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Vol. 18, No. 38, MARCH 20, 2006 |
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The Friday Program: Ready to Read, an Ambitious Life-Changing Program at Your Library (Bill Ptacek) | Friday Potpourri | Retreat Update | Evidence of a Good Time | Student of the Month: Brandon Teng | A New Membership Policy | SAA Gets in the Act | New Member Proposed (2nd Publication): William Pearce | District Conference Update | Web Fun |
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The Friday Program:
Jeanne offered the statistic that 1/3 of pre-schoolers in King County arrive their first day of school lacking the skills to be ready to read, and that’s why the King County Library System’s Ready-to-Read program is so important. Ptacek cracked open a can of Guinness (used as a centerpiece for the St. Pat’s celebration) and toasted President Lingenbrink with a “Back atcha, Steve.” The AG said the Library System has the expectation that every child will be ready to read the first day of school. He showed a video that followed this thinking, with the admonition to parents to “make time and take time to read to your kids.” President Steve greeted another fine morning, with a “Top of the Mornin’ to Ya!” With the room decorated in green and people wandering around in leprechaun costumes, it must be St. Patrick’s Day! Who else but Robert Moloney should give the invocation, a series of Irish sayings taken to heart by his listeners. After the pledge to the flag, Wayne McCaulley greeted several visiting Rotarians: Bill Ptacek, Frank Young, Brian Rayfield, Leland Teng, and Jim Hogue, all from the Rotary Club of Bellevue; and Candice from the Rotary Club of Fremont.
Thanks to the Fellowship Committee for their extraordinary New Member Social at Wendi and Chad Fischer’s house in Redmond. Nearly 30 Rotarians and guests attended. Kudos to Sunshine and Blossom for their excellent planning and execution (see photos at right). The end of next week will see an enthusiastic group of BBRC Rotarians convening in Leavenworth for the club’s annual planning retreat. This is a tradition with our club, going back to the very early years. In their wisdom, our first leaders saw good reason to call the club together to make plans for the coming year. We may be the only club we know that holds a planning retreat, scheduled at a site that makes the meeting special. At the same time, those who attend have an important role to engage in the hot topics of the moment. Perhaps the most important topic is the board’s decision to move to a new level of fundraising. This is your chance to help shape next year’s agenda. The Leavenworth Retreat is headquartered at the Enzian Inn, Leavenworth’s finest. There will be a dinner Friday night to which spouses who attend are invited. Earlier on Friday, March 31, two athletic outings will take place. Retreat Golf will be held at the Highlander Golf Club in East Wenatchee. This is a links style course high on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River. Great views and challenging golf. Cost of golf with a cart is $54.00. First tee time is 12:00 Noon. To confirm your participation for a round of BBRC fellowship, please contact Norm Johnson (Cell 206-979-9400). Dick Brown is in the process of issuing his annual weather warranty for this event, so feel free to sign on and bring your sun screen For those who like the thrill of hurtling down the snow-covered mountainside, Cary Kopczynski will coordinate some excellent skiing at Mission Ridge, near Wenatchee. For details, contact Cary by email or phone. Once the fun and games are over, members will get down to serious business after breakfast the next day, appropriately April 1! The planning session is a rapid-fire, hard-hitting technique to squeeze all of the good ideas from the participants. Be prepared to be squeezed. Student of the Month: Brandon Teng
Brandon described working in San Francisco on a week-long mission, serving in Mississippi after the hurricanes and for projects in Mexico “I’m honored to be here this morning. I have found my calling….serving my community in many volunteer ways. I will be making my entry into medicine whether it’s overseas or in the inner city.” Larry May presented the plaque to Brandon to a spirited round of applause. Tom Smith, Club Service II Director (in charge of membership), and Steve Luplow, Membership Development Committee Chair, were called upon to describe a new policy to encourage membership for people 35 and under. Tom asked Steve to fill the club in on this new initiative.
Steve then asked those over 40 to be seated ... and there were five left standing. There was a problem with the hearing of two of the five: Jenny Andrews and Shelley Noble were still standing, using the female prerogative to “lie about their age” (big laugh from crowd). Turns out, the BBRC has five members under age 35. RI and the District have developed a new program to build habit patterns for younger people. Implementation of this new program will seek to attract younger people to membership. “When women began joining Rotary back in the late 80’s, their presence expanded and changed the culture of Rotary — for the better. Now, we need to develop a critical mass of new members who are younger, to bring balance to our total membership.” As Steve said, “Once I was a young Rotarian; now I’m old!” Chris Ballard, Sergeant At Arms, is one of those "under 35" members. Chris proposed to form a "Young Member’s Committee" to recruit and retain new, younger members. He offered a "Get out of Jail card" to any member who brings in a new member under the age of 35. Chris reminded the club that just prior to his induction, he was introduced as “Brian.” He tried to tell the group his name was Chris but they would have none of that. In fact, the club voted to change his name to “Brian,” so there!
On to business: those not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day were invited to put $2.00 on the table. If a member was not wearing his/her Rotary pin, another $2.00. Jenny and Shelley, posing as Under 35, were given 4-way test cards ... for a price. Finally, Frank Young made sure he was part of the contribution rush. Another generous Irish contribution from Frank bolstered the Sergeant's kitty. New Member Proposed (2nd Publication): William Pearce The Bellevue Breakfast Rotary club’s Board of Directors has approved the application for membership submitted by William Corr Pearce III, known as “Corr.” His classification is proposed to be “Business Development,” and his sponsor is Jim Gordon, co-sponsor, Wayne McCaulley. Corr has recently returned from active military duty in Kuwait with the U.S. Coast Guard. He retired from active duty after 21 years in the Coast Guard and is currently a member of the Coast Guard Reserve. He is self-employed as a business development consultant in Issaquah. He has pursued this career since 2001. Corr has two children, and he plays the guitar. He enjoys mountain climbing, mountain biking, hiking, snowboarding, rock climbing and sky diving. He is a member of OSAT, a climber’s group, and he has also been involved in Toastmaster. This is the last of two publications of this application. If you have questions or comments, kindly direct them to Club Service II Director Tom Smith (Ph 425-451-8036) no later than 3:00 p.m. Thursday, March 23, 2006. The deadline for the Rotarian discount on hotel rooms at Chateau Whistler has been extended until March 31st. After this date, rates will go up, and hotel rooms will no longer be exclusively reserved for our District Conference. Below are links for forms and information pertaining to this year's District Conference (all PDF):
The Friday Program:
Jeanne offered the statistic that 1/3 of pre-schoolers in King County arrive their first day of school lacking the skills to be ready to read, and that’s why the King County Library System’s Ready-to-Read program is so important. Ptacek cracked open a can of Guinness (used as a centerpiece for the St. Pat’s celebration) and toasted President Lingenbrink with a “Back atcha, Steve.” The AG said the Library System has the expectation that every child will be ready to read the first day of school. He showed a video that followed this thinking, with the admonition to parents to “make time and take time to read to your kids.”
The Library System has taken aggressive steps to implement this Ready-to-Read program. The premise is that kids have formulated their reading habits by the time they are five years old. Some 38,000 families with kids under 5 have been identified in King County. “We know that 10,000 kids take part in story times and other programs in our libraries. That leaves 28,000 families not being served.” The KCLS is focusing on contact with parents about reading to their children. “Bring books into the liveds of your kids and grandkids!” is the battle cry. “We’ve learned that many kids are lacking verbal stimulation. We are convinced we can make a difference through teaching parents the importance of reading to and with their kids.” Each table had a copy of a training guide being made available for this program, both in English and Spanish. “Our goal is to have 10,000 parents attend workshops held in the libraries nearest their homes. So far, 2025 parents have attended these workshops, and the project will culminate on Saturday, November 4, with a celebration at each library, gifts for parents who’ve attended the workshops, and free books for their kids.”
Comcast Cable is a partner in this program, and a channel has been set aside for storytelling. There are Ready-to-Read centers in most libraries. These are places for kids to congregate. “We are also partnering with United Way. We are surveying to find out a kid’s readiness to come to school, a survey given to all Kindergartners in King County.” As for help, Ptacek said that support for this program can come from Rotary in the workplace. Identify people in the workplace who could use more stimulation about reading to kids. “We have the challenge of serving people who speak different languages. The Crossroads Library has a model program, attracting foreign-born parents to use their facilities. These parents don’t relate to libraries because they are not available in their native countries. A member of the audience suggested making training materials available to babysitters, so they too can emphasize Ready-to-Read.
After Friday morning, Bill Ptacek now has a book donated in his name to his Library System, thanks to Rotary and the BBRC, pursuing the worldwide project of bringing literacy to those in need. Our thanks to Jeanne Thorsen for her introduction. Late-Breaking, Week-Old Irish Stories Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend Finney. “Did you see the paper?” asked Gallagher. “They say I died!!!” “Yes, I saw it!!” replied Finney. “Where are ye callin’ from?” • • • DEJA vu All Over Again A Japanese company and an American company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had eight people steering and one person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, three area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was outsourced to Mexico. |
Friday Potpourri
