Rotations January 13 2015

President Sigur banged the bell to commence the meeting at 12:35.  She made no mention of the sensuous Pink Maiden with pearl colored hair who greeted us in the foyer, whether that by oversight or with purpose in mind.

She welcomed us all and quickly called on the melodious Bob Heely who led us in song.  Still drunk from the sight of our visitor from the sea and then mesmerized by the warbling of a “special guest” (more on that later) from across the sea, I am without any memory of what songs we sung.  President Sigur led us as we honored our country with a flag salute.  Your humble scribe then offered a prayer originally penned by Rabbi Harold Kushner which implored us all to look “beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color” and to “let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven.”

After rebounding from my state of nirvana, I zeroed in on Bill Gough’s visitation report.  Jean Owens is doing well and Jack Magee and his bride (Hall of Fame Recruiter) are moving to Providence Place.

John Searing introduced our guests.  Dick “does anyone need a crane” Gresham was visiting from the Hampton Roads club.  Dean Thomasson brought his lovely bride, Erin; Donna Overstreet brought her colleague Joyce Ortman from Security Storage and Van; Lauren Deep brought Miggie Suarez from Virginia Financial Planning; and President Sigur brought Dawn Peters from Lincoln Financial Advisors.

We turned to Announcements and Club Business. President Sigur informed us that Dues and Meals invoices have been mailed, Adam Kahrl has “turned blue”, his badge that is, and the Golf Tournament sign up is available on the website.  Dr. Steve Jones and Sally Hartman both earned Paul Harris Fellow status and Bernie Cohen and yours truly added to ours.  W. H. Taylor is the school of the week.  President Sigur reminded us to vote in the Board of Directors runoff between Jim “Supply and Demand” Clary and Steve “Show me your Balance Sheet” Jones.  Attend next week to hear the acceptance speech by the winner!  Bob Heely thanked the 20 or so volunteers who will host students for career visitation and invited us to hear “Heely’s Highlights” on March 10.  Sally Hartman updated us on our EREY results, currently at about 50%, and someone in the crowd mumbled that Irv “I’m from the FBI” Wells should be dispatched to make “calls” on those who have not yet ponied up.  (Let’s make this easy…..sign up today if you haven’t).  Finally President Sigur implored us to bring prospective members, relating the “Who’s your Tommy” line from PDG Bill Pollard.  She explained that our blessed George Curtis was her “Tommy” who introduced her to Rotary during our Paint Your Heart Out campaign.  President Sigur showed exemplary leadership as she walked the walk, with her guest Dawn Peters in attendance.

Fines were next.  Edna Baehr was held over for a TV commercial, PP Julie Keesling tried to evade her fine for her new car with a Rotary license plate, and was given a $5 discount.  Bill Eisenbeiss plugged the “Evening at St Patrick’s”  and PP Jim Obrien offered some dough in honor of our “mystery guest warbler”  Pam Tubbs, who is really no guest at all, but rather a valued member who returns from 5 years ( really?) in Japan.  Pam not only warbles, but speaks in tongues, which was obviously a veiled attempt to confuse the group and to evade a fine for her new BMW.  President Sigur was on top of her game and exacted a $25 fine from the merry traveler.   Arigatoo gozaimasu Ms. Tubbs!

Jim Clary, pledging “to be funny, brief and kind”, introduced our guests from the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.  He called on Jai McBride, the principal regional planner and Julia Hillegass who directs community affairs.  They tag teamed the presentation on “Envision Hampton Roads”, Hampton Roads first community based regional strategic plan.  They reviewed the 6 step community based approach beginning with the identification of shared values, then on to defining the shared vision, formulating strategies, developing action plans, determining funding streams and bringing the plan to reality.  The first step has been completed.  As a region we value our water, our diversity, our military and our history.  We aspire to be proactive and bold, be willing to change, to think more regionally and to protect our natural assets.  We want our leaders to address our transportation challenges, ensure an excellent educational system, create jobs and stop the brain drain.  We then participated in an exercise to identify the top three areas for action as determined, table by table.  Remarkably, REGIONAL GOVERNANCE, was the most mentioned.  Others included transportation, our educational system and flooding.  After thanking our speakers and presenting them a book to be donated in their honor to W. H . Taylor school, President Sigur banged the bell for a second time, officially closing the meeting

We filed out past the swimmingly lovely pink maiden and were pleased to have the garage exit gates up.

Respectfully submitted,
Shep Miller