gregg |
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