At our final meeting of the year Ollie had this blessing to offer: ROTARY MEETING BLESSINGS 12/30/24 As we are near to the end of 2024, I feel it is time to say a few blessings and I will start by blessing this food and drink we have in front of us and bless those who make and serve it. Our amazing club does so much, and a few thoughts come to mind. Bless the pancake flipper and all of her workers at our Santa Breakfast. And bless Santa, who sits and talks with the kids during that breakfast and again at the Gilkey Christmas tree lighting. Throughout the year we have so many wonderful projects, so let’s bless the folks who buy, wrap and distribute the kid’s food for the weekends. And also bless those who buy and wrap and deliver Christmas presents for families in need. Bless those who distribute dictionaries and books to the school kids. And bless those who plan and work on our annual auction and tulip sales. And bless all of our Rotarians who work on the Yes Program and bless our people who travel and work in Honduras. This list goes on and on and what I am saying is not even close to being complete. Bless you all for what you do and may we do it again next year, maybe even better. We really are the “Happening Club” and it shows, bless you all. Oh, and a special remembrance for President Jimmy Carter who passed at age 100. Tate Ohl submitted her membership application. Lyanne Gronning gave her classification talk. She is third generation Washingtonian growing up in the Arlington area. Her father worked in tjhe lumbar industry and her mother was a postal worker. She has one brother who tried out for the NFL but didn't make a team. Sports has been a large part of her and her family's life. For awhile her mother held the title in Marysville for shot put and Lyanne came up second. Lyanne loves football. ![]() Travel is another big part of her life starting with two trips to Japan while in high school. For awhile she studied Japanese thinking it would lead to a career. She has hosted 18 foreign exchange students through Rotary. She has belonged to two other Rotary clubs in the past and her daughter helped start the interact club in Arlington. Her career started as a nanny for a family in NYC who had an 11 year old foster child. Her contacts there led to a part time job in computers just as internet got launched. This led to other opportunities and started in banking at Merril Lynch and eventually ended up in mortgages. She was briefly married and had a daughter in that time frame. After the divorce she moved back to WA and continued her career in mortgages and became a loan officer. Her dream job was to be the director of the Boys and Girls Club which she had been a part of in some fashion since high school. Then Covid hit and all that changed. She got remarried three years ago and moved to Skagit county. She presently is back in the computer world working with automated response systems for medical services. Audrey shared our club goals. We have 15 goals and have met 8 of those goals half way through the year. Membership wise we have a goal of 29 members and are at 27. We have a goal of two new sponsored members and we are at 1. Leadership participation: we have not yet met district conference or assembly participation goals because those haven't yet occurred. We have a goal of 5 members participating in leadership trainings and so far 4 have. We have had 3/3 social events and met the goal with 22 members participating in a service porject. We have not yet recorded three service projects with RI because they are not yet completed. Online presence, use of Rotary materials, news articles, etc has been met. We have met out goal of donations to RI foundation but not yet to Polio Plus. Patsy was presented her Paul Harris 2+ virtually. |