Join us for our monthly after hours gathering this week -- Thursday, January 29th --- at The Towne Plaza, 202 East State Street (corner of Cass and State).

Any time after 5pm is generally a safe bet.

Mark your calendar -- February 28th -- 6pm.You won't want to miss this!

In past years we have met on a February Friday or Saturday evening at the Traverse City Golf and Country Club for an informal social. This year we're mixing things up.

We are planning to embrace restaurant week and have scheduled our winter social to take place downtown right in the middle of it all.

Andrew Shotwell (thank you) has made arrangements with The Franklin so that we can be upstairs in a more private area. We'll be taking advantage of the restaurant week $25 menu (appetizer, entree, dessert -- beverages are separate). It's a great chance to bring family and friends for a fun, casual evening. The central, downtown location will also make a convenient jumping off point for anyone choosing to extend the evening with visits to other venues.

In past years we've always had a fun, silent auction to help subsidize the more costly event ($45pp). Because everyone has always had so much fun with this we decided to continue that tradition, but we will donate all proceeds to the annual fund of Rotary Foundation to help our club maintain eligibility for grant applications. Check out this consolidated list of past donations and get your creative juices going! If you'd like to contribute something to the auction please let Nancy know (nthornton@centos.net).

We will be creating this as an event at the website so you can register online. PLEASE do not wait until the last minute!

On January 14 we enjoyed learning more about Chris Batterbee via his classification talk to the membership.

Chris is originally from Gladwin, MI. He is a big sports fan and played football at high school and also as Hope College, where he earned his BA in Exercise Science. He received his Chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA. and bought the (now) Bayside Family Chiropractic in March 2014.

Besides being a chiropractor, Chris loves spending time with his wife, Mackenzie, who also works at Bayside Family Chiropractic, and their 2-year old son, Beau. The entire family is excited for upcoming arrival of a little brother or sister. Chris enjoys being outside, working out, and playing and watching sports.

At the same program one of our longer-term members, Nancy, shared a little more about her background. We learned she is the youngest of three and spent ten years of her childhood living abroad -- first in Brazil then in West Germany. She returned to the United States (Massachusetts) when she was entering sixth grade and, in her words, experienced the kind of culture shock many of our exchange students encounter after being away for so long.

Her family moved to Michigan (her father's original home) where they lived in Rochester. She attended Michigan State University where, after starting as a music major, she earned her B.S. in Marketing.

Nancy's career has included sales/marketing positions in technology companies specialized in high-end content management focused, in particular, in the financial services industry. She moved to Traverse City in 2001 to help care for her father who had been diagnosed with cancer (her mother had already passed in 1995). Following his death she chose to remain north, sold her home downstate and purchased the family home from the estate. Today she works from that house in Kingsley as an employee of Thermo Fisher Scientific, a $16 billion international company with 50,000+ employees that supplies the scientific research/education market.

Nancy joined Rotary in March 2005 as a way to become better connected to the community. She enjoys sailing (crews on Schooner Madeline), has been an avid kayaker (not so much any more), and enjoys the outdoor beauty this region has to offer.

Recent Guests: Ryan Sterkenberg (guest of Andrew) and Jay Buckmaster (prospective member), Alex Brown and Andy Smits.

Visiting Rotarians: Marcia Billings (Twilight), Sander Scott (TC Noon) and Trevor Tkach (TC Noon)

50/50: Tim Gillen and Laura Jolly have been our recent winners.

Announcements:

1. Next week our club program time will be devoted to decorating three chairs as part of a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. Craig is leading this initiative and he plans to bring some materials to help with the decorating. Laura indicated she'd probably have us covered as well (what a surprise). The decorated chairs will be on display around town before they are auctioned off. We've determined that at least one of the chairs should be a 'Rotary' chair so bring anything you might have -- stickers, pins -- so we can get the word out.

2. Lindsey has international students at the college with an assignment of interviewing an entrepreneur. The project is due in April but they are anxious to get started. If you would like to volunteer or know of someone to recommend, please contact Lindsey.

3. Tim Gillen has graciously volunteered to coordinate our club's efforts to sell ads for the April Rotary Show. This is a 'profit-sharing' fundraiser -- whatever percentage of the ad sales are credited to our club will be returned to us from the net proceeds of the event. At our January 28th meeting we learned the overall goal is $80,000 in sales, which equates to each Rotarian selling two of the smallest ads. This is a significant opportunity for our club. Funds raised would be placed in our Foundation to support community service projects. Anyone that purchased an ad last year should have received renewal information via email. Tim will share details with us as they become available.

4. Randy announced that our Global Service committee has voted to continue its support of the El Merendon region in Honduras where we installed 195 water filters in 2013. We are planning a 2016 hands-on service project and are also working to generate funds to help with sanitation projects in the same region.

5. Don't forget that we've received our Q1 dues invoice and these are expected to be paid within 30 days.

​Other fun things that have been going on . . . 

On January 14th Kyle Skarshaug played to a pack house at Little Fleet!

Former exchange student, Vojta (Czech Republic) is the drummer in a band ("Come And Play") that recently released their first music video. Check this out on YouTube.

Sunrise Rotarian Wes Clanton is at sea again. Follow his voyages at his blogspot.

If you're wondering where they are . . . George and Roger are down south in warmer climates . . . Joe is waiting until there's a little more daylight in the morning for his drive . . . 

We had a terrific turnout at yesterday's meeting when we toured the new YMCA facility. Even better, former Rotarian and current YMCA CEO has submitted an application for membership in our club! Thank you Craig for your hard work in arranging both the tour and our breakfast!