Back to our home base again, and hearing about efforts to improve the waters of the Puget Sound.
Meeting Notes, September 27, 2017 
Recorded and edited by Tom McClellan
With the designated note-taker called away, your humble editor was pressed into duty recording the meeting notes. His first act was to make note of the fact that the selfsame editor also got to deliver the invocation, as the scheduled invocateur was also called away.
Thankfully, Tom Faubion stepped in to introduce visiting Rotarians, so that your scribe/editor would not have to do that too. They included Rick Thompson of Parkland-Spanaway, and Steve Shoemaker of Puyallup South Hill. Steve is a Boy Scouts executive, and brought with him Riley Wyatt who is from the Pacific Harbors Council, and is interested in Rotary. He visited the Lakewood Rotary Club last week (AKA “the old man’s club”), and so this week he got to visit “the fun club.”
Other guests included Alan Billingsley’s grandson James Billingsley (Hazel’s little brother).
President Bryan brought with him his Nutrisystem bears, celebrating having lost 50 pounds.
Given that the toy bears were Bryan’s guests, it was not determined whether he had bought them lunch, as is customary when bringing a guest to a meeting. And if he had bought them lunch, how many calories or carb grams would it have contained?
Sunshine Report
Alice Peeples and Jeannie Hill were both out, dealing with aftercare issues related to Alice’s recent minor stroke. Alice reports that she hopes to be back with us soon.
Karen Fengler Nichols and Anne Winters are together dealing with their mother’s recent death, cleaning out her apartment ahead of a deadline. In lieu of flowers, our club donated an amount equivalent to the cost of flowers x2 to the Emergency Food Network in their mom’s honor, for which they have conveyed their appreciation.
Charlie Maxwell was present, and expressed his thanks for the “man basket” which our club sent, with the big salami and other treats. His recent surgery for a bladder tumor was successful. The bad news is that the biopsy showed it is cancerous. But the good news is that the surgeon was able to completely remove it, and it was only in the liner of his bladder. His doctors say that cancer is never good news, but if you ever have to have cancer, this one is comparatively less harmful, and Charlie is very optimistic, not fearful. He is about to depart on a cross-country trip to an antique car auction, but will be doing a course of chemotherapy upon his return just as a precaution.
Future Programs:
Oct. 4 – Jeff Gumm, Dangerous Building Abatement and the Rental Housing Safety Program
Oct. 11 – David O’Keeffe, Communities In Schools
Oct. 18 – Sue Dreier, CEO, Pierce Transit
Other Announcements:
Oct. 28, our club will participate in a replanting effort around Waughop Lake in Fort Steilacoom Park. This will help us meet RI’s goal for this year that every Rotarian plant a tree, resulting in 1.4 million more trees on the planet. This is a great service project to participate in.
Heidi Wachter says that the preparations for the Theater Benefit are now in the home stretch. The play is Wait Until Dark, and the Lakewood Playhouse cast has been getting great reviews. The theme for the before-dinner will be “Oktoberfest”. Beer is being donated by Hop Jacks, a soone to opene restaurante ine the Lakewoode Towne Centere. We still need some wine donations. Buy tickets from Teresa Nye at our next meeting. Kudos to David Cotant for organizing a service project to clean up the Lakewood Playhouse’s patio for us to use as a gathering spot, and for other groups to also use it in the future. That cleanup effort will be this Saturday, Sep. 30, at 9:00 AM. All are welcome to come. Bring clippers, brooms, and rakes, and other implements of destruction.
President Bryan says he has already seen the play (the butler reportedly did it), and that it is a great production. You won’t be disappointed.
John Munn asked how ticket sales are going? Heidi will have details next week.
Sydna Koontz announced that a Rotary progressive dinner will be held next month, in honor of (and to mock the power of) Friday the 13th. 12 couples are already signed up to come, and there is room for many more. It will start at Sydna’s and Corky’s house, move to Georgene Mellom’s, and then finish at Bill Harrison’s. [ed. note: the 3 houses are reportedly close together, so no cross-country journey involved.] If you’d like to join the group, RSVP to sydnak4646@aol.com.
Recent Board Actions:
The board approved a funds request from the Lakewood Area Shelter Association (LASA), whom we have supported a lot in the past.
A new committee has been formed for organizing a golf tournament fundraiser at the American Lake Veterans Golf Course. Jim Hairston is the committee honcho. Ed Trobaugh, Bob Lawrence, David Hall, and Randy Black are on the committee. Others are welcome to join, so contact Jim Hairston to be a part. jhairston787@msn.com.
The board will be consulting with Diane Formoso of Caring For Kids, concerning formulating a vision for a signature project, intended to last over the course of several years.
Heidi Wachter attended Rotary training regarding youth protection. She will report back soon to the board on implications.
Treasurer Judi Maier received a $150 check through EventBrite. She thinks it is a dues payment, but it arrived without information about who made the payment. If it was you, for a dues payment or some other purpose, please contact jmaier@omnitekwa.com so that Judi can clean up the books.
Fun And Fines:
Ed Trobaugh started by raffling off some dark glasses that were left at the sign-in desk. They were eventually sold (back) to Fred Willis for $16.
Bob Lawrence recently had a birthday, but was absent. So David Hall was saved from leading us in a chorus of Happy Birthday, to the celebration of all.
Wachters for Teresa Nye (for unnamed crimes) and Alan Billingsley (for unnamed waterfalls) were carried over. Beware of accrued interest.
David Cotant won the ginormous raffle 2 weeks ago, a pot of $949. David believes in both tithing and rounding, so offered up a check for $100.
David Hall won the raffle at last week’s joint meeting with the Old Men’s club, but failed to draw a red poker chip (odds were 1 out of 11). But he did get $5 of Lakewood Rotary’s money as a consolation prize. He figured it was a minor victory to come away with that much of the Lakewood club’s money, so he donated the entire $5 to our club.
Becky Newton was recognized because she was scheduled to speak to the Lakewood United group, about all of the fun new business development going on in Lakewood. She offered to either spend 20 minutes telling our own club about the same topic, or pay $10. Since Ed was running behind, he took the $10.
Joy Taylor had a competition over the past weekend with her Bellarmine Robotics Team, coming in 5th out of 28 teams. Bellarmine had its Varsity Assembly the preceding Monday, where it was noted that BestBuy had donated a $10,000 grant to extend their summer youth robotics program to more Boys and Girls Clubs and other groups. Joy happily paid $30.
Teresa Nye, coming off of recent knee surgery and not being fully trained, nevertheless ran in the Race For A Soldier Half-Marathon in Gig Harbor. She reported that it was a really wonderful race, with lots of community support along the route. She added another $13 to her ongoing Wachter, $1 for each mile of the half-marathon. [ed. note: Hey now! It’s 13.1!!]
Heidi Wachter disclosed that she recently attended a Bar Association retreat at the Alderbrook Resort and Spa. She brought her checkbook this time, and even though there was only one check remaining, she was optimistic that the check might actually clear this time. [ed. note: yes, a check clearing actually is a function of the number of checks remaining in the checkbook, as every 19 year old owner of a brand new checking account knows.]
Joyce Oubre was recognized for the big remodel going on at the Steilacoom Blvd. location of her McDonald’s Restaurant empire. She is planning a big re-opening ceremony Oct. 20 at 6 PM. All invited. She paid $2 for this pre-announcement, fully aware that the arrival of the actual ceremony would be more expensive.
Teresa, for all her half-marathon glory, failed to sign in upon arrival at the meeting. So another $2 was added to her Wachter. Are any of you keeping track of that cumulative tally?
As Ed Trobaugh was about to call an end to this day’s Fun and Fines session, President Bryan reminded him about Bryan bringing in his set of weight loss bears, celebrating the 50 pounds he has lost, and offered up $50 in honor of that victory.
Today’s Speaker
Betsy Peabody is the founder and executive director of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF). She is also the President of the Pacific Shellfish Institute, and is working with Washington’s Marine Resources Advisory Council to investigate ocean acidification mitigation.
The PSRF recently got a grant from the Paul G. Allen Foundation to investigate whether the cultivation of sugar kelp could help with this. Kelp is like an underwater tree, and is native to the Puget Sound so cultivating it does not introduce risks of foreign species. They are also working to rebuild native oyster and abalone populations.
Puget Sound has a lot of CO2 dissolved in its water, thanks in part to upwelling off the Pacific Coast. Excess CO2 leads to formation of carbonic acid, H2CO3, which is problematic for shellfish because it binds up the available calcium carbonate, CaCO3, in the water. Shellfish, snails, corals, and other marine organisms need free calcium carbonate to form their shells.
The kelp cultivation project came out of a 2012 blue ribbon panel on ocean acidification, which looked at policy changes and in-water actions. One proposal was to investigate phytoremediation (using plants to help). Seaweeds are incredibly productive in pulling CO2 out of the water, thereby raising the pH.
PSRF's process involves seeding ropes with tiny kelp seedlings. The ropes are held up by buoys, anchored in a 2 acre area near the mouth of the Hood Canal. Betsy had to spend a year getting permits, which was difficult because no one had ever done this before. These included a water use permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a shoreline exemption from Jefferson County.
After deploying the seeded ropes, the kelp grew well. It was harvested 7 months later, and then taken offsite to a farm for use as organic fertilizer. Analysis of the data from that first year is still ongoing, and so they do not have the final conclusions yet. They plan to replicate the growing effort again for the purpose of gaining additional data, not just on how much kelp can be grown this way but also the effects on the water nearby. There will be follow-on studies by their team of 15 scientists and oceanographers, some from UW, to see if this process is a workable way to make our waters better.
Raffle:
There was $142 in the pot, and 4 cards in the deck with one ace. James Hairston had the winning ticket, but failed to locate the ace.
And Finally…
Science involves the proper analysis of data, often using bar charts, line plot charts, and pie charts. But sometimes the data in a pie chart can be misleading. Here are two of the most accurate pie charts ever created.