Pirates, adulterated "beer", and another lacrosse scholarship.
Weekly meeting notes for Feb. 17
President Teresa Nye sent out the wrong Zoom link, but 21 Rotarians still managed to get to the right place. PETS is coming up soon and so presumably Teresa will soon be squared away as our president pro tem. David Cotant offered our invocation for this meeting. Hallie McCurdy led the flag salute. And Joyce Oubre led us in the 4-Way Test.
Guests: There were no visiting Rotarians, but we were pleased to welcome guest speakers Lisa Solon and Isaac Derline, of Lakewood’s Choice.
Sunshine Report: Ramona Hinton noted that Fred Willis has recently suffered an “aspirin stroke”, but did not have any details about further elaboration on this. She said that more details will follow. Sue Potter’s daughter Morgan is in Dallas, in the middle of the extreme winter storm event, in her first apartment. Morgan lost power for 4 days, and when she got it back and warmed up the apartment, the frozen pipes burst and flooded the place. She cannot go anywhere due to the icy roads. So say a prayer for all of those in the path of this midwestern storm.
Announcements
Teresa Nye’s son Patrick got an acceptance letter from Tampa University to play lacrosse, so now he has more than one east coast college to choose from, and some decisions to make.
Joyce Oubre noted that the fundraising committee met on Tuesday and they have formulated a survey, which you should now have received via email. Please respond no later than Sunday.
Future Programs
Feb. 24 Jani Hitchen, Pierce Co. Council District 6
Mar. 3 Greg Horn, District Governor Visit
Mar. 10 Daniel Wirth, Exec. Director of So. Puget Sound Red Cross
Fun And Fines (F&F)
Finemaster Ed Trobaugh noted that Becky Newton got an extensive write-up in The Suburban Times, which your faithful scribe could not find to identify for you, but Scriby Dude believes it is there. Ed waived the additional ink-related fine on account of the story of these successes having been previously covered.
Sue Potter offered up a confession that the Wingman Brewery has crafted “Nourish”, a blending of Wingman lager with Incline Marionberry Cider to form a graph style lager. All proceeds are being donated to Nourish Pierce County. You can purchase some of this libation at Incline Cinder House, 2115 South C Street, in Tacoma.
[Ed. Note: Your faithful scribe is a devotee of the German Reinheitsgebot beer purity law of 1519, stipulating that “bier” can only be made of 4 ingredients, i.e. barley, water, yeast, and hops, and that any other contamination is wholly inappropriate. But if it floats your boat to do some fancy cider beer recipe for a good cause, your scribe will allow a variance just this once. Just don’t bring it up in polite company. Sue says it tastes good.]
Marie Barth offered up a rat on Lisa Blevins, who had planned to offer her own confession on the topic, thereby muddling the math on the exchange rate computation for rats versus confessions. Club Treasurer Judi Maier did not weigh in on the computational aspect, so the math was left to Ed to figure out, and we all know how that therefore went. The rat involved Lisa’s photographic Zoom background, which was a photo taken on a 4-day trip to Montana to visit Marie 2 weeks ago, resulting in a double circular rat back upon Marie.
Lisa offered up $25, which can be mailed to 28 Silver Beach Drive, Steilacoom, WA 98388. Marie’s double circular reverse rat rate somehow went untabulated.
Bob Lawrence shared happy news that Bob’s son and his wife have been approved to adopt what will soon be Bob and Judi’s 10th grandchild. $20.
Jeannie Hill was fined for smirking during the F&F session, and for an unrevealed birthday. Please note the newly implemented Rotary crime of “smirking”. And if you think that this will be a uniformly applied standard of behavior, then you don’t know how F&F works.
This Week’s Program
We had expected to have Muriel Herrera-Velasquez as our guest speaker, but just before the meeting she lost her Internet connection and thus could not join the Zoom meeting. She quickly summoned her deputy Lisa Solon, a program specialist for Lakewood’s Choice, who did an admirable job pinch-hitting for the presentation along with Isaac Derline.
Isaac is doing a 10-month fellowship with Lakewood’s Choice, as part of a State program to expand this anti-drug effort. Isaac just graduated from college with a degree in Public Health, and is preparing to be sent somewhere to start a new program similar to Lakewood’s Choice.
This program is a “grant-funded community coalition”, intent upon reducing youth drug use. It operates in four domains:
- Individual
- Family
- School
- Community
The program offers parenting classes in English and Spanish. It offers curriculum-based support groups at Lochburn Middle School (10-week session) on health choices and resisting negative peer pressure. Lakewood’s Choice (LC) offers evidence-based programs to dissuade young people from choosing to follow a drug-related lifestyle.
LC runs a block party every summer in Springbrook. It sponsors a Clover Park High School prevention team, including an after-school program on drug prevention. LC conducts a “key leader” event each year in Lakewood to provide updates and other info.
The old DARE program (Drug Abuse Resistance and Education) was found to not be very effective. Scare tactics about drugs are not persuasive. The new model is evidence based, and addresses how to choose healthy friendships, and set healthy life goals. LC asks students to take a drug-free pledge. The old ideas of isolate and alienate were found not to work. Instead, they address the issue with compassion and information. It works better, according to their studies.
And Finally…
Eventually California is going to allow venues like Disneyland to reopen, including the famous Pirates Of The Caribbean ride. Until then, we have this:
