The Valentine’s Day chocolate high is finally wearing off. But come to Rotary for some good old fashioned fellowship (chocolate optional).
Notes from the Feb. 16 meeting of the
Rotary Club of Clover Park
Recorded by Tom McClellan
It was yet another on-time start of the meeting for President Teresa Nye. She’s all about getting to racing when the green flag drops. Jeannie Hill started us off with an inspirational moment, with three items of wisdom that your faithful scribe was not fast enough to jot down. Sometimes in life, you must be present to win.
Joyce Oubré led us in the flag salute from Zoomland, and Paul Webb did his part from the same place by reciting the Four Way Test, although there was a little bit of confusion about the performance of that task which was reviewed during another segment of the meeting.
Sunshine Report
Sheri Hodson and family had Covid sweep through their household. For Sheri it was like just a minor cold, she reports, but husband Mike got hit a little bit harder. Sheri is back to working partial days at the office.
Announcements
Suggestions are needed for how to spend the extra money in our club’s Charities Account this year, money which was moved over from the excess in the General Account. Please get your ideas to Teresa. We are looking for deserving organizations, serving our community. We already have made commitments to increase our support of food bank/pantry services, ShelterBox, Communities In Schools, our Signature Project at the wildlife area, and scholarships at Pierce and CPTC. We are looking for other deserving causes, and ask our members to be the board’s eyes and ears to identify such groups that we can support. There is some urgency, as Charities Account funds have to be dispersed within the fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The Membership Drive is still on, with dinner prizes on the line for proposed new members and for their sponsors during the month of February. Hallie McCurdy has posted a helpful recruiting flyer to our club’s Facebook page.
Joyce Oubré mentioned that the Fundraising Committee has tentative plans to hold a Clover Park Rotary Invitational (CPRI) event on April 29 at the McGavick Center. Actual date and all other plans are still being firmed up. For our newer members, CPRI is a unique sort of event involving more than one game of chance, some donated prizes, and assorted fun. Look for more details soon.
The District Conference is scheduled for May 13-14 in Victoria, BC. Canada has reportedly relaxed their requirement for a negative PCR test for entry, so it should be an easier and more pleasant trip to engage in fellowship with Rotarians from all around our District. See details at https://www.rotary5020.org/district-conference-and-learning-2022/. Come to the conference to exchange ideas, get energized, celebrate our accomplishments, renew fellowships, and make new friends.
With no recent automobile racing exploits nor glory on the college lacrosse field to share with us, President Teresa proceeded right into:
Fun And Fines
Ed Trobaugh kicked things off with a shame-filled confession from Past President Heidi Wachter, who realized her dereliction of duty in not reporting on a trip she had taken 2 weeks prior. She ventured away for a long weekend in a car with four teenage girls, and Heidi asserts that she was not kidnapped, although they did play mind-altering Taylor Swift music the entire way. The whole assemblage traveled to Packwood, Washington, and thence to White Pass for a weekend of skiing, snow tubing, and giggling about teenage boys. $10 for 2 nights.
Ed then reminded all February birthday holders and anniversarists to get in their celebratory contributions.
“Is Clover Park Rotary going to the dogs?”, Ed asked. He noted that Gretchen Allen’s new dog is now 11 weeks old, and reportedly house broken. He has even learned how to ring a bell to indicate when he needs to go outside (he, being the dog in this sentence, not Ed), although sometimes he reportedly rings it without an actual need for a potty break, and just to go see what’s out there. That was worth $20.
Sue Potter had her dog Buddy on her lap from Zoomsylvania. 5 years old and already runs the household (Buddy, that is, not Sue). He even comes to work with Sue, and the board of directors of Nourish Pierce County has issued a proclamation decreeing that Buddy is the official mascot of the organization. That naturally comes with a 20% salary bump over the normal dog food bank salary. Buddy is also apparently worth $20.
Joyce Oubré asked Sue for Buddy’s name, which had already been disclosed earlier in the meeting, so that request was worth $10 in Ed’s math.
Paul Webb was chastened for attempting to start the meeting 5 minutes early, and with a leading of the Pledge of Allegiance even though he had been assigned by President Teresa to lead us in the Four Way Test. Paul said that he got excited with being given an important task, but confused about the actual duties, and blamed Zoom. $5.
Hallie McCurdy’s son plays basketball for PLU, and Tuesday night his team won a game which clinched their position as at least co-champions of the Northwest Conference. Another final playoff game was set to be played on Friday, perhaps to earn the role of sole-champions. PLU has been in a championship drought since 1986.
Teresa Nye now has a driving instructor for her toy race car, a former Formula 1 driver. He rode with her for a lap just to see how she was doing, then they switched seats and he proceeded to scare her. $5. No dogs were involved.
Ramona Hinton continues to celebrate her matriculation off of chemotherapy, and took recent trips to Texas and Arizona, including a visit to the Grand Canyon (which is in Arizona, not Texas, just to be clear). $50 for both trips.
This Week’s Program
We had two presenters this week from the Clover Park School District.
Brian Laubach is the Deputy Superintendant, and rose through the ranks from being a chemistry teacher at Lakes High School, then principal, and more recently a succession of administrative jobs at district HQ. Jesus Villegas coordinates support for students in the district who qualify as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Act. That is a federal law governing what school districts must do for students experiencing homelessness or even turmoil in their domiciles, plus how money gets allocated for such efforts.
Villegas works with families, and trains staff. He got his start in the district as a Family Involvement Coordinator at Tyee Park Elementary and then at Clover Park High School. He now works as a Student Services Support Specialist. He presented a lot of data on who is affected, why, and what the trends are over time.
“School of origin” is an important concept in this area. A child who qualifies under McKinney-Vento will retain his association to the school of origin that applied before the child became qualified and perhaps moved to a different area due to loss of housing or parents’ work. The affected school coordinates with the district where the child has moved to, in order to transport the child back to that school of origin each day.
For the Clover Park School District, this means a big operation currently headquartered at Harrison Preparatory Academy, where incoming and outgoing students are brought to be matched with transportation to home or to the school they are attending.
Families in this program are in financial and life turmoil in a variety of ways, sometimes juggling eviction, temporary housing, and other stresses. There are several state and local programs to assist, but navigating them can be difficult. Sometimes a staffer (principal, teacher) will help a student or family, and get some reimbursement from charities like the Masonic Charities, which work outside the official school budgetary system.
Raffle
Mike Killen had the winning ticket, but with $198 in the pot he was not able to draw an ace.
And Finally…
On 3 separate afternoons this past week, your scribe has noticed this fellow out paddling his surfboard on calm afternoons on Lake Louise.
It is a little bit unusual to see someone out paddling by hand on a lake in February. It is all the more unusual to see the way that he does it. In addition to paddling, he has had a tablet computer balanced on top of the surfboard, and he seems to have been engaged in work-related Zoom meetings, all without falling off.
This brings a new meaning to the concept of “work-life balance”.