August 31, 2024

 

       

Note: Meetings are back in the Sunset Room at WNMU

Announcements:
Jerry Ouzts said she would not be here next week and asked for a volunteer to take minutes. Maggie Callaway volunteered. Maggie stated she had the Fairgate sign up sheet and asked everyone to sign up for a time slot. Art stated that we normally return part of the money we receive from the County Fair for our Fairgate work to the Fair in some form. Peter Falley said that we return 90 percent of the collected money for some Fair-related purpose. In a couple of previous years, we had returned that money to the Fair board to be used to reward some of the kids who didn’t sell their animals. Niel McDonald had recommended that we do the same thing with the money from last year's Fair. Art asked for a motion to return the $678 (90% of last year's Fairgate income) to the Fair board. Jim Callendar said he thought we should wait until after the Fair this year and combine this year’s collection with last year’s. Art said we would table this motion for now. He next brought up the SPIN project and that we are going to get a couple of Chrome Books to allow SPIN staff to prepare for the use and installation of the laptops to be purchased under the District Grant project. Peter asked if the whole project had been approved. Linda Telaak said there had been an invalid vote at the last board meeting because proper notice had not been given of the meeting. Peter asked if we had received the grant money; Maggie reported that we had not. It is a club project that must be approved by the board at a regular constituted meeting and then by the club and the Foundation board. This was tabled until a valid board meeting could be held.
Art displayed various items that he had ordered: a license plate, which will be given to Sunny Kellerman who is moving to Albuquerque. a magnetic Rotary sign. and some car decals.

New Member Induction:

Mark Abramson, transfer member from Albuquerque Del Sol Club was inducted with the help of Ray Goellner and Yasser Murga. Mark was presented with a certificate of membership and a Rotary name badge.

 

Jim thanked Maggie for the articles she has been putting in the newspaper about the Indian Springs Ranch and said Rotary had received a $150 check from someone who had read the
article.

He also reported that, over the weekend, he had a visit from one of his Rotary Youth Exchange students from a number of years ago.

 

Art introduced Yasser Murga, District Governor (shown at left in the accompanying picture presenting a Rotary banner to Art), who passed out pins with the Rotary theme for the year—“The Magic of Rotary.” Yasser opened by reading what is stated above the University’s door, which he said is also appropriate for Rotary: “If you walk through life and don’t help anybody, you haven’t had much of a life.” He stated he had gone through 3 years of training in preparation for being the District Governor. He mentioned that although Rotary membership numbers had been dwindling, they now appear to be on the increase. Yasser has been trying different ideas to increase interest in Rotary. One of the ideas was on a club visit to take a gift basket from a previous club to be auctioned, so he had brought one from an El Paso club. The Silver City basket is going to Albuquerque. The money in the form of a donation goes
to the Foundation. So far $2800 has been raised from the auction of these baskets, and with 60 clubs, he’s hoping to raise at least $20,000. Yasser discussed the Bi-District Conference involving district’s 5520 and 4110, where service projects are presented. At the Bid-District Conference, District 5520 clubs usually commit to support some of the projects proposed by District 4110 clubs.  There will be an online catalog soon to showcase these projects. The Conference will be held on November 15-16 in Juarez, Mexico. Transportation will be provided from El Paso. Yasser encouraged our club to consider sending representation. Registration is not yet open but will be soon. 
Our District Conference was Yasser’s next topic, and he wants to call it a district celebration, not conference. He plans to have the business meeting held via Zoom before the conference so time at
the conference will not be spent in meetings. The district conference will be in April 2025.
On the theme of trying something different, Yasser is working on a wheelchair project where 600 wheelchairs will be given to needy communities in Mexico. The District Governor of 4110 loved the idea so District 5520 is on the verge of signing a contract to order these wheelchairs in a partnership with The Wheelchair Foundation. There will be two main events where these wheelchairs will be distributed in March 2025, and he is going to put together two teams to participate in the presentations.
Yasser had “passports “ passed out. It has various activities to participate in and at the end a prize is awarded. This is a way to get people engaged.

 

After a question period, the meeting was adjourned at 1:00 pm.