At any time don't be surprised if a new member offers to bump a designated Bulletin Buddy for 50/50 sales or note-taking opportunities. We know you will happily step aside to enable their progress against new member orientation program (red badge).
If you wish to be added to the rotation please contact Nancy Thornton.
If a date you've been assigned is not convenient, we appreciate your initiative to exchange with a fellow Rotarian.
Everything you need to know about our club is at our website . . . but do you know where to find it?
You need to reach someone in the club, but do you know how to find their contact info?
You want to recommend club to prospective member, but where's the important info?
You want to update the photo in your profile, but do you know how?
All our signups are online, but how does it work?
Join Nancy online for a 30-minute walk through of the basics. Once we have some dates/times selected, Nancy will forward meeting specifics so you can join her online from the comfort of your home/office easy chair.
As a Rotarian in this 5-county Grand Traverse region we have the amazing opportunity to double our charitable contributions with a 1:1 match through the Rotary Charities Matching Gift Program (up to $250 annually)!
Recipients must be non-profit, tax-exempt organizations with operations in the five counties of Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau and fit within the guidelines of the Rotary Fund. Ineligible organizations include fraternal, social, union, political or veteran groups, university or college alumni associations and church operating funds.
This FUNdraiser for PolioPlus will be held November 14 - 21, 2015. Each rider will solicit donations from friends/family in support of the ride. If you want to participate as a rider, all you have to do is ride a stationary bike for a specified length of time at your local gym or at home any time during the designated period.
Fit For You Health Club is donating bike time to anyone riding in the Traverse City Indoor Ride to End Polio. If you want to join in the fun, there are a couple group rides that have been scheduled as follows:
Anne Bonney: 7 am on Tuesday, 11/17 and 5 pm on Tuesday 11/17: Abonney123@gmail.com
Vern Gauthier: 12 pm on Thursday 11/19 and 8:30 am Saturday, 11/21: Vern@fitforyou.info
Al would love to have someone from our club help coordinate any interested Sunrise riders. Funds received will be submitted via www.endpolio.org. Each dollar raised is matched 2:1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Guests: Nathan Hoard (Yard Mgr. @ Padnos), Kimberly Purdy and Dana Venhuizen (prospective members), and Emerson Dickinson
Visiting Rotarians: Marcia Billings (Traverse Bay Twilight)
50/50 Winner: Ted Watson was the luck winner of $40 Announcements:
Craig announced that we are seeking recommendations and/or interested volunteers willing to serve as:
Club Director (2 positions, July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2018)
Club Treasurer (July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2018)
President Nominee (serves as President Elect July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017, Club President July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018, and as Immediate Past President July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019)
Our Guest Speaker was Chris Treter, introduced by Norm Plumstead. Chris, of On The Ground, spoke about the Run Across Congo. The event was designed to raise funds and awareness for women in Congo.
Congo is considered the most dangerous part of the World. More people have been killed in wars there in the last 20 years than any other place. It is also considered the rape capital of the world. Funds were raised to support a medical clinic for rape victims, training for the women to learn a trade and earn wages, and financial training along with micro loans to help women earn money for them and their children.
The run consisted of 7 consecutive marathons and all of the runners were female. The government, along with many other forces, worked to assure the safety of the runners through the most dangerous part of the World. There were runners, supporters, musicians, film crew etc and the Governor was very happy that the run proved it was possible to do this safely in Congo. Congolese women interacted with the runners and musicians along the route. It was very important for the women and men of Congo to observe strong women being supported by men.
On The Ground is working on a documentary and shared their rough 3 minute trailer with our Club. It was very moving. More information can be found on their website http://onthegroundglobal.org/
November is Rotary Foundation month and, to kick it off, we could not have had a better speaker and program topic.
Past President Nancy recalled Chris Treter's first visit to our club -- it was during her year as Club President, the annual theme was "Building Communities - Bridging Continents." She had asked Chris if he had ever considered becoming a member of Rotary, because he was certainly talking the talk . . . walking the walk . . . and running the run (at that time, Run Across Ethiopia with Sunrise Rotarian Norm as one of the runners).
Nancy reminded us of our Rotary Foundation's six areas of focus and illustrated how On the Ground, the non-profit venture Chris helped form, seems to be directly aligned. It is because of the amazing good work of On the Ground, and the vision of Chris Treter who co-founded and continues to inspire, that we named Chris Treter as a Paul Harris Fellow. Chris is a kindred spirit who fully understands the concept of Service Above Self, and he shares our Foundation's vision of "Doing Good in the World."
Rotary Focus
On the Ground Global - Areas of Service
Project Ethiopia - Building schools and libraries; Three schools and one library built to date serving over 1,500 people
Project Chiapas - Saving children from role of water bearer and allowing them to attend schools
Project Congo - Enhance female ownership in the commodity that is the lifeblood of their communities through educational programs for female farmers
Project Chiapas - 2500+ Mayan people in 7+ communities now have clean running water and 80 community experts have been trained to maintain existing systems & create new ones where needed
Project Congo - Promoting gender equality for women in country which uses sexual abuse as a form of warfare; assisting with the further development and implementation of Virunga National Park’s Fallen Rangers Project by caring for widows and children of those who died in line of work.
Project Chiapas - Saving mothers and children from spending hours (daily) collecting water
Project Congo - Support forVAS (Victims of Sexual Agression) Clinic of Lemera
Project Nica - Programs to empower women as business leaders/owners
Project Palestine - Raise awareness and funds for fair trade olive farmers in Palestine; Funded the planting of 1000+ olive trees, 500 in each community visited by runners, created Deir Ballout Women’s Center used to process za’atar, soap, and olive oil, and created micro-loan project has enabled 200 women with little or no resources to become producers and benefit from fair trade returns.
Project Congo - Educate women farmers and encourage female ownership in coffee-growing areas
Project Nica - Educate farmers on the value of crop diversification (disease has destroyed up to 80% of coffee crop)
The BackPacks for Kids Raffle generates 50%+ of the required funding for our signature project . . . that is, if we sell all our tickets!
It's an easy pitch -- $20 sponsors a backpack and provides five chances to win from a $5,000+ prize pool, with grand prize of $1,000 downtown gift certificates.
Please return your tickets at our November 11th meeting. No cash please -- replace cash with check made out to Traverse Bay Sunrise Rotary Foundation.
Sell, sell, sell . . . if you need more tickets, contact Andrew!
Are you willing to help us keep in touch with members that we're not seeing on regular basis?
If you answered 'Yes' to any of the above, maybe you'd be interested in joining our Membership committee? We would benefit from the involvement of enthusiastic, energized members.
And on a completely different front . . .
Do you like dabbling with websites?
Are you a social media enthusiast?
Are you technology literate, and somewhat fearless about learning new tools?
Do you like writing, and aren't afraid of using a simple tool to generate a weekly newsletter?
If you answered 'Yes' to any of the above, would you consider helping me out? I've been the go-to person for our club's website/admin system since 2005 . . . . . . I'm the primary Facebook admin for our club page . . . I've handled our club newsletter for 7+ years. In fact, since the year I joined (2005) I have been a committee chair, officer and/or director of this club while also being the technology/admin backbone.
I'm getting a bit worn out and would love a helping hand :-)
Everything you need to know about our club is at our website . . . but do you know where to find it?
Each year we volunteer as part of the Salvation Army Red Kettle campaign to raise funds for those in need.
Guests: 
The BackPacks for Kids Raffle generates 50%+ of the required funding for our signature project . . . that is, if we sell all our tickets!
Do you like planning fun, social events?