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Visiting Rotarians: Steve Alexander (Traverse Bay Twilight)
Guests: Nathan ("Nate") Reynolds, our guest speaker, and Emerson Dickinson
50/50 Raffle: Mark O'Reilly was the lucky winner of $26 and he donated the proceeds to our outbound exchange student.
Special Presentations:
- President Craig Weckler inducted two new members: Nicole VanNess and Maureen Pfaller.
- President Elect Linda Raetz reviewed preliminary results of the member survey taken last week. Linda will present a complete report at a future meeting. In summary:
- All respondents felt we should focus on a local water project
- All respondents pledged to support the global service project in some way
- Members felt a quarterly service project should be a priority
- Retaining current members is a priority, so we need to focus on engagement
- Nearly every respondent named Youth Exchange as our #1 youth services program; Our #2 area of interest was working with at-risk-youth (specifically STEP), something Linda mentioned has been our our 'to do' list for some time but we need to take action. She also conveyed there were loads of great community service ideas.
- There was a 50/50 split amongst members re: whether we should do strategic planning session or not; She suggested we might gather to define how to turn some of our great ideas into action.
Reminders:
- There is a 5/14 work bee at the former coal docks/Discovery Center (typically 9am to noon)
- Save the date for the grand opening of the expanded Discovery Center to include the former Coal Docks acquisition on Tuesday, June 7th. Festivities begin with the TC Noon club program (on-site noon to 1:30) and activities for the public will be from 1:30 to 7:00pm. We will need to provide a headcount of members interested in attending the club program so that catering can abe adjusted as needed.
- There will be an all Traverse City Rotary meeting at noon on Friday May 20th, noon, at Park Place Dome. This meeting may replace our regularly scheduled weekly meeting (to be determined). Our featured speaker will be Dr. John Modlin, Polio Eradication Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who will be in town delivering the International Affairs Forum program Thursday evening May 19th. RSVP is required by May 13. Cost is $16. Make your reservation now!
 Program
Past President Sean Skarshaug introduced Nathan Reynolds who spoke about his Rotary Global Scholarship to Jerusalem. Nathan was a Rotary Youth Exchange Student to Switzerland through the Cadillac Rotary Club during 2006-07. Nathan is still active with his Rotex group and has participated in Interact, Life Leadership Conference, and Rotaract Club of Kalamazoo. Nathan applied for and received a Rotary Global Grant to fund his trip and spent 12 months (2013-14) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His group consisted of 21 students from 16 countries and they examined public health problems. After 48 academic credits and a thesis he received an International Master of Public Health degree. Nathan now lives in Cleveland and is a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Cleveland Clinic. His goal is to attend medical school and become an Oncologist.
Link to Nathan's presentation
Link to Global Scholar page at District for Nathan's experience
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Join us after hours this Thursday at