The Pledge was led by Ken Stodder.
Greg Pierson provided us with a Christmas season invocation.
Visiting with us from other clubs were Amanda Timm from Fortuna, and Tim Brennan from Arcata.
Birthdays this week:
Don Leonard on the 22nd, John McBeth on the 24th, and Jim Davis on the 25th.
Anniversaries this week:
Jesse and Roop Klair, and Gary and Joanne Todoroff, both on the 25th.
Stacy Lane celebrated her 6th Rotary Anniversary this week.
President Matthew talked about our assembly of bunk beds for the Betty Chinn center (thank you to all who participated). Brian Hall from the Eureka rescue mission currently has approximately 100 folks spending the night there, with up to 150 seeking shelter on rainy or cold nights. We are helping to purchase 27 bunk beds for them in conjunction with other groups.
Please keep Ray Wickel in your thoughts and prayers as he recently had heart Surgery. Craig Hansen has gone to see him and he is still in ICU at St Joes.
The Rescue Mission also needs 100+ turkeys for their Thanksgiving food boxes. Mindy Bussman announced that George Peterson Insurance would match any money donated at our lunch on Monday. By the end of the day with donations from George Peterson insurance, Wells Fargo, Safeway, Eureka Main Street, Rotary, and others, we raised enough to purchase 110 turkeys. Way to go all involved.
Roasts, Boasts, and Toasts:
Arnie and Jessica King welcomed their first born into the world last Thursday, a healthy baby girl.
Greg Pierson announced that he is now engaged.
Dennis Hunter was acknowledged for the 49ers loss to the New England Patriots; their 9th loss in a row.
Joan Davies announced the arrival of her second great-grandchild in Sacramento last week.
Klark Swan announced that she recently took a new job at the Sequoia Conference Center.
Past President Kim Bauriedel gave us a short talk on the Rotary Foundation. It was created in 1917 by Arch Klumph. Peace and conflict resolution, disease prevention and treatment, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, education and literacy, and economic and community development are the areas of focus for the Rotary Foundation. The Rotary Club of Kansas City gave the first donation to the Foundation, and the first project formed the beginnings of what would become Easter Seals. Paul Harris passed away in 1948 and many Rotarians gave donations to the Foundation in his honor. In 1957 the Paul Harris honor was created. Charlie Strope was our clubs first Paul Harris Fellow in 1972. Kim reminded us that we all need to donate every year to keep the work that the Foundation funds going. Rotary asks that we donate $100 per year to the annual fund and to Polio Plus as well. There have been 36 polio cases in 2016, down from 57 at this same time last year. Our Club has donated $641,000 in total to the Rotary Foundation.
Gambling Interlude:
Greg Pierson won the silver dollar.
Al Crnich won the $10 which he donated to our Thanksgiving Turkey fund.
And Brad Mettam unfortunately chose the 2 of clubs so the jackpot goes up another $30 next week.
Program:
Merv George Jr. is the Supervisor of 6 Rivers National Forest. He is the thirteenth person to hold this position, and we count our own Past President Jim Davis in that number.
There are many that don’t understand the resource that the forest is. Merv noted that because of regulations there has been a huge amount of combustible material build up in the forest, and that he regularly gets lobbied to close publicly available roads because of culvert and road conditions. He also noted that his focus has been to stay locally relevant while meeting federal standards.
Our area used to be known for its timber production, however bow we seem to be known for the product of the five million marijuana plants that are estimated to be grown every year in the Six River Forest. Most of the usage of roads in the forest area are by marijuana cultivators.
The harvesting capacity within the forest is currently 24 million board feet per year. They currently lose 60 million board feet worth of timber to fires and tree deaths. The average commercial harvests have been in the 10 million board feet range recently. Most of the 40 fires this past year in the forest were caused by lightning.
Merv finished with noting that most of the environmental damage that occurs within the Six Rivers forest is related directly to the marijuana cultivation industry, and not logging.
Respectfully Submitted,
Carlton Nielsen
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