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Articles in this issue
President's MessageJacque Niedringhaus
Incoming President's MessageCurtis Carlson
Ale Trail is Up and RunningBruce Hottman
Happenings in the Evening GroupRicky Morrison
Results from the Stop Hunger Now projectKathe Haake
New member!Emily Birdsall
Membership updateKaren Morgan
President's Message

Cliché after cliché entered my brain as I thought about what to write for this last newsletter submission as your president.  Things like “The year flew by”, “I am so proud of all the club has accomplished”, “It was an honor to serve as your President”, etc. etc.

Well, these may be clichés but they are my feelings as I prepared this final newsletter submission.  So, please allow me to show you what you all accomplished this year and why the above clichés are not clichés for me but heartfelt thanks to all of you for making this such a rewarding year for me.

At the beginning of my year, I presented my 3 goals for the year:

Increasing the use of matching district and global grants

Engage the Fort Collins community by delivering a fun and unique experience

  1. Increase the “financial leverage” of our club by

    • Increasing the use of matching district and global grants

    • Engage the Fort Collins community by delivering a fun and unique experience

  2. Continue Bruce Hottman’s theme of having fun by getting to know each other better

  3. Increase the younger generation’s interest in Rotary

Below is a summary of what happened this year with these goals:

  1. Increase the “financial leverage” of our club by

    • Increasing the use of matching district and global grants – thanks to Kathe Haake and the World Service Committee and Ruth Lutes and the Pins for Polio committee, they “knocked the ball out of the park” with the following:

      • $1700 district grant and $300 anonymous donation for $3700 Stop Hunger Now project

      • $4000 district grant for $8000 water filter project in in Guamuchil, Mexico

      • $3000 district grant for $9000 Quad Club Centennial project to install 19 Buddy Benches at local elementary schools

      • $1000 district grant for $2000 contribution to Breakfast Club’s Kenya Maternal Health global grant

      • $44,666 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation match for the $22,333 raised by the four Fort Collins Rotary Club donations and sponsorships

    • Engage the Fort Collins community by delivering a fun and unique experience – thanks to the Ale Trail committee and the Evening Group:

      • The Fort Collins Ale Trail is set to launch June 1, 2017 and, if projections are met, will be our largest fundraiser in the history of this club.

  2. Continue Bruce’s theme of having fun by getting to know each other better

    • I don’t think I made much progress in this area but a comment by the speaker at our May 16, 2017 meeting reminded me that we do have fun.The speaker said that it was clear our club had fun by how much we laughed during the meeting. I also hope you found it of interest when I had the person doing the inspiration and the two greeters tell us their two favorite things they like to do in their spare time. I still encourage both new and old members to purposefully sit by someone you don’t know and get to know their “story”. Old members need to let new members know why they remain in this club and new members need to proactively get involved in club committees that interest them.I can tell you that serving as president helped me get to know so many more of you and I feel more connected to the club than ever before.

  3. Increase the younger generation’s interest in Rotary

    • Thanks to Dale Gorsky, Mike Hohl, Carl Dierschow and the Evening Group formation committee, the Evening Group increased our membership by 5 new members, many young in age but all young in heart and enthusiasm. And two other people are in the process of submitting their applications. I encourage the future leadership to proactively think about ways to integrate the two groups so the members get to know each other as we are all still one club with two different meeting times.

    • Curtis Carlson and now Raylene Vigil and Chris Coley have worked hard to maintain and start Interact clubs in the local high schools. Rocky Mountain High School’s Interact club was very active but the leadership team all graduated in 2016.Curtis and now Raylene are trying to invigorate the new members.As well, I am excited that we finally have an Interact club at Fort Collins High School.

    • Terry Dougherty has been our liaison for the RYLA/ Young RYLA program for many years.He has done a fabulous job and there was always a great deal of applicant interest. Therefore, both he and I am disappointed that we had very few applicants for RYLA and Young RYLA this year. I know those of you who had children or grandchildren attend, including my two daughters, can attest that every one of these children come back and tell you that this is the best thing they’ve ever done. To get this kind of praise from these children for this honorable event is the highest compliment Rotary could receive from the younger generation. We all need to do a better job promoting this special activity to family, friends and co-workers.Our chances of attracting younger people to ultimately join Rotary go up exponentially by introducing Rotary to them as soon as possible.

    • Brian Lacey served as our liaison to Rotaract, primarily comprised of CSU students.I’m so impressed with how active this club is.

    • Deems Hargleroad, inbound youth exchange and club protection officer, and Janet Mabry, outbound youth exchange office, did a fantastic job managing the process to line up our current 2016-2017 and upcoming 2017-2018 inbound and outbound exchange students. This job is one of the most time intensive jobs in our club. Please take a moment to thank Deems and Janet for all they have done.

The strength of our club is demonstrated by what each club member does with the president’s goals and the goals of all the committees.  There was nothing in my goals around the following accomplishments but they happened because of you:

  1. Bud Frick, chairperson and Chris Otto, treasurer and the Foothills Scholarship & Education committee awards 7 scholarships each year to fund the college education of a Project Self-Sufficiency (PS-S) client and manage an endowment worth over $580K.

  2. Dave Joyce, Student of the Month chairperson and his committee and Heather Buoniconti, Teacher of the Month chairperson and her committee, ensure the SOM and TOM ceremonies occur like clockwork each month during the school year. And, the Teacher of the Year ceremony last fall was headed up by Heather Buoniconti and I was told by several of the Quad Club committee members that she did the best job heading up the committee that they had ever seen.

  3. Lyn Pring and the Rotary Foundation committee work tirelessly behind the scenes to manage your generous contributions to the Rotary Foundation and to honor those of you who reach the Paul Harris donation milestones. This year alone, we awarded 26 PH awards, 22 to club members with 5 members receiving their first Paul Harris and 4 Paul Harris’ were awarded to outside people.We also had one member reach the major donor status of donations over $10,000!

  4. Gordan Thibedeau, Community Service chairperson and his committee identifies worthy organizations and awarded $15,000 to recipients this year. This committee will play an even larger role going forward as they are now responsible for identifying the Fort Collins Ale Trail charity recipients that Ale Trail users can choose from to receive the net profits from the Ale Trail.

  5. Mike Hohl and Diane Jones, Peach Festival committee members, spent countless hours “behind the scenes” helping to plan the 2016 Peach Festival for which our club was given $12,421. This money helped fund the Fort Collins Ale Trail $7K seed money and the $6K World Service budget, which previously had only been allocated $500.

  6. Tom Hyland and Pete Thomas, Christmas basket chairpersons and their committee, creatively sought a way to lower the cost of the baskets by partnering with the Food Bank of Larimer County for some of the food. By doing this, the 30 baskets only cost $960 and thanks to member donations, the club presented the Food Bank with a check for $900.

  7. Rob Nelson heads up the Summer Youth Exchange program and we’ve heard from member Charles Kaine how rewarding this program was for his son and daughter to spend 3 weeks overseas with a family and to reciprocate by hosting the overseas family’s child’s visit to the United States.

  8. Carl Dierschow continues to tirelessly handle our communications both internally and externally. Carl manages our website, our Facebook page, our MeetUp page, our press releases and this newsletter. I don’t know what I would have done without him.

  9. Ron Randle and Pete Bullard run the STAR committee which encourages new members to get involved by introducing them to our club and all the committees in which they can get involved.

  10. Chris Coley, Rotarian of the Month and Rotarian of the Year chairperson and his committee remind us each month of what valuable club members we have.

  11. And, last but not least, I want to recognize and thank the following chairpersons and their committees for ensuring our meetings continue to be recognized by both club members and outside people as one of the best meetings amongst the four Rotary clubs in town:

    • Chris Coley – Club Operations

    • JD Murphy – Programs

    • Greg Walter – Greeters

    • Andrea Walrath - Inspirations

    • Monty Weymouth, Garrett Tate, Vince Lubenow, Suzanne Miller - Jokes

    • Denise Juliana, Peter Kast, Dary Northrop, Dr. T, Bud Frick - fines

    • Dave Armstrong and Jamie Meyer – socials

In closing, I can tell you that this year flew by, I am so proud of what we accomplished together as a club and I am proud to have led such a wonderful organization.

Thank you for this honor – President Jacque

Incoming President's Message

First off, I want to say how honored & humbled I am to be asked to serve as the President for our club.  It is an amazing club that does amazing things and I will do my best to represent it well.

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind due to me being put on the fast-track to being President, but I have been amazed at the outpouring of support from all of our members in helping me get ready for my upcoming year.  I know it is cliché but our club truly epitomizes the Service Above Self mantra.

With all of that being said, I have given thought to what I want to accomplish in my year and here is what I have come up with:

  • If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.Our club is great and a lot of people have worked hard over the years to make it that way.  It is a fun group who likes to get together for fellowship and I want to keep it that way.

  • Membership is still a concern. In order for our Club to remain vibrant & active we need to really focus on not only attracting new members but keeping the members we already have.

  • We do a TON of good work, but I would like to do more, and have more involvement.  Scholarships to Project Self-Sufficiency recipients, clean water to people in Mexico & Africa, packaging meals thru Stop Hunger Now, RYLA & Young RYLA scholarships, Christmas baskets and Purple Pins for Polio.  Those are just a few of the projects & programs that we generously support every year, but I would like to try to support even more if we can.

My Theme

  • Have fun, get involved & keep our community great.KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid

I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but like I’ve said we have a great club already so there is no reason to ‘re-invent the wheel’.

Yours in Rotary,
Curtis Carlson

Ale Trail is up and running!

We just had the official launch of the Fort Collins Ale Trail. It’s amazing watching this club come together to launch this product. It really shows the vocational talent of Rotary and our club.

The great thing is we have a fundraiser which will perpetually provide significant funds to our club! It includes community involvement and helps us promote Rotary to the public.

Thanks to President Jacque who started this vision! Secondary benefits includes increased membership, younger member interest, and promoting humanitarian giving. The initial projections were 1000 trail passes sold in 2017. If we hit those numbers, it will bring in $20,000 in sales, and even after expenses and taxes we will easily match what we get from any other fundraiser!

We had about 200 sales at the party launch alone. If each member just lets 10 of their friends know about the fun App, we’ll easily hit this target of 1000 by the end of the year. While 1000 is the target, this club could easily hit 2000 this year!

Have fun hiking the Trail!

Happenings from our Evening Group!

Hello fellow Rotarians!!

The evening group has been working hard to promote the Ale Trail App, this last month we put together the marketing plan and executed it. We have put together the Ale Trail launch party, the Marketing Materials, and the Social Media platforms for this ale trail. Needless to say we are very excited to be a part of it!!

We also built a rough draft of the EG’s bylaws, and will soon have them finished and to the board for approval. Next we are working on the new members rules for red badges. Oh yeah, we have two new applicants for membership, you may have heard of the first one, Scott Niedringhaus, and Calvin Johnson are our two new applicants!

Results from the Stop Hunger Now project!

Here's where our meals went from our October 2016 project last year!

The meals will support the holistic work of Salesian Missions in Haiti. The Salesians work in Cite Soleil, Haiti, to socially and economically rehabilitate street children through the Lakay/Lakou three-step program. Cite Soleil is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Haiti, and armed gangs are in control of most of the area behind the Salesian complex.

During the first stage of the program, the Salesians get to know the youth who live on the streets, especially the young women who are working in prostitution. Between 200 and 300 students come to the second stage house, Lakou, every day, because it is a safe place where they can get what is usually their only cooked meal of the day. Students at Lakou participate in workshops to learn trades and they are invited to stay over one night per week.

The third stage, Lakay, consists of dormitories, classrooms, and workshops where the Salesians house and care for 150 students, educating them, teaching them a trade, feeding them three meals a day, and taking steps to reconcile the students with their families.

www.salesianmissions.org

Meet our new member, Emily Birdsall!

Hello! My name is Emily Birdsall, however some know me as Emily Jolly {which is my maiden name} due to my company, Jolly Events!

I am a native of Fort Collins, Colorado, a CSU Alumni and a Gemini to a T. I have an amazing husband, Paul Birdsall, who is from Iowa and a true Hawkeye fan. He is the biggest inspiration to me and definitely the most FUN in our family! We have three beautiful children. Our sweet boy Reece is 7 years old and loves to swim. He goes to O'Dea Elementary and we LOVE it! Our daughter Hamilton is 3 years old and is happy as long as she is outside and running. Our newest addition is Chandler and she is almost 6 months old. Her favorite thing to do is to smile! We fall in love with our children daily.

My company, Jolly Events, is an Event Planning Boutique here in Fort Collins. We specialize in creating experiences and building lasting relationships with our clients. We design and plan all types of events ~ Weddings, Corporate Meetings, Retreats, Team Building, Social Events, Client Appreciation Parties, Non-Profit Events and so much more!

I love being a part of such a wonderful community and embrace each day with "how can I be better today and make an impact!" So far it has been going well!

Membership update
For the Rotary year starting July 1st 2016, we have added the following members:
  • Cary Basnar
  • Tim Kenney
  • Doris Gisi
  • Mike Fassi
  • Newt Wyler
  • Ricky Morrison
  • Mike Fassi
  • Sid Fahsholtz
  • Raylene Vigil
  • Mick Garrett
  • Emily Birdsall
In process of joining:
  • Scott Niedringhaus
  • Dustin Fisher
We have lost these members:
  • Kelly Meyer
  • Cary Basnar
  • Jeff Doran
  • April Getchius
  • Roy Steiner
  • Raj Bawa
  • Eric Thompson
  • Griff Kull
  • Don Daniels
  • Dan Dennie
  • Terry Dougherty
  • David Robinson
  • Bill Trewartha
We thank you all for your service, past and future!
Russell Hampton
National Awards Services Inc.
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