October 16, 2017 Meeting Bulletin

Meeting was held in Baldwin Library basement in the Rotary room as there was conflict at the Community House.  We are thankful to Doug Koschik for arranging our meeting room.  This also is the Annual meeting of Birmingham Rotary Club Endowment Fund.

Linda has called the meeting to order at 12.15PM with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four Way Test.
Ken sang The Star-Spangled Banner
George Stern gave the Invocation

 

Volunteers for the meeting today:
Lunch Tickets & Attendance:  Chris McLogan
Sheriff:  Pat Grady
Bulletin Editor: Dilip Kuchipudi

 

Hope Warming Center:  The next serving at the center will be on October 17th and then on November 8th.

George Stern announced about the holiday party on December 12th.  Multiple clubs will be at this party and the participation is only $50 per person.

 

Chris gave the 2 minute update about the Real Estate Market and sees it as a feast or famine.

 

Raffle & Card Draw:  There was no Raffle today 

 

Sheriff: Pat Grady 

 

Peter mentioned about the California fire and how a third of a town of 160000 population has burned down and how much help those communities need.

 

Our Member Spotlight was George Henry who is an Eagle Scout.  He has six children with 3 boys and 3 girls and six grandchildren to keep everyone in the family on their toes.  He has been in Insurance business for a long time and was mentioning that the Medicare supplementary rates are dropping.

Polio Day is this Saturday and Linda is waiting for final approvals.

Mark Anderson spoke about volunteering on Saturdays with an organization to rebuild homes.  It is not required to commit for full days and it is a very satisfying experience.

Ryan gave an update on Tree planting.  He along with his children went and planted three trees at Royal Oak and Ferndale border along with others.  Target for planting 60 trees within our geographical area out of which we have done 22 trees till date.  So anyone planting a tree please let Dave know about it.

John Mucha started off the annual meeting of the endowment fund and invited Molly to give the secretary remarks of accomplishments this past year.  

Two new Directors were to be chosen from Four candidates for the Endowment Fund Board.  Marsha, Dilip, Doug and Ken were the four.  Ken and Marsha were elected to the Board.

Molly explained about 12 grant requests that were considered out of which three were granted.  Molly suggested that any member suggesting a grant for any organization should fill up a Grant Request Form available in our website and it should comply with our guidelines specified.  Any grant request made requires a presentation by the organization requesting for us to understand better how the funds will be utilized.
Meeting Minutes were approved by Peter proposing and Chuck seconding it.
The grants from our Foundation are preferably given to projects where we are involved actively.  Grants have been given to the Pontiac Schools Literacy Project, Hope Warming Center, and Sponsorships for students to attend RYLA.  As a member of the district we have to contribute to the District Foundation which will allow us to apply for Grants and this has been fulfilled successfully.  We have to contribute $100 per member  per year towards the Every Rotarian Every Year to be eligible for Matching grants.  Everyone is requested to do autopay or other means to fulfil this requirement.  If you wish to give a check then make it in the name of “The Rotary Foundation” and can hand over to Joe Bauman.   Only contributions made to Every Rotarian Every Year will count towards this.  Contributions made towards other projects will not.
Pat Grady gave the financials update and mentioned that the investment made in Vanguard Life Strategy Growth Fund has done well and our endowment fund has increased in its value.  Similarly Life Insurance was taken keeping in view the returns we would get.  In total our Endowment Fund currently is worth $636612 in today’s market value.
Peter suggested taking checks in the name of our Endowment Fund during holiday parties instead of small gifts that the guest bring and that is how $7000 was raised towards the Fund last year.
John suggested that all the members should try to work and think of projects that are home grown by the club which would give us more satisfaction.  He also suggested that in future we will be having a Investment strategy group which will decide on how best we should be investing our endowment funds and make a review of our current investments as these decisions were made a while ago.

Annual meeting was adjourned with a proposal by Peter and seconded by Chuck.

Linda concluded the meeting thanking everyone for and concluded with singing Smiles led by Norma.

 

(Bulletin Submitted by Dilip Kuchipudi)