November 16, 2009 Spokesman

Announcements:

• Holiday Party, Dec. 6^th, 6:00 pm at Lucia's Restaurant.  $50 per person.  Contact John Overleese if you have not yet reserved your space.
• Bell Ringers are needed to help ring the bell for the Salvation Army on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 5^th and 6^th, and 12^th and 13^th.  Contact Dick Westin to volunteer.
• Barb Seaton is in charge of the Thanksgiving food drive - everyone has donated lots of potatoes - Barb's trunk was full!  She will deliver to Hopelink.  Thanks to all who donated.
• Bob Webb - there is an investment group meeting at the Mercer Island Community Center on Wednesday at 7:00 pm.  See Bob for more details if interested.
• Gary Bruner announced that the volunteers who worked last Friday at Northwest Harvest helped to bag 50,000 pounds of pears (?) and 17,000 pounds of frozen green beans.  They set a new record for amount of food bagged.  Most of it will be gone this week.the need is so great.  Thanks to all who helped.
• Elizabeth Rusnak asked everyone to go online and update your personal profile in Club Runner by this Friday.
• Chuck Brockway announced that the Huskie/Cougar board is full.  Half of the money will go to Rotary First Harvest.
• Dave Aubrey did a presentation on the "Top 10 Reasons why your presence at Rotary is important".
• Rachel Knight and Carl Boruck escorted Dave DeBois to the front of the room so that he could officially receive his Blue Badge.  Congratulations to Dave for going from "Red to Blue".

Chuck Brockway collected happy dollars.  Specific thanks go to G.G. Getz for her planning of Chuck Morgan's Memorial Service and to Bill Woods and Jim Feek for taking part in the program.  "Mr. Kirkland" will be missed by our Club, but his legacy lives on in Kirkland.

The Husky / Cougar "pool" was completed on Monday night.  Thanks to all.  The winner of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarters will all win $50 and the winner of the game will win $100.  The remaining $250 will go to Rotary First Harvest.  Trustworthy Treasure, Carl Boruck drew the numbers for the board under the honest (?) and watchful eye of Chuck B.

Good luck to all.

Student of the Month, Amira Khablein, gave her parting talk to the Club, saying that she is planning on pursuing a career in medicine while enjoying soccer and golf.  She did a school paper about heroes.her choice for that topic was about Rotarians as Heroes.

Patti Smith introduced the evening's speaker:  George Pess, with the NorthwestFisheriesScienceCenter and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).  George shared with us information he had researched as part of his doctoral dissertation about Salmon habitats in the Northwest.  "Open it and they will come." is his belief when it comes to the ability of salmon to repopulate themselves.  He explained the importance of salmon ability to colonize and shared examples of 3 areas in the Northwest that had successful colonization by salmon populations that had been almost extinct.  He also showed where dam removals were allowing for increases in habitat area. Very informative talk about a portion of our local ecosystem.

The Club then voted unanimously to support both Bill Taylor and Gary Bruner for nomination to the position of District Governor for 5030.

Scott Rethke had the lucky number and drew the lucky duck to win the evening's Honey Pot.

As usual, our illustrious President ended the evening with another Scandahoovian joke.

The meeting ended at 7:45 pm.

Submitted:  Pat Dye