September 7 Meeting Notes

President-elect RDR (only slightly less famous than another president, FDR) called the meeting to order at 7am-ish; Kevin led the pledge and Jim provided the spontaneous invocation which was way better than the spontaneous combustion originally planned.

Rebecca introduced Lindsey Huber who works with Rebecca at the Washington Apple Commission, is active in Junior League, and has an MBA from WSU. Welcome Lindsey, go Cougs! Unless you're a dawg or watched either the Dawg or Cougar game which were both dogs this weekend, woof.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

"You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." - C.S. Lewis. Such is the life of a volunteer and of our Challenge Scholarship program. Remember the Green Cups are one way that we are making change for the better.

Alan gave us a bike ride update. Don't forget the meeting tonight! 5pm, Hilton Garden Inn by Pybus. 18 days and counting, that's like only two and a half weeks or something. Early sign-ups have occurred, late sign-ups will be next week, voluntold assignments after that! Sponsorships are still coming in, but lots of positives news to date.

Social committee has planned a dinner social for after the ride at the Rectors. Family is welcome and there is a pool too! More info to come.

Fellowship events are now planned through March: September is the bike ride dinner social, October is a planned fest of some kind and a mix of other activities for other months. Planning for the holiday party is already underway.

Membership meeting after next week's meeting.

David did a presentation to the downtown club and there downtown members agreed to volunteer and be mentors. As a reminder, we changed how we're doing the Challenge Scholarship so we need more mentors than in the past. We have 9 from last year and need 8 additional this year. We have most already but could use a couple more. See David or someone on the scholarship committee if you can be the difference.

BRAGS AND CONFESSIONS 

Mansour has missed a lot of meetings because he's been upgrading his house in Oregon but has been missing us. He'll definitely be here to help with the bike ride though!

Earl was on Zoom but kissed his wife goodbye which sounded really ominous considering Earl's profession. He also apologized for the last minute canceling of the fundraising meeting. Both Pete and Earl had items come up at the last minute. He also paid for the Huskies' loss to Montana. Erik was still grieving and wasn't present, but Jim paid for the Cougars disappointment too.

Craig paid for forgetting to bring the club's checkbook but said that if anyone drew the silver marble out of the bag today, the check would "be in the mail".

Rebecca's daughter has wanted a kitten for over a year and Rebecca finally caved but she said it is an awfully cute kitten!

Kelly said she's been off work the past 10 days touring the state and enjoying herself!

Robin visited the Ellensburg Rodeo with Richard for the first time and they watched from the President's box and had a blast. She encouraged anyone who hasn't attended to do so. Heck, go again if you've been before you know how much fun it is! 

PROGRAM

John S introduced today's program, Jana Fischback, Executive Director of Sustainable Wenatchee. Jana grew up in East Wenatchee and received a communications degree from WSU and a Master's in Environmental Studies from Evergreen State College. She was Metro Parks Tacoma's first Sustainability Coordinator but eventually moved back to the Wenatchee Valley in 2016 and co-founded Sustainable Wenatchee a year later.

Sustainable Wenatchee is a 501(c)3 non-profit that promotes a culture of environmental stewardship and social sustainability in the Wenatchee Valley. They have 7 working board members and one part-time employee, Jana.

Earth Day is celebrated each April and Sustainable Wenatchee began hosting a fair in 2018 and have seen it grow each year. Last year they over 1,000 participants with 25 organizations/vendors. This year was the 50th Earth Day celebration and they had their most ambitious plans for their Earth Day fair yet. Unfortunately, they had to cancel due to COVID, but wait until next year! The fair focuses on nature/wildlife, energy, transportation, climate & wildfire, kids, waste and recycling.

They have online and print resources at their website: sustainablewenatchee.org under Resources. Their goal is to build up their website so it is a hub for anything and everything to do with sustainability in our area.

Their bread and butter is performing Presentations, Workshops, & Film Screenings. Through partnerships with the library, museum, Pybus U, and more, they try to create:

• Conscious Consumers
• Redefine Outdoorsy
• Route to a smaller footprint
• Year-round composting

Some of the documentaries explore international crises of pollution and lack of recycling. 

They also speak to group like our Rotary club, Mothers of Pre-schoolers (MOPS), and others. Anyone who will listen! They've also partnered with the Leavenworth Bubblery to have shampoo and conditioner bar making classes. Past film screening and panels have included:

• "Wasted!" - food waste film
• "The True Cost" - fast fashion film
• "Story of Plastic" with local recycling expert panel
• "Voices of Transition" - food sovereignty film
•  "Redefining Outdoorsy" - Series of BIWOC in outdoors films with panel of local women of color

Current & Potential Projects include "Idle Free Zones", an NCW Waste & Recycle Directory, and potential project for the Wenatchee area for glass crushing similar to what Chelan is doing.

The Idle Free Zone idea was sparked by Jana's own observations during COVID as she saw more and more opportunities for people idling their cars. It wasn't just waiting to pick up your kids from school or daycare, now people were waiting for their groceries to be brought out to them and a myriad of other low/no contact options at businesses due to COVID. People typically are just surfing on their phone and don't even think about the effect of running their cars. So it's mostly about awareness through banners, posters, metal parking signs, and fact sheets. They also speak to kids and get them help to observe before and after - age appropriately. For younger kids, its about smell etc., for older kids they monitor the air quality to see the change. This seemed like an easy effort as you don't even have to care about actively doing something for the environment to get a benefit of saving money on gas. CVCH and Confluence Health are sponsors.

The NCW Waste & Recycling Directory will offer a searchable database for all waste disposal and recycling opportunities in Chelan and Douglas Counties. Don't know what to do with that old hot water heater, this is your place to find out! An example is the Spokane/Kootenai Waste & Recycle directory by Spokane River Forum.

The Lake Chelan Rotary's 911 Glass Rescue system cost $110,000 with partial funding from the city of Chelan ($50k) and from the WA state Department of Ecology ($50k). Options for the crushed glass include being ground to dust (e.g. sand for a beach) or even more and more landscaping projects are using it. They are working with the Hospitality House location for staffing and space.

Waste Management takes our recycling to Spokane where a high tech facility constructed in 2012 handles it. It's quite worth it if you ever get the opportunity for a tour. If it is not sortable or recyclable, it is sent to the waster burner in Spokane. If you didn't know, plastic bags are a contaminant and can spoil a whole run of recycling as it clogs up the machine. Oftentimes if recyclable material is inside a plastic bag, they'll just more the entire load to the garbage so be sure to empty the plastic bag and put the bag in the garbage or better yet, don't use the plastic bag to begin with! For commercial customers, if there are plastic bags in the recycle, the customer is charged $160 per incident.

They have a go fund me page for those interested in donating. For more information, check out their website or email them at hello@sustainablewenatchee.org.

As a thank you, Jana was told that we would donate a book to the children's library in Sustainable Wenatchee's name as a thank you.

CLOSING

Jim's lucky number was drawn, but it wasn't so lucky was it. It was sad to see the disappointment in Kevin's face when Jim refused to pull out the silver marble. That's the problem with a bunch of givers trying to end the raffle excitement!

Robin closed with some (shockingly) useless information:

• A chef's hat is called a "toque". There are 100 pleats in a toque meant to signify the 100 ways a skilled chef could cook an egg.
• 700 grapes are in one bottle of wine; Robin counts them all.
• In the Philippines, there is an island in a lake, on an island in a lake, on an island. Vulcan Point is in Crater Lake which itself is on Volcano Island which is on Lake Taal on the island of Luzon. Luzon is on the northern end of the Philippines archipelago.

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Many thanks in advance for sharing with your club members.

Pete Erickson, PDG

District Foundation Committee Chair 2021-2024

perickson@nctv.com