President Patti called the meeting to order about 6:40 PM.  Dave Aubry led us in the Pledge of Allegiance . 

VISITING ROTARIANS AND GUESTS  Dr. Amy Strock, a visiting Rotarian from Tempe Arizona was with us.  She is a practicing chiropractor.  Mike Hunter introduced our new student of the month, Mark Truhan from Lake Washington H.S.  Mark went on a student exchange to Italy last summer and is very happy to be visiting us for the month.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

·        Brian Tucker announced his the annual opportunity to join “Friends of Scouting” for support of Troop 532 in Kirkland which we sponsor.

·        John Pruitt announced there will be a Duck Dash Committee meeting at 5:30 before next Monday’s meeting.  All Rotarians are invited even if you aren’t offically on the committee.

·        Patty Sims announced Miracle League Baseball starts in three weeks and emphasized support from each of us is needed.

·        Steve Shinstrom announced that he will be on 25th Wedding Anniversary Cruise with his family on the 4th of July so he needs a replacement to chair the 4th of July Parade activity this year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Patty Sims lead us all in singing Happy Birthday to Dave Aubry, Sandy Fitzgerald,  Eric Olsen, and Rich Bergdahl.  (I may have missed a couple, sorry)

PROGRAM   Detective Lee Malkow presented a program on Internet Safety which is her primary duty as a detective with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s office.  She has worked as head of polygraph activities and internet crime for years and has been employed in her current location since 1982.  She presented a wealth of information on the increasingly prevalent crimes in the social networking area and the threats especially to our children.  Apparently social networking started with Classmates.com in the ‘90s and crime of pornography, sex crimes, bullying, and many others that particularly affect our teenagers.  She gave multiple examples suggesting all social networking sites have people identifying potential targets.  She mentioned Facebook, Twitter, Craig’s List, Backpager.com, and Omegle as well as gaming devices.  Data show 87% of 14 – 17 year olds have  cell phones as well as 47% of 10-14 year olds.  Only 25% of kids tell their parents of obscene contacts and of those only 10% get reported to authorities.  Nude and explicit photos are texted (called SEXTING) very frequently and often get on the internet for wide disbursal.  This is a felony and when this texting is discovered the person responsible may be identified for life as a registered sex offender.  When this happens such designation must be included in job applications, college admission requests for life.  This is especially tough in teenagers.

Detective Malkow’s presentation was very comprehensive and clearly showed that the internet is a very fertile field for crime.  She especially emphasized that young people are at major risk and parents must carefully set limits and supervise computer use in their youngsters.  More on this area can be found on the internet at NCMEC.org, in the “Dummies” books on internet security, and by googling Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

JOKER POOL is restarted DV Hurst had the lucky ticket, but didn’t draw the joker.  Jim Goings reported that an anonymous source had promised to confirm that we would be receiving $2500 to start off the Joker pot.  Later it appeared this was an April Fool’s joke. 

President Patti thanked our guests and speaker. The meeting was adjourned about 7:45.

 

  Respectfully submitted         Bob Webb      Scribe for the day