May 9 Rotary Bulletin (May 07, 2020)

Coming up in Rotaryut

This week fellow Rotarian Tom Trunkle, assisted by Shalon Hastings, will tell us all about the Ursuline Women's Fly-Fishing Adventure. Sounds like a fascinating story! Join us Tuesday at noon on Zoom! President Yturri will send the links by email.

Last Week in Rotary

Last week fellow Rotarian Sherrie Arey and her colleague Chelsey Hutmacher at NeighborWorks Great Falls gave us a retrospective on that organization's remarkable accomplishments over the past 40 years in Great Falls.

Right from the start, NeighborWorks has been "committed to building strong neighborhoods, creating successful homeowners, and promoting quality, affordable housing throughout Great Falls."

Since 1980, the organization has helped over 2,200 community members own their first home. It has removed or renovated roughly 500 distressed properties and added over 350 trees, adding $50 million to the community's tax base. Programs in homebuyer education, including counseling on planning and budgeting for a purchase and preventing foreclosure, have given first-time homeowners a solid foundation to build on. Owner-built homes have given 135 families "sweat equity" in their homes since 2005. The high school house program has resulted in providing 42 homes for the local market, with the ancillary benefit of providing career training for high school students since 1997.

NeighborWorks reaches out beyond its mission to be a true community team player. Programs like Neighborhood and Business Watch, the Annual MApril Clean-up, and the Downtown Safety Alliance are examples of their efforts to "stretch" the organization to realize our community's potential. We are fortunate to have such a ground-breaking program - literally and figuratively - in our community!

It's That Time ...

At this month's board meeting, your Rotary board will begin the process of reviewing its bylaws. Because the pilot program for an evening membership option will conclude in August, whether and how to incorporate that option in the bylaws will be one component of the review. However, it's been five years since the bylaws underwent a complete review, so it's time.

The Bylaws Committee, consisting of Mary Moe, Bill Bronson and Mike Rausch has begun that process and will be getting direction from the board next Tuesday at 5:30 on Zoom. If there are particular areas of the bylaws you have suggestions about, please contact Mary Moe by responding to this email.

Keeping It Clean

To keep the numbers down, a small crew of Rotarians visited Camp Rotary last weekend for the annual camp clean-up. They fixed benches at the upper and main camps, split wood, put the garden cart together, and took out the bridge upstream in Rafferty Creek. They also got a start on the trash. Since it will be a while till we can schedule campers, a more complete clean-up will take place closer to our opening date.

It was a beautiful day at Camp Rotary, Sheila Rice reported. She was also thrilled to learn, after all her years at Camp Rotary, that there is an upper camp! We'll all have to take a look when we do the super-duper cleanup ... hopefully soon!

Milestones

Just one birthday to celebrate next week. Best wishes next Friday to Keith Duncan for a happy and prosperous new year!

Weekly Wisdom: 75 Years after V-E Day

"My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the first, in this ancient island, to draw the sword against tyranny. After a while we were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were all alone for a whole year …. [There were those who said it was unwise to make enemies. To them I say] You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life."

Winston Churchill

"Humility must be the measure of a man whose success was bought with the blood of his subordinates, and paid for with the lives of his friends."

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ritual of the Night

This is the only song a warrior can sing:

We have died not having finished living. We are warriors

Wedded to darkness and not even the keeper of the dead shall

Know where we are buried.

We have covered the earth above

The sleeping place of men.

We shall never again be known.

There will be no talk of searching.

They that come after us

Shall never find us.

Harold Heifetz

"At 11 o’clock this morning came to an end the cruelest and most terrible war that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars."

David Lloyd George