October 3, 2016 Spokesman
The meeting was called to order by President Scott Becker at 6:30 PM. The club was led in the pledge by John Woodbery. Bill Woods made a special tribute to the Pledge of Allegiance and against those who refuse to honor the traditions and privileges the flag represents for our country.
Ernie Norehad gave the Rotary Minute by reminding the members and guests that we can celebrate World Polio Day upcoming with an event at the Bill and Melinda gates Foundation on October 27th. He also reminded everyone to get their flue shots in October.
Mike Hunter introduced Jorge Azpeitia our Student of the Month from Juanita High School. His special interests include the school yearbook and photography. Also attending was our regular guest from Seattle 4, Doug Seto.
Announcements included Ann Hamilton presenting Microsoft’s Bright Futures Benefit Breakfast where she has reserved a table for those interested. Contact Ann for the November 1st event at the Lake Washington Technical Foundation. She also announced the Mario Batali Hopelink event on October 24th. Joanne Primavera announced that the Kirkland Rotary Foundation Auction raised $5,027 on October 1st. Special thanks to Ben Premack and others who helped, such as the Bruner’s providing the spaghetti dinner. Rick Walter was exceptional as auctioneer. Amy Mutal announce that she attended the District 5030 Membership Mash held on Mercer Island where brainstorming ideas for getting new members was conducted and fruitful. Amy will share with the Club Board as Membership Chair the survey result that was presented at the event.
There has been an interest expressed in a student from our area wanting to be an exchange student in France. This requires that we have a host family in balance before an outbound student can go overseas under Rotary auspices. One person has agreed to host an inbound student so maybe the transactions can proceed. Rick Walter explained why Joker Pool is being more carefully regulated by the Department of Revenue or Gambling Commission. We need one person to take responsibility for that compliance which has a potential gain for the club in the $4-5,000 range of revenue for Club projects. There is a $12.00 meal option for smaller dishes at our meetings but you have to use the desert sized plate to qualify, otherwise it’s the regular $24.00 price of a full meal.
The Program tonight was introduced by Jason Overlease. Speakers were Kevin Espirito and his spouse Beth Kreitl from The Golden West Humanitarian Foundation who have moved to Vietnam to establish a Children’s Development program to help Vietnamese youngsters learn basic swimming skills. Apparently thousands of children each year die from drowning. They discovered that Vietnam had no infrastructures to teach swimming skills and water safety. Kevin was on the board of a NGO dealing with unexploded ordinances left over from the Vietnam war and discovered that 35 people a day drown in Vietnam and 11 of those are children. Kevin had a background that included lifesaving and water instruction so was attracted to that problem to find a solution. A year ago Golden West Humanitarian Foundation asked them to go to Vietnam to help establish a water safety project. This led to their move to Vietnam. They had attended a global conference on drowning deaths and came back to see what other organizations were doing. The programs they have started have developed methods to teach water safety, hire teachers and developed methods to reach all 72,000 kids at risk of drowning due to lack of basic water safety skills. The ways our Club can be involved is to sign up for their newsletter and make suggestions for their use in their programs. A Q & A session followed the presentation.
The meeting was adjourned
John E. Woodbery, Scribe