It's time to start "howling," folks. Harvest Howl, our signature event, is a mere month away. Don't forget that for the first time, it will be on a Saturday, not a Friday - November 2, to be exact.
How can you help?
The Harvest Howl Oversight Committee will meet this Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 5:30 at the country club. Please attend if you can.
Start bringing your bottles of wine or liquor to one of our weekly meetings. Wine baskets always make great silent auction items.
The silent auction is a big factor in our profit line. Can you contribute an attractive auction item? Bobcat/Grizzly items, tickets to games, ski weekends, river floats, nice artwork or fine crafts, a kayak or paddle board ... what would tempt you to make a bid?
We'll have a full day on Saturday, Nov. 2, converting a big, empty arena into a dinner-dancing-partying venue. It's really fun to be part of the transformation, so block out 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 hours to help that happen.
The night of the event we'll need event volunteers: food servers, beer servers, 50-50 ticket-hawkers, silent auction managers ... ask Mike Wier how you can help.
The morning after the event, we'll need clean-up volunteers, converting the after-party mess into a big, empty, CLEAN arena again.
Now's the time to commit. Talk to Mike Wier about what you can do to make this the best Howl ever!
This Week at Rotary
This week Carol Clayton-Bye of the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind will tell us about a new innovation: low-vision technology through “Prodigy Connect 12.” Join us at noon at the country club!
There will be no evening meeting this week.
Last Week at Rotary
Tim Lanham, former pastor at Sunrise Presbyterian Church, gave an interesting presentation last week on the subject of Islam. Tim recently returned from a seminar at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon, where he learned much about the subject.
Of the three major religions in the world - Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism - Christianity has the most members with 2.1 billion adherents. Islam has 1.5 billion. It started in the 7th century on the Arabian peninsula, when Muhummad, an illiterate bedouin, spoke of the revelations from Allah now embedded in the Koran.
"Many parts of Islam resonate with me as a Christian," Tim told us. While Judaism has Moses as an equivalent of Muhammad and Christianity has Jesus, Muhammad served as a messenger for Allah. Unlike Jesus, he was not a miracle-worker. The five pillars of Islam - the confession of faith, prayer, alms-giving, fasting, and pilgrimage - have some parallels with Christianity as well. The pillars represent a hierarchy of sorts, moving from the more simple and frequent (confession and prayer) to the more difficult and rare. In the Islamic religion, the ritual of fasting (Ramadan) occurs once a year and the pillar of pilgrimage (hadj) occurs just once in a lifetime.
However, in Islam there is no concept of free will. "Everything is spelled out," Tim said. "You simply submit to God's will." Many Americans confuse the more radical sect of Islam - the Shiite sect - as representative of Islam itself. The Shiites actually have two addition pillars - a commitment to purity and the concept of strife known as jihad. Shiites represent only 10% of Islamists; the Sunni are the largest sect. "Shiites and Sunni fear and fight each other far more than us," Tim said.
An interesting and timely presentation! Thank you, Reverend Lanham!
Service Above Self Opportunities
A huge thank-you to Lew Card, who has volunteered to chair the STRIVE Committee for literacy outreach. Unfortunately, Chayleen Person has had to step down from chairing the Rotary International Foundation Committee. We could use a volunteer to take up where she left off.
Don't forget the Camp Rotary Clean-up on Saturday, Oct. 12! Time to winterize our little treasure!
Milestones
Birthday greetings go out this week to Channing Hartelius on October 2 and to Todd Neighbor on October 4. May your next year be your best year ever!
