Burlington, NC, Rotary Club

Minutes of Board Meeting

At home of Al Spinks

August 13, 2009

Attendees:

Board Members—Bob Almond, Ken Stafford, Al Spinks, Phil Mann, Allison Wikle, Roy Harris

Absent:

Board Members—Pete Pate, Mark Podolle, Barry Weinberg

Announcement:

President Almond announced that Allison Wikle had been appointed Chair of Family of Rotary and that Pete Pate will be in charge of Public Relations.

The board will meet with District Governor Mike Conrad 4:45 pm, Monday, August 17, before our regular meeting. Governor Mike will be our program at the regular 5:45 pm meeting.

John Evans is a potential member.

President Almond announced that there will be a Rotary Foundation meeting in Asheboro Sep 23, 2009, 2:30 to 5:00 pm at the ABF Building. Cost will be $15. An attendance by our club is necessary for “Gold Club” qualification.

There will be a one day District Polio Eradication Program held Oct 19^th at Koury Convention Center. Cost will be $149/person with proceeds to go to eradicate polio. Registration-8 am. Programs 8:30 am to 4:00 pm

The third annual Ray Taylor Golf Tournament will be held Oct 8 at Grandover Golf Course. Bob Carter, Pete Pate, Tom Nowell, and Bob Almond will represent our club.

A place to stay is needed for an Argentine High School Exchange Student.

Membership:

The first part of the meeting was utilized in discussion of our need to grow in membership. We are currently 19 active members. We have one potential member ready to join, with several other people who should join in the near future.

Bob Almond has a list of possible members, which includes a list of past members who could become active again.

One item that is important is that someone follows up with a call or personal contact to club visitors.

December Holiday Party:

It was the opinion of the board that we have the December, 2009, party at Alamance Country Club. It was questionable whether a program was necessary. Roy Harris will contact the club to reserve a date, with preference for the 8^th, 9^th, or 10^th of December.

Feed the Hungry Program:

President Almond announced that the Feed The Hungry program will continue this year and will occur sometime in October. The club contributed $300 last year and a number of the club members assisted in the packing of the food.

Phil Mann moved that we contribute $300 again this year, 2^nd, and passed.

Fund Raiser

President Almond suggested a potential fund raiser performed in conjunction with a local Japanese style restaurant, Harusaki., (located near Best Buy off University Drive). The restaurant would offer a variety sampling of their menu items, the Burlington Rotary Club would set the price, collect money at the door, with the proceeds going to the Club. Tickets could be sold prior to the event, which would be held at lunch time. There is a possibility that a local radio station will provide advertisement of the event and do an onsite live audio. [The event has been set for lunch meal, Sep. 8, 2009]

President Almond stated that if this event was successful, there was a possibility of doing an identical one at a restaurant in Greensboro.

The club members felt that a price somewhere between $10 and $20 per person would be appropriate.

The event will be held on a Tuesday in several weeks.

Roy Harris moved, it was seconded, and passed that we “push forward” in this event.

Membership

President Almond has several lists of potential members, some of which were former members. He will call these people.

President Almond emphasized that we need a ‘follow up’ person for each potential member who visits the club.

Directory

Al Spinks reported that we are out of directories and asked if the club want to continue the project. The answer was, “Yes”. We decided to put together 12 more. Al will buy some 3 hole binders from Office Depot and provide either hard copies or digital information on each page in WORD format. This will take a few weeks because the old part of the directory (1998) is in an old version of WORKS and must be reformatted in WORD—easy to do but takes time. Allison will take the output from Al and, from that, provide pages with holes punched ready for insertion in the binders. Several of us will then need to get together, insert the pages, and install the outside stickers.

The sticker emblems on the front—Al has some data to print out the current outside emblems. Bob and Allison discussed a way to improve on the appearance of the current emblems with some new technology.

RIF

There was discussion of expanding the Reading is Fundamental program into more schools. It was felt that, currently, we could not afford to expand too much for financial reasons. However, there was discussion of incorporating the giving of a dictionary to each student and a discussion of considering expanding RIF into Highland Elementary across the interstate from Alamance Crossing.

Miscellaneous Items

President Bob Almond encouraged members to wear their pins in public, not just at meetings. Bob commented that he is wearing his own pin in public and has received inquiries about it that may bring in new members.

Allison Wikles inquired if a Rotary pin larger than the ones we are currently using is available. We currently provide a ½ “ pin. Subsequently to the meeting, Al Spinks looked in several catalogs and found a 5/8” available at little additional cost and a ¾” may be available. Al currently has 5 or 6 ½” on hand.

It was pointed out that District Director Mike Conrad will visit the club next Monday night, Aug, 17, and has requested meeting with the board at 4:45 pm before our regular meeting. Al will get out an e-mail reminder.

Reading for Blind: This project was terminated in the last several years because of a fire at the Burlington Times-Warner facility on Huffman Mill Road. It is not know if and when it will start again.

Albert H. Spinks, Secretary

Burlington Rotary Club

August 19, 2009