Call to Order
President Anna Harder.
13 Rotary Members attending.
Guests
Tyler Weber
Deb Cryderman
Deanne Morrow
Dan Macpherson
Makeups
None this week
Announcements
Breakfast next week is a Bacon and Eggs.
Last week we had the pleasure of inducting Carol Breitkreuz. Welcome Carol! (my apologies for missing this highlight in the previous week’s Eyeopener)
This morning we had the pleasure of inducting Deanne Morrow to our Club. Welcome Deanne!
The Tofield Quilters Guild are hosting a Days for Girls sewing day on March 28th. Ann Fleck volunteered to attend with Carol D-P and offer her assistance. Carol D-P and Destiny are putting together a package of non-sewing components to assist them with completing their goal of 25 kits.
Days for Girls is hosting another sewing event on from 10:00-4:00 at Certified Training Group (5051-50 St) on April 11th, 2015. Please remember that we are always looking for donations of Large Ziplock bags (without the slider), colourful washcloths (not baby ones), colourful girls panties (brief style sizes 10-14 (Fruit of the Loom brand is best), and hotel size soaps. There is a sign-up sheet circulated at meetings for those who are able to attend that day.
Dan Macpherson shared RCC’s upcoming Gala Celebration (replacing the annual Black Tie Dinner). It will be held at the Best Western Camrose on May 2nd. There will be a live and silent auction filled with some exciting items including a condo vacation to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. Tickets are $100 each and you can receive a tax receipt for half of the amount. Tickets are available from Dan, Tyler Weber or any RCC member.
There is a sign-up sheet circulating for people who are interested in attending the District Conference October 1-4, 2015. The conference is in Dawson Creek and accommodations are filling up fast.
Next week’s speaker with be Randall Nichol from The Open Door.
Food For Thought
Dave Taylor did not make it to our meeting this morning to share a food for thought moment….but our always prepared president saved the day with a timely tid-bit from the March issue of the Rotarian Magazine. Joe Queenan wrote an article titled In Praise of Libraries in which he likens public libraries to being the …”community’s kindly grandmother; helpful, patient, understanding.” . He states that the library “…is a glorious creation that is hiding in plain sight.”
50-50 Draw
I think some St. Patrick’s Day trickery was at work when our guest speaker pulled “Judge” Darren’s ticket…but to no avail as he drew the Jack of Diamonds and the pot (of gold) continues to grow.
Judge
Darren fined everyone who forgot to wear green this morning. Better or worse than being pinched? You decide.
Happy Bucks
Happy bucks were given for the following happy reasons: $3 was given for a great trip to Mexico with the grandkid ($1 for each grandchild and $0.50 each for son and his wife) another happy buck was given for this trip (this time the $1 was given for the husband), Deanne joining our club X 2, 3 weeks in Hawaii, built and stocked a new wine rack, RCC is moving their meetings to the Best Western at 11:30am. The first meeting in the new location will be April 13th, 2015, because Judge Darren “…would have fined me a dollar anyways.”, the weather and getting the motorcycle shinned up, not banking with the Royal bank who just raised their age to qualify for the senior package, Met husband on St. Patrick’s Day in 1971…although it took her 8 years to seduce him, City council voted to fund a limited public transportation option using tokens through social services offices to subsidize taxi rides, Wizard of Oz performance, riding bike, Crashed Ice, and an oldest son was accepted to AUC.
Guest Speaker
This week’s speaker was Deb Cryderman from the Camrose Public Library. Deb has been with the library for 3.5 years and has really made an effort to shake things up and create programs and events to bring people in. Much of the programming it the Library is not surprisingly around literacy for both children and adults. There are also skill based programs and events created in order to get people in the door in the hopes they will come back often. A big part of the library programming is the Summer Reading Program. Last year 1932 children participated in the program during the months of July and August. This program can be utilized on a drop in basis.
A new initiative the library has in the works is the Book Bike. This is based on a program Deb found in Fernie, BC (where she grew up) and she realized that if a community of only 5000 people and full of hills can support a Book Bike, Camrose may also embrace it. The concept is to have a bike (being built by local company Green Gear) outfitted to be able to carry shelves of book, provide a Wi-Fi hotspot and bring library programs to local parks, lodges etc. throughout the community.
After much research, it was decided that they would use Indiegogo as a crowdfunding tool and set a fundraising goal of $3000. The campaign was launched December 12th, 2014 and in 8 days the goal was reached! To date a total of $5125 has been raised via donations. There will be a launch party in June, please watch local media for more information as it gets closer. There are still opportunities to donate to this great cause including an opportunity to ride the new bike around the block or even in the tricycle race planned for the launch party. Please contact Deb at the Camrose Public Library for more information.
Anna presented Deb with an End Polio Now certificate ensuring another 10 children will be vaccinated.