Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
March 7, 2016
President
Jay Bahner rang the bell to open the meeting.
He called on Rotaract President Christine Tyson to lead us in the
pledge. Bruce Rupp did the invocation.
Then
President-elect Matthew Owen, who had
just returned from “PETS” President Elect Training Seminar shared a story with us that concerned Bob Roach, 92
year-old former president of a club down
south. He had not had the opportunity to
attend PETS and had always wanted to go.
This year he finally signed up.
On his way to the morning class he had a heart attack and died. “At least he died happy,” said Matthew. And
he didn’t have to go to the afternoon session.
Jay
acknowledged the presence of Long Time Rotarian Fred Griffith, an infrequent
visitor since his retirement. “If they
ever open a club in Hawkins Bar” he said “ I’ll attend every meeting”.
It’s
National Rotaract Week, and 4 of our guests were Rotaractarians. More about that later.
First some
news about Andy Chen the club’s exchange student from Taiwan. Christian Hill hosted him for three months,
but now he’s moving on to the Crivello family.
He is going to Hawaii so he spun the wheel for Christian, who was
recognized for $75.
Who else
went to Hawaii? John McBeth and Paul
Brisso. Not together. Paul recently created Paul Harris Fellowships
for his Dad and sister. He is engaged. No date yet.
There was
a brief interlude where we conducted club business. Everybody was in favor of the By-law changes
and so signified by saying “aye” . Is it
pirate week?
Spoiler
alert. Next Monday is March
Madness. You can buy a square for $25,
or you can bid on the top four seeds in each region, or buy lesser seeds in
packs of three.
Next up,
Christine Tyson, president of Lost Coast Rotaract. Recently they sent 3 members to Bangladesh to
participate in a Roto-Plast clinic.
That’s where they correct facial anomalies like cleft palates. It was a life changing experience. They are having their 4th Annual
Wine and Food Pairing fund raiser on April 2 at 6pm in the Green and Gold Room
on the HSU campus. Tickets are $50. The theme is “Countries on the Black
Sea”.
Our
presenter was Superintendent of Eureka City Schools Fred Van Vleck. He reminded us that the next generation is
here walking the streets and texting to themselves. Are we Ready?
There are four divisions in the school system: Personnel Services, Student Services (Special
Ed), Educational Services, and Business Services. Eureka High is now offering Dual Enrollment,
the opportunity to take classes at CR while you are going to classes at EHS.
Ideally the student will graduate with a year of Junior College already under
their belt.
He said
their biggest challenge has been employee retention and recruitment. The school suffers from declining enrollment,
so they had to let some teachers go. Now
older teachers are retiring and there is a sudden need for 20 new
teachers. In addition they have only 18
months to decide to extend tenure to new hires.
It is a tight labor market in the educational field.
He brought
up measure S. They promised to do
something about the J. Willard gymnasium.
It will cost $18-19 million whether they fix up the old gym or build a
new one. There will be no pool. For additional information go to the Eureka
City Schools website and click on the blue button.
Cheerfully
submitted by Hank Ingham
No comments:
Post a Comment