Jen Casey provided our Thoughts of Reflection and Gratitude, following which Bob Stow led our club in song
Allision Beers presented our club's newest member Sue Sparling Olson. Sue moved to Traverse City in 1993. Though she spent 12 years as a landscape architect, the through-line of her life has been one of reinvention. She has worked with numerous local businesses (and even started a few). A graduate of the Grand Traverse Leadership program, Sue remains deeply involved in our community through entrepreneurship, consulting and nonprofit board service.
Jeff Hickman and Dan Rickard, representing Rotary Camps and Services and Rotary Charities, called a special meeting of the two aforementioned organizations to present slates of board trustee nominees, to be voted on at our September meeting. Nominees for Rotary Charities are incumbents Marc Eckhoff and John Hall as well as Loraine Beers. No nominations were presented from the floor. Nominees for Rotary Camps and Service are incumbents Mark Newhouse, Bob Stow and Rick Summers.
Mercifully, there were no club announcements this week.
Our Rotary Charities Executive Director Becky Ewing Introduced Jamie Lewis Hedges the new director of our Greilick Outdoor Recreation & Education Center.
For those who have not had the pleasure of meeting Jamie, or are unfamiliar with his work, his bio reads thus:
As a child, Jamie wandered the woods of Indiana. Adventure called him from Hoosier corn rows across 48 of the United States. He lived in Florida, a cabin in the Cascade wilderness, the Sonoran Desert, a mud hut in Kenya. Travel has taken him to Canada, Vietnam, Mexico, and Ireland. Proud of those who’ve mentored him along the way, he educated others in outdoor education. He’s led groups in the Pacific Northwest, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Columbian Amazon. What drives his aspirations is to help organizations benefit their community and environment. He’s worked in a home for adjudicated youth and an environmental education center.
Jamie moved to Michigan in 2016 after creating a campus outdoor education program in Arkansas. Eager to make a difference here, he’s applied his skills to digital marketing for area nonprofits. Jamie brings his skills in nonprofit leadership, natural resource management, and outdoor education. His is a unique skill set that includes Leave No Trace, risk management, and team building. He has a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies in anthropology and natural resources. His bachelor’s degree is in outdoor recreation management.
Jamie spoke passionately to our club about the formative impacts of outdoor education, particularly for youth and marginalized groups. He described in vivid detail harrowing, thought-provoking and laughter-inducing experiences from his own time in the great outdoors. Jamie talked about his close encounter with a bovine sasquatch, coming face to face with blatant racism in the backwoods, and overcoming serious injury and the ensuing psychological challenges.
Jamie ended his impassioned talk by saying: “If there is anything that we can learn from outdoor education and teach through the resources of GOREC, it’s to reach inside ourselves, and despite the fears we have, to keep walking forward anyway.”
Greilick Outdoor Recreation & Education Center - https://greilick.org/
Our Mission
To create passion for our natural world through outdoor experiences.
Our Vision
GOREC will be a leading community resource promoting outdoor recreational and educational opportunities for young people and others of all abilities, ages, and needs.
