February 20th Meeting Notes

Announcements

• Laerka went to Bellingham with her host family, visted a llama farm, met extended family members of her host family
• Craig - next Tuesday after the Rotary meeting we reserved the space to meet about challenge scholarship, Stacy Gold left the club
• Kathleen - The club is working on the move to DACDB, documents that were stored in Club Runner are now in DACDB
• Wayne - RAR 1008 tickets sold
• Rebecca - Went to PETS and it was amazing
• We will do Sergeant at arms after brags

Brags

• Jim - $1 for grandson who went to state for wrestling and is top 10 in state for his weight class, vacation $2
• Jennifer - 3 date nights $3, snow shoe dinner, greatest piano man, Leavenworth wine club tasting, and she won another raffle
• Rebecca - some of her RAR tickets got ruined, protect your tickets in a plastic bag
• Laerka - $3 for the only 3 days of school she is attending this week, going to Seattle on Friday
• Alan - had his grandson for 2 days
• John Schapman- wife’s birthday, school auction
• Wenatchee club - roast and toast, $125 for tickets going to SAGE

Program

• Pete VanWell, VanWell nursery
• Top agriculture products are apples, milk, potatoes, wheat, wine is sexy so they get what they want
• Nursery brings in about $368 million
• Cross pollination, apples have something like an autoimmune response to other pollens and it’s own pollen, Galas don’t pollinate themselves, the apple varieties need each other
• Reproduction, asexual, grafting, 20 year process to replace a certified tree
• Grafting down by hand, 2 million buds hand grafted, the bidder and the tie-er
• Tree = rootstock + scion
• Takes 20 years for a variety to go through the process
• The VanWell nursery has 100 acres of orchard, Quincy and Moses lake, 124 people full time, office in east Wenatchee, seasonal work
• Unique cider apple varieties, sweet apples, golden delicious, pippen varieties 

Raffle

• Kevin, $54, didn't win

Meeting Notes February 13, 2024

The Tuesday meeting of the Wenatchee Sunrise Rotary Club was brought to order by President Craig Reese.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag was led by President-Elect Rebecca Lyons.

Club member Becky Cummins led the club in a brief prayer.

Announcements

President Craig announced that this would be a service day at the club, and we would be talking about club business, instead of having a speaker. (This occurs once each quarter.)

Our Youth Exchange student from Denmark, Laerke, introduced our club's out-bound student Abby, who will be going to Spain next year.

Youth Exchange Coordinator Julie Banken discussed the recent trip to Merritt, BC, in-bound and out-bound YE students. Many Native cultural events and foods were experienced by all. Several "rebound" YE students, who have already been abroad and returned, spoke at the event. Some of them have joined together to form a club called Ro-Techs. For the last two years, our District 5060 has not had any "rebound" students because of CoVid travel restrictions. The YE students in Merritt attended a hockey game between two 1st Nation teams, and then enjoyed time in a heated pool. Laerke said she had very little exposure in school regarding 1st Nation people.

Both Allen Walker and Jim Adamson sent reminders of tonight's Rotary Social at the Taproom in Pybus at 5:01 pm, Tuesday, Feb. 13th. Food and beverages are available. Please attend if you can.

Rebecca Lyons had tickets for "The Greatest Piano Men" at the PAC but could not attend as she would be in SeaTac for PETS (President-Elect Training Seminar). She auctioned off the tickets. Wayne Massing gave her $20 for them. The money goes to the club's treasury. 

President Craig announced that Pybus was increasing our room rental rates by $20 per meeting, from $50 to $70. He also said we would be charged a $35 cleaning fee unless we put our chairs on the chair cart at the end of the meeting. We agreed we could do that. Pres. Craig reminded us that within our budget we have allotted $100 for room rental and set-up. We are well below that amount now.

A major fundraiser for the club has eluded us, but we will keep our eyes and ears open for one. Contact Craig if you have ideas.

Earl said that Allie Schank is working on Road Apple Roulette t-shirts for those who have ordered them. The delay is because we want to get the logos for our sponsors on the back of the shirts and Allie is waiting for some sponsors to provide those. The t-shirts are work-in-progress.

Sargent-At-Arms

Wayne Massing asked Emma CrowE for $1 for forgetting to bring the Road Apple Roulette ticket "thermometer" to the meeting. Jennifer Moraski was asked to pay $1 for being late to the meeting. Several 49er fans were asked to donate $1 each to the club for their team's losing the Super Bowl. Wayne Massing was fined $1 by President Craig for asking him to buy Road Apple Roulette tickets at dinner at Wayne's house. (Craig bought $250 worth and gave Wayne a check for them.)

Road Apple Roulette

Milt asked why the prize for the Road Apple Roulette wasn't lower at $5,000. Earl said they wanted it to be a significant prize and $10,000 was agreed upon. Also, he said the ticket price was set at just $5 because a $10 ticket is a bit high. We want to sell out all 5,000 tickets for RAR this year, then we MAY increase the number of tickets in each section to beyond 1,000.

Tickets are now available from either of the club Wayne's. If you need more tickets, bags, rules, map, flyers, let either Wayne know. Also, bring your sold tickets stubs and payments for them to either way at the social or at the weekly Tuesday meeting. Please use the small white money slip to indicate how many tickets were sold by "your name" and how they have been purchased (cash, check or credit card). The Wayne's keep the stubs to enter into the drawing, they enter the names into the RAR spreadsheet, then pass the monies on to Treasurer Earl.

Sell, sell, sell!!!

Wenatchee Sunrise Rotary Club "Challenge Scholarship Program"

Pres. Craig opened a discussion about our Challenge Scholarship Program. "Finish high school" has always been the main goal of the program. Several club members (some mentors) asked about which high school(s) the students have come from and why only from Westside High School? David Barshes, co-program director with Craig Reese, said that repeated requests to Wenatchee HS and Eastmont HS went unanswered, so only Westside students were entered into the program.

President Craig acknowledged that we needed to have more discussions about Challenge Scholarship Program overall in the near future.

Club Goals for Rotary Year 2023-2024

Pres. Craig reviewed two of his major goals for his presidential year: club membership levels and member donations to The Rotary Foundation.

His goal is to have 45 members in the club. We have lost a few members, and we have 2 honorary members who can't be counted in the membership.

We currently have one club member who has bequeathed $10,000 to The Rotary Foundation. Another donation suggestion is to give The Rotary Foundation $1,000 over the course of a year. See Craig if you wish to donate.

Raffle

Carl French was the lucky member to get his raffle ticket drawn, but failed to find the silver ball worth $41 today.

Mark VanHorne closed the meeting with a Dad Joke and a groan! Meeting ended at 8:00 am.

January 30th Meeting Notes

January 30, 2024

Announcements:

• Wayne talked about Road Apple Roulette had started and if you needed ticket packets, please see him.  Also, if you have money to turn in with the ticket stubs, please turn them in to him or Wayne Massing when he gets back.

• Kathleen brought up about the NWC Home show this weekend Feb 3rd and 4th.  She thanked every one that signed up for selling RAR tickets at the event.

• Earl brought up that if you win over $600 in our weekly raffle it needs to be reported to the IRS and taxes paid.  It was discovered by the Club Accounting firm because Wayne Massing last year had won over $600 and so paperwork had to be filed.

  
  

Brags and Confessions

• Allen bragged about Kelly and his trip to Maui.  It was very relaxing, fun and he got a good tan.  Kelly chimed in and said she was a little afraid about a sightseeing helicopter ride but the ride scenery “beautiful”.

Program

• Kathleen introduced Dory Foster Chief Executive Officer on the Wenatchee YMCA.

• Dory was hired in 2016 as the first female executive in the YMCA’s 114-year history.  She is a certified Organizational Leader with the YMCA of USA with 23 years of servant, chief executive, and executive level leadership in non-profit management in small and large YMCAs in Pennsylvania and Albany, New York.

• Under Dory’s leadership, the Wenatchee Valley YMCA in now debt free, has increased revenue by $1.5M, is financially sustainable, and has led the charge for licensed childcare in the valley, serving 450 children daily in seven locations.

• Last year they gave $489,792 in scholarships and subsidies to eligible daycare families.

• Dory talked about the YMCA’s vision to address the evolving needs of the YMCA family and that the exciting progress on building a new facility on the old PUD property off of Wenatchee Avenue and 5th Street.

• Dory showed a flythrough of the building and how it will address the future needs of the YMCA and showing slides of what the present facility building is now.  Dory pointed out a designed changing room off the pool. She then talked about a disabled individual that because of the need to have a changing room that allows the person to be lifted onto a table to be changed this is what drove the design of the changing room.

• Dory discussed the funding projection and a need for additional donations either in-person, Mail, Online, or Multi- Year Pledge. She gave some examples multi-year pledges by some businesses.  She expressed gratitude to all the community support because that drives the possibility of both State and Federal support.

• Dory brought up that right now there is an opportunity to get matching monies from Cordell, Neher & Company and the CNC Financial Group of up to $162,000 until Valentines Day for anybody that donates until then.

• Question from the floor: How solid are State and Federal funds?  Dory said that they are pledged for 5 years but not totally committed but the nice thing is that they can be scaled up if needed.

• Dory also talked about that they streamlined that Design/Build process by using a firm that can do both so as soon as the design is done building costs can be calculated.  Essentially Design=Cost.

• Dory was presented a book to sign for donation to Pinnacles Prep Charter School Library.

  
  

Raffle

• Raffle amount was $16.  Bill’s ticket was drawn, but no luck, pot is building up.

  
  

Joke

• Mark: “My friend’s kids made a PowerPoint presentation about why they should go to a water park.?  Answer: It had many slides!”   Ba-da-bum (cymbal clash)