Call to Order
President Swartz called the meeting to order at 10:30 AM with the following present: District Governor Maris Brenner, Chief of Staff Duane Waite, Rotary Board Members and Rotary Foundation Board Members. Bob Ruehl representing MESA and Chief Joe Kitchen representing Interact.
Secretary’s Report Rita Brown
New Member Applications
Sanchez made a motion to approve the membership of James Kanable, Shawnee Local School Superintendent. Hubbell second the motion. Board approved. New Member orientation is set for Aug 22 currently for 5 newly approved members
Resignation - Susan Crotty, City of Lima
Bill made a motion to accept the resignation of Susan Crotty with regret. Sanchez seconded the motion. Board approved.
Swartz welcomed District Governor Brenner and Chief of Staff Waite and thanked the Board Members from each board for attending.
Project Recap - current
The Golf Outing in June raised $38,500 for Scholarships. Since the Program began in 5/2001, $694,250 has been paid to scholarship winners.
Blood Clinic
The Blood Clinic held in May netted $12,270. Lima Memorial has paid all money to the Rotary Foundation
Projects under way
Amphitheatre Project by Tracie Sanchez
The Rotary Club is currently involved in a project to build an amphitheater in downtown Lima. The total project is over a one million dollar contribution to the downtown Lima revitalization.
Kendrick Woods Project
The Rotary Foundation helped built a Handicapped Boardwalk in Kendrick Woods in 1987. It is time to redo the walk.
District grant requests, due by August 1, 2018, will be submitted for the Amphitheatre and the Kendrick Woods Project.
Extension of the Rotary Riverwalk
The current Rotary Riverwalk extends from Heritage Park on the West Side to Lima, through the City and out to the Ottawa Metro Park. Current Rotarian, Roy Baldridge is leading planning efforts to extend the current Rotary River Walk on the East Side of Lima with a goal of providing service to The Ohio State Lima and Rhodes State College.
Other Current Projects
The Club recently partnered with other service clubs in the Lima area on the Love Lima Campaign and plans to continue these type activities. Also with other Rotary Clubs in the area on the Mission Dr. John Pajka makes to Ecuador to perform free cataract surgeries.
Swartz also mentioned other Lima Rotary Club Projects such as the Christmas Party for Disabled Children, the Dictionary Distribution, Bell Ringing for the Salvation Army , MESA bike tour, Interact, Rotaract, Little Free Libraries, the Abilities Field, and the Homeless/Opiate Project and the International Honduran Water/Sewer $200,000 International Project that is scheduled to be complete in January 2019.
Ideas to enhance Luncheon Meetings
Current meetings are recorded and available to watch on Facebook. Future meetings will include roundtables with Former Presidents, Law Enforcement and an Interfaith Council. And retired and former Rotarians will be invited back to meetings to stay involved with the club.
New member recruitment
The Membership Committee, led by Dave Frost, has a goal is to increase membership by 10%. New members will be greeters for 6 weeks. They will receive an RI booklet explaining the organization and a beverage tumbler. Also orientation is being reviewed along with ideas to attract small businesses to the club.
Foundation President’s Report
Foundation Activities year to-date Elizabeth Brown-Ellis
In 2017- 2018, the Foundation awarded 17 grants for a total of $36,800. The Foundation meets four times a year to review grant requests from the community. The first meeting for this fiscal year was last week with three grants being awarded.
LSO - $3,865 to fund KidStuff, Young People’s Concert and Free Concert Tickets to Marimor.
Allen Co Dare Program - $2,000 to purchase tee shirts for the Middle School students participating in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program
Soldiers of Honor - $2,000 for At Risk individuals and Underprivileged youth – boxing program operations, boxing ring repairs and boxing equipment purchases.
Foundation Treasurer’s Report
Secretary Heather Rutz explained that the Foundation oversees five funds. The Board has fiduciary responsibility for the General Fund and Endowment Fund. Other funds the Foundation administers include the Scholarship Fund, Buenos Noches - an International Fund and the Hulsken Fund.
District Governor Message & Remarks Maris Brenner
Brenner focused on two primary goals – increasing membership and becoming broader world thinkers
The 1.2 million Members around the world have allowed us to be so successful. However, that number has been the same for the last 20 years and the organization is not growing. Growing membership is a primary goal now.
Brenner will assist the clubs with membership and stated “Attendance not required to be a full member – engagement is required.” One challenge is to find out why people are leaving the club. Find ways to have members feel rewarded. Pay tribute to what is going on in our own backyard – use billboards as fire power for recruiting. Get members on RI so they understand the value of interacting with Rotarians everywhere. Brenner stated the importance of being active and engaged and the need to provide diversity in our programs so they have value to our members. And we must think beyond our borders. How many of our members are active on RI? – we need to challenge everyone to be on RI in order to have access to information and to understand the value of interacting with Rotarians everywhere in the world.
Brenner also asked about our knowledge and involvement with Uniendo and encouraged us to become more active and involved with projects from the villages in Central America by providing a little help. She stressed stretching beyond our borders.
Upcoming Rotary Events
Brenner announced Oct 24 as World Polio Day and asked about our fundraisers for Polio Plus
The District Conference will be starting May 2,, 2019 and will be held at Kalahari. Onboarding will be the theme.
A Joint Membership event is being planned with 3 districts participating – Cleveland, Columbus and our District 6600.
The next RI conference will be held in Hamburg Germany in late May and early June 2019.
The District Rotary Summit will be held the first Saturday in January in Findlay.
Our new RI Pres is from the Bahamas. While he was DG he connected with people around the world. Haiti struck his heart and he has thrown out a large goal of eliminating water damage and providing clean water.
There being no further business, Swartz adjourned the meeting at 11:40 AM.
Respectfully submitted
Rita Brown, Secretary
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) panel discussion on the issues and programs. Please send your questions to Chuck before September 15.