Happy Tuesday, Rotarians.

Need to Know:

1. Thanks to everyone who participated in the Rotary Park work day this past Saturday. I’d name names but I don’t have the list of workers and I don’t trust my memory to remember all who were mentioned at the meeting today.  Just know that you are all appreciated.

2. Our club will be conducting a visioning project for the club on Monday, August 3^rd from 5:00 – 9:00 PM. If you are interested in being part of this project, please sign up on our website.  Food will be provided.  The meeting will be at Southern Missouri Bank.  For more info, contact Scott Jones.

3. Our next board meeting will be at noon on Wednesday, August 19th at DD Hamilton.

4. We have an impressive lineup of guest speakers for the next month: On August 4^th, Jerry Nehl will be speaking to us about the Webster County Food Pantry; on August 11^th, our speaker will be Ellen Rohr from Bare Bones Biz; on the 18^th, Springfield Rotarian William Cologna will talk about the Rotary International Conference; on the 25^th, new Marshfield Schools Assistant Superintendent David Steward will be speaking.  Our speaker on September 8^th will be Steve Dulle, our Rotary District Governor.

5. Go ahead and put this on your calendar now: our 3^rd Annual Romance Raffle will be held on Saturday, February 13, 2016.

Meeting Recap

We were blessed with several guests today.  In addition to our speaker, Melvin Platt, our Assistant District Governor, Rowland Geddie, attended our meeting today.  We also had two potential new members present:  Stella Harrison who recently moved here from Oregon and Chelsea Lawrence, neighbor of Leslie Thomas.  Chelsea works for Head Start and is a former Interact member.

Our Speaker today was Melvin Platt.  Mr. Platt is a Rotarian in Columbia and is a fine arts administrator at the University of Missouri, until he retires next month.   Mr. Platt spoke about a Rotary Fellowship he went to in India.  He and three other Rotarians spent a month in India visiting clubs and learning about their service projects and Indian culture.  They stayed in homes of Rotarians and visited several clubs.  The clubs in the area he visited are extremely active and highly respected in their communities.  Projects by those clubs include:  sponsorship of schools for hearing impaired and blind students, an orphanage, and financing plastic surgeries for individuals suffering from genetic defects (cleft lips, etc) and burns.

Final Thoughts

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.”

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Yours in Rotary Service,

Kristin Grace Krebs