Rotary Club of Eureka, California

August 1, 2011
Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka

Pledge:  John McBeth

Invocation:  Tom McMurray

No student guests today. 

Visiting Rotarians:  Liana Simpson of Old Town Eureka Rotary and Bob Palmrose.

Guests of Rotarians:  Our local Rotaract ladies: Clark, Lindsey & Jessica; Brent Rassmussen, business partner of Alicia Cox.

Birthdays this month:  PP Steve Justus, Kurt Barthel & Ron Pierre ($10 from Ron for not sitting at the head table!)

Anniversaries:  Craig Hansen, George Owren, Tom McMurray & Richard Whittaker.

Announcements:

Today was the first day the club utilized the new badge scanning system to track attendance.  The scan gun was purchased by Past President/Captain Hank and Tim Foster, who got it synced to automatically send attendance to Rotary International.   Special thanks also to Wayne Wilson who reorganized the badge box and applied the bar code labels to the badges.

President Pierson presented Matt Messner his Blue Badge.  He also reminded everyone that additional rosters are available for a $20 donation to Backpacks for Kids.

Rotaract:  Clark announced that Rotaract is having a garage sale on Saturday, August 6^th.  If you have donations, please call any Rotaract member and they come pick up your things.  Click here for more details on the garage sale.  They are also selling car wash vouchers for a $10 donation, and can arrange to have your car washed at your home or office. 

Keith Crossley announced a club-sponsored river rafting trip on the Trinity, provided by Bigfoot Rafting.  The cost is $59 per person and will take place on Saturday, August 27^th.  More information can be obtained from Keith or Mike Cunningham by calling 707.441.1111 or clicking here.  If you haven’t been before, Bigfoot does a fantastic job with their rafting adventures.  I highly recommend you try to attend!

Our club is the sponsor of the Humboldt County Honor Flight.  PP Steve Justice encouraged everyone to attend a fundraising seafood dinner for the next Honor Flight at the Elks Club on Sunday, August 14^th.  The cost is $25 per person.  This has been, and continues to be, a very successful program, honoring those who fought for us in World War II.  Click here for more information on this important event.

Our club will be sending care packages to family members of club members serving overseas in the armed forces.  Ron Pierre said volunteers are needed to cover the cost of items in the care packages, as well as for packing the boxes.  This form is available to provide information on those to whom a care package should be sent.  Please complete and return to Ron to ensure your family member is included in this special project.

A Foundation/Membership Super Seminar will be held on August 13^th at the Humboldt County Office of Education from 8am-4pm.  The cost is $25.  Registration is online at http://www.rotary5130.org or by contacting Sandie Krutz at 707.837.5210 or sekrutz@aol.com. 

President Pierson had intended to provide an overview of our new club database, but there were issues with the wireless network.  Stay tuned for a demonstration of this great new tool at a future meeting.

Dave Perris gave his craft talk, complete with very entertaining stories from his 30+ years spent with the Eureka Police Department.   As a youngster, Dave enjoyed listening to stories told by local law enforcement at the home of his grandfather.  Dave joined the EPD in 1980 after graduating from the academy.  The first part of his career was spent on patrol before eventually becoming a detective.  He shared how important it was to him to have good mentors, such as Murl Harpham and Charlie Swanson.  He told several colorful stories of how his “mentors” liked to play jokes on him.  He noted that he has participated in the investigation of over 200 homicides and 100 bank robberies.  Dave spent time as the Yurok Tribal Police Chief and currently serves as the Coroner for the County of Humboldt. 

Recognitions:

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Dr. Kim Bauriedel was fined $100 for the recent weeks he spent on a trip to Alaska.  Despite spending time “on official Rotary business” he enjoyed attending a Siberian-Taiwanese wedding.  He also brought back a flag from a Rotary meeting he attended in Anchorage.  President Pierson fined him $100 instead of $145 since part of his trip was spent on “official Rotary business.”

Stacy Lane was fined $145 for her trip to Europe.  Highlights included a trip up the Jungfrau mountain range in Switzerland and witnessing the Italian soccer draft in Milan.

Active community member Bruce Emad was recognized, but not fined, for his fourteen years spent volunteering before retiring from the Planning Commission.  In addition, Bruce has spent time on the St. Joseph’s Hospital Board of Trustees and as a member of the Board of College of the Redwoods.

A two week trip to Crater Lake and Bend, Oregon cost Aaron Tilch $75.  He reported that the Crater Lake area is still inundated with snow from a late winter, but his family had a great time, nonetheless

Tim Foster paid $145 for going to Florida with his family to celebrate his daughter’s graduation from Fortuna High in June.  A fun time was had at Universal Studios, Disney World and of course, at the new Harry Potter Theme Park.  He will soon be moving her to Eugene, where she will be a freshman at the University of Oregon.  Go Ducks!

Program:

Rex Bohn, community volunteer extraordinaire and “generally just a good guy,” was our guest speaker.  Rex is also running for the 1^st District Supervisor seat on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, on the June 2012 ballot.  He also volunteers at approximately 50 fundraising auctions each year.  This year he is adding approximately 12 more auctions for local schools, with the primary goal to raise money to fund needed art and music programs.  With our club having been instrumental in the development of the Redwood Fields in Cutten, he focused his presentation on the benefit to both the local and North-State area for having such a facility in our community.  Redwood Fields was founded in June of 1999 on a large parcel of land at the end of Fern Street in Cutten.  Over 600 youth sports games, primarily baseball, football and soccer, are held at the complex each year.  Rex stressed the importance of youth sports quoting a statistic that kids involved in an afterschool sports program have a 19% higher chance of graduating from high school than those that don’t. 

In terms of the importance to the community from a fiscal standpoint, he gave an example of a tournament for 12 year-old boys that was recently held at the complex.  Besides one local team from Fortuna, other participant communities included Gridley, Susanville, Chico and Red Bluff, who won the tournament and has now gone on to the state championship in San Bernardino.  If they win at that tournament, they would then travel to Williamsport, Virginia for the Little League National Championship.  As part of the hospitality provided by Redwood Fields, each player from out of the area was given a packet with information on local restaurants, hotels and places to visit in Humboldt.  The tournament players generated revenue to the community, including using 320 hotel room rentals during the course of the tournament.  Further community involvement was provided to visiting teams and their families by a generous oyster BBQ donation from Humboldt Bay Oysters who donated both the oysters and their time.  Having community involvement (and a moderate climate) are important to drawing teams to participate in our tournaments, proving additional out-of-the-area money from visitors.

The annual budget for maintaining the complex is around $37,000.  A large amount of this funding is provided by leasing land on which two cell phone towers are located.  Other funds come from fees for the baseball, soccer and football programs, in addition to site-based field advertising.  He noted that despite averaging 50 inches of rain per year, the water bill to keep the fields green hovers around $3,000.  Currently Redwood Fields is raising money to fund a $305,000 project to provide night lighting in the park.  This would allow over a 20% increase in the number of games that are currently held.  Must Go Lighting, the proposed vendor for the project, also just completed the installation of lighting at HSU’s Redwood Bowl.  In addition to the baseball programs, the last season saw over 550 local youth football players use the fields, as well as approximately 300 players on the complex’s Bocce Ball courts.  Rex mentioned his thanks to our club for also supporting the fields at Washington Elementary and the recently renovated Bud Clooney Field at Eureka High.  Overall goals for the complex include expanding programs, enlarging the soccer program, continuing to provide good examples of sportsmanship to our young folks and encouraging continued positive interaction between the players.

President Pierson ended the meeting with a strike of the hammer to the bell at 1:30pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Stacy Lane