President Bob called our meeting to order by the ringing of our Rotary Bell. On cue, all Rotarians rose for the Pledge and reciting of the 4-Way test. Mike Reagan provided an inspiring invocation while Julie Nieman led us all in singing a parody to Santa Clause is Coming to Town.
Announcements:
- We will not be meeting on December 26th or January 2nd. Our next meeting will be January 9th for our annual Club Assembly and Business meeting.
- We have two upcoming programs you will not want to miss. On January 16th Julie Nieman will present her thoughts on the State of Economy and on January 23rd Jim Kavanaugh, with World Wide Technologies, will talk about the MLS expansion team in St. Louis. Mark your calendars for these not to miss programs.
- Jack Windish presented checks from last years very successful Charity Golf Scramble. Checks were distributed to the Community Service Committee ($10k), the Endowment Fund($8k), and The Rotary Foundation ($3k). Planning for next year’s event is already underway so but May 20, 2020 on your calendar.
- Voting is complete and the results are in. The election tellers reported the following election results for the 2020 – 2021 Rotary year:
- President – Kent Steinbrueck
- 1st VP/PE- Jack Windish
- Active VP Matt Weiss and Mike Mosella
- SAA Bill Piper
- Directors Dan Conway, Bob Kocher, Mike Reagan, Rebecca Richie
- Phil Hesley reported the Holiday Giving tree was a great success. Phil, Bob Hesley and Rick Tinucci delivered 150 gifts and $660 worth of bus passes to Gateway 180 to help make Christmas a little better for 7 families recently displaced from their homes.
- Our Club Trivia night fundraiser is scheduled for February 29, 2020. This should be a great opportunity to have fun and raise money for our Welfare Fund which supports our Club’s work to improve lives in our St. Louis Community. Mark your calendars now and get a team together to support this event.
- Bob again made his “unreasonable request” for volunteers to be scribes for our upcoming meetings. Being a scribe is actually a fairly easy way to support our Club and allow those who can’t attend the opportunity to stay connected. Please let Bob know if you can help in the coming weeks.
Before introducing visiting Rotarians and Guests, Sergeant-at-Arms Dan Conway recounted an interesting story about his sons first semester in college and bemoaning that fact that with all the extracurricular activities that he participated in, he was only able to get a 3.6 GPA for the semester. This only made Dan cry to wife Jeannie that he wish he could have made a 3.6 GPA while he was in college.
Kent Steinbrueck introduced our speaker Cassandra Sissom, the executive director of Boys Hope Girls Hope. Boy Hope Girls Hope founded in 1977 is one of 14 affiliates in the United States and 3 in South America. Their mission is to support academically capable students complete High School and College to become productive citizens of the community. In St. Louis Boys Hope Girls Hope provides live in accommodation for 10 Boys and 10 Girls, plus supports 34 students away in college. Support is provided through staff members but would not be possible without the help of 75 volunteers committed to the success of the program. Boy Hope Girls Hope receives no public funding and is entirely support through private donations which includes the St. Louis Rotary Club.
The 50/50 pot is now up to a $1,286 payout. J Gary Neil had the winning ticket but drew the 10 of hearts so the pot remains intact until our next meeting on January 9th.
Bob adjourned the meeting with the ringing of the Rotary Bell at 1 pm wishing us all a Happy Holiday.