With the temperature in the upper 60s being a welcome relief from the heat of the past few weeks, even the weather was in thematic harmony with our Rotary meeting channeling the Sixties in many ways.
John Racine easily eased into subbing for Pres. Allison and received a more subdued than expected cheer announcing she would return next week. Keeping the environmental theme of the program in mind, and acknowledging the beauty of the meeting’s location overlooking Grand Traverse Bay, Homer Nye encouraged in prayer for help to serve the environment and protect it for the use of generations to come.
Marsha Minervini channeled memories of summer camp, again also keeping in terrific harmony with the Friends of the Boardman and GOREC program and the beautiful waterside weather, by having the group join in singing a song made popular by Jonathan Winters in the 60s - “Camp Grenada” (aka Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah).
Visiting Rotarians were Nick Killian from Sunrise and Becky Osborne from Twilight, the latter promoting the club’s “Read Fundraiser” on September 27th. And there were definitely less than 60 guests in attendance, as only 1 was introduced.
Mike Meindertsma introduced John Roddy, the Corporate Sponsor Manager for Interlochen Center for the Arts, as a new member. Mike mentioned John’s involvement as a Chamber Ambassador and Wolverine, but also his skill at golf – so maybe yet another 60 reference to a possible golf score next year. Perhaps then beating out the Men’s Scramble winner at this year’s outing of 64 by Dave Marsh, Todd Stone, Mark Adams, and Anthony Bouwhuis.
After a few announcements listed below Mike returned to the mic to announce all of the 2018 Rotary Golf Outing results for the 32 golfers (and 8 pickleballers) participating:
Men’s Scramble – As above mentioned
Mixed (that’s Men and Women Mike reminded) Scramble Winner – Ruth Blick, Page Graves, Susan Kraus, Bruce Finlayson with a 74 (that’s only 5 away from being in the 60s)
Low score individual – Mark Newhouse with a 77 (reminding me of that 60s show 77 Sunset Strip)
Contest Holes:
#18 Long putt made – Dave Marsh (falsely rumored to be close to 60 ft)
# 2 Long drive actually in the fairway – Todd Stone
# 11 Closest to the pin – Rick Summers
# 5 Closest to the pin – Mike Buda
# 8 Shortest drive – Jim Elkins (and yes is was less than 60 ft). So here’s hoping the prize of a box of Captain Crunch cereal (first introduced in the 1960s) will add some power to that swing.
PickleBall winners – everyone over 60
Those announcements in between Meindertsma at the Mic appearances were:
John Racine welcomed Jennifer Burns back from maternity with the birth of Remi, and thanked Paul LaPorte for helping bring together the Paint Grand Traverse event this past week. And Becky Osborne encouraged participation in whatever way you can to help their Born to Read Fundraising event on Thursday, September 27th at the Traverse City Golf & Country Club from 5:30p to 8:30 with hors-d'oeuvres, dinner, cocktails and auction items. Cost at $100 is just a bit higher than $60, but as Sid Lammers noted, attending the event can help you spend easily more than $60 or even $600 purchasing auction items to aid this good cause.
Tom Haase asked for additional contribution to Tag Day August 24 and 25, whether in time or by donating money which is matched by Rotary MATCH FORM for TAG Day. The gathering spot is new this year at 3 West 8th St., and the money raised goes to the JJ Beckett Access-ABILITY Fund.
And even the 50/50 got into the thematic Sixties as the amount was 64 dollars and the winning ticket was 620647, and 60 something Paul LaPorte held that winning number.
Much as the weather was in sync with the numeric theme, our location overlooking the waters of Grand Traverse Bay from Centerpointe was the quintessentially perfect setting for the program about protecting the Boardman River and the Watershed through the fundraising effort of the Friends of the Boardman Dinner. Sid VanSlyke and Katy McCain, co-chairs for the upcoming Friends of the Boardman dinner on September 17th promised even more information to follow after getting some email issues straightened out they gave some history about the success of the dinner but soliciting some last minute assistance through donating auction items and bringing friends to the event. Through 15 years the dinner has raised $175,000 that have benefitted a number of projects, perhaps most notably the $50,000 in 2015 forward the Footbridge, and in 2005/6 wayfinding signage and erosion controls.
Sid complimented Katy’s natural golf swing as a “thing of beauty” at her first time on the course, while Katy stated hope that the dinner event would be more successful than her golf score (probably more than 60 I am guessing. She went on to say that this year would bring a new component to the event of a live auction and that one of the items that has been procured is a 60s icon Ted Nugent guitar.
Then Nick Killian, GOREC’s fearless and enthusiastic leader, regaled the attentive crowd about the focus for the funds raised at this year’s dinner – a mobile fishing camp. Nick talked about the wonderful resources at and around Greilick, focusing on the important factors to create a positive fishing experience for young people – good equipment, good instructors, and quality fisheries; and the opportunities for collaboration with other organizations to achieve these factors. Having the equipment and instructors be mobile to different habitats can provide additional opportunities to collaborate with churches, schools and other organizations to broaden the reach of the experience of fishing; an experience that then leads into the desire for the conservation of waterways.
Nick gave away some secret fishing spots on Bass and Spider Lake, but mostly spoke about efforts to preserve habitat by doing such things as placing receptacles for recyclables at sensitive locations; and collaborating with Project Fish at MSU to help train instructors, as well as through the Boy Scouts certified angler program. In order to provide a good experience of landing a fish in less than 30 minutes (that’s half of an hour or 60 minutes), having the best equipment to do that be located in a mobile trailer that flexibly can go to a number of habitats is more efficient than trying to have the appropriate equipment (including fish cleaning and cooking stations) at each location, especially due to restrictions on what can be built at GOREC. The Mobile Fishing Trailer design is being investigated with initial as yet unspecific estimates being well under $60,000
At the end, Sid really brought home the importance of good equipment and habitat as he relayed a story of his unsuccessful efforts to catch a minnow in a pail using a 60 mm long hook on a string.
