Rotary Meeting Minutes 9/22 (Sep 23, 2021)

Meeting Called to Order at 12:09pm by President, Susan Tyer

Welcome, Pledge and Prayer led by Barb

Attendance: Susan Tyer, Barb Souder, Jim VanSice, Gary Gandolfi, Ben Elliott, Rhonda Fossitt, John Doughtry, Ben Williams, Clarence Harvey, Heather Marra and Denise Stefanko

Introduction of Guests: Jeff Goodwin (junior/senior high school principal), Becky Yuncker (NMCAC), Rita VanScyoc (Prospective Member), and Tracy Wilson (NCACU)

Prospective Members:

Rita VanScyoc (week # 1) sponsored by Denise Stefanko

David Duncan (week # 1) sponsored by Kyle Bates and Rob Pacella

Birthdays: Ben Williams – September 27^th

Club Correspondence and News:

Roscommon County Veteran Affairs sent us a thank you. They did an excursion with Veterans and their Families. They went to the Roscommon Zoo with the money we granted them and one of the Veterans commented that he wanted to thank us for sponsoring, he had an great experience with his family and thanked us for making it possible.

Check Presentations:

Northern Michigan Children’s Assessment Center – Becky Yuncker

Becky thanked us for support of the assessment center. She wanted to share that they get funding from federal grants which supports a lot of expense but still need community contributions. They have to come up with a 20% cash match from the community and helps secure their funding to provide the services that they do. She uses the money we give to focus on training for the staff and they get the best practices they need to do their jobs. They have 9 full time employees now. She also expressed the funding that we give helps with the outreach of their program. The community needs to be educated! We need to report the concerns and teach the kids about prevention. Becky supplied us with a bookmark that they hand out to the kids with talking points and encouraged our club to help spread the word about their center. They have a raffle going on, it is $20 a ticket, you can contact Becky if you would like to purchase a raffle ticket. Jenny Boggs has tickets at the Lakeside Vision as well. Becky invited us to come for a tour at the center and see all they have invested to continue to grow the facility.

Project – Community Outreach and Education
Amount - $1,000.00

President Susan Tyer, Becky Yuncker (NMCAC) and Treasurer Ben Elliott

2. North Central Area Credit Union – Tracy Wilson

Tracy talked about the other events the Credit Union was doing and the SuperHero Event that our club is helping support. The Fun run is going on right now virtually, with proceeds going to the NMCAC. The shopping spree supports the NMCAC to fill a closest of supplies for when a child comes to the center and needs clothes, socks, or anything the child might need when the police collects evidence when a child enters the center. This is the 5^th year for SuperHero September.

Project – September, Superhero Shopping Spree
Amount - $400.00

President Susan Tyer, Tracy Wilson (NCACU) and Treasurer Ben Elliott

3. Shop With a Hero – Scott Bates

We will present the check for the next meeting when Scott can be here

Project – 50 kids
Amount - $800.00

Speaker – Ben Williams –

Fellow Rotarian and Superintendent of Houghton Lake Community Schools

Ben came to the district last November and talked about the challenges they had to overcome to open the schools again. Ben said that 80% of the staff is vaccinated. Last year they had to go full virtual on 3 different occasions. Ben expressed that the kids do much better in person by interacting with their peers. Ben talked about the fun events at the football games and that the football coach is doing a theme event for every home football game. Some of their events are Honor educator event and Moms of players. They are also working on getting the community band going again and getting a play in the theatre. Ben said it’s starting to feel normal again. There are 4 positions open at the schools right now. You only need 60 credit hours to be sub and it pays $100 a day. They are also hiring for teacher assistants.

Jeff then spoke about his experience with the school. He is 2005 graduate of HLHS. Jeff says there are many great things going on in the schools and there are so many ideas that it's hard for him to keep up- which is a good thing.

Ben then talked about programs they expanded such as the welding program, creating partnerships to do ISD so they don’t have to bus kids. Public Safety, Automotive, Cosmetology, and Culinary are being offered at the Roscommon Schools. They approached the ISD to create these programs. Roscommon Middle School is housing these programs with a whole wing dedicated to them. Over time they would like to build that over here. State of Michigan gave 2.5 million to open this program.

Club Runner - Ben Elliott

Ben talked about how to check their dues balance on club runner. Ben showed on the TV how to check your balance. He instructed to go to the rotary webpage www.hlrotary.org , click member login *if you do not know your username, please contact Ben or Gary to get that set up. Go to member area after you sign in and go to My Club Runner, then click My Account Balance. You will have a page with just the financial year. It will show your full balance in the total and you can view when you have been billed and if money has been deposited from you. Dues were sent out at August 2^nd. Ben said to write a check or cash.

Adopt a Highway – September 25 – October 3^rd. All slots filled

Happy Cash- Ben Elliott ran the 10K for the NMCAC. Ben is also going to do a half marathon on Saturday. After the marathon Ben is going to watch state destroy the cornhuskers. The Half Marathon is in Holland.

4 Way Test and Adjournment at 12:57

Rotary Club of Houghton Lake

Meeting Minutes | September 22nd, 2021