Rotary Minutes for Wednesday, February 12, 2020

A delicious meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls, cake and ice cream was served.

Meeting was rung to order by President Bill Frei.

Guests were welcomed and introduced: Marquis Provost was a guest of Amanda B, Caitlin Brandt was a guest of Mikaela K.

Pastor Bill H. led the group in prayer.

Membership minute given by Dave I.

Members of Toastmasters and Rotary will enhance their skills, broaden their networks and increase their positive impact in communities through a new collaboration. The ongoing relationship between the 2 organizations will begin at the grassroots level with local structured communication and leadership development courses for Rotary with a phased rollout that will be available in English in 2020, and in more languages in 2021.

With its first unofficial meeting in March 1905, Toastmasters is a global nonprofit organization with more than 16,800 clubs in 143 countries. Its members attend club meetings where they learn how to be more confident speakers, communicators and leaders. Toastmasters’ vision for the ongoing collaboration with Rotary is to change more lives for the better, and positively impact communities around the world.

Collaborating with Toastmasters will provide our members with even more opportunities to develop and improve their leadership and communication skills, said John Hewko, general secretary and CEO of Rotary International. In turn, members of Toastmasters can connect with more people, take advantage of new speaking and learning opportunities, and make a difference in their communities through Rotary.

Pastor Laurie couldn’t find the song “Blowin’ in the Wind” (due to weather) in the songbook so she led the group in singing “Tell Me Why” and “Smile” – encouraging members to NOT look at their songbook but failing to tell the guests what page number!

Queen of Hearts drawing: ticket # 72 was drawn, owner – Jordan W. But he unfortunately drew the 4 clubs.

Sect./Treas. Report: Patty F.

Make-ups turned in by Linda S. and Becky B. Also 2 others whom attended the Cracker Barrel last week received make-up credit.

Pastor Laurie’s team had 2 absent today, totaling 6 absences to date.

Pastor Bill’s team had 3 absent today, totaling 9 absences to date.

Other announcements:

• Reminder of the Feb. 22 Valentine’s dinner and silent auction at Two Spurs. Monies received from the auction will go to support the Helping Hands back pack program. Silent auction items needed. Therefore, no Rotary meeting Feb. 19 because of Feb. 22 dinner.

Program chair Jordan W. introduced Aaron Schmitz, currently working at Ft. Randall Dam as Maintenance Supervisor. Aaron shared some of his family background. He grew up in Bonesteel with 3 brothers - who all went into some form of the engineering field. He is married (for 12 years) and has 4 children. He then went on to explain what engineers are and do.

In short: engineers are problem solvers! There are 3 primary types of engineers: electrical, mechanical and civil/structural. All engineers use their training received in college through math, science, physics and chemistry classes to solve many types of problems in many different areas. College prepares you to solve different problems, organize large amounts of information using tables and graphs, identify potential efficiency gains, work with teams of people, and make calculated recommendations for many types of projects.

Engineers find work in many areas including consulting, project management, designing, managing budgets and assets, troubleshooting, and testing.

Aaron worked 4 years with an engineering company in Omaha, NE working as part of a team designing pump and piping systems for power plants and other industrial facilities. He then was offered a 2 year contract position working as part of a team to design and coordinate the construction of a facility expansion project. He spent 3 years at the Case/New Holland plant as a facilities engineer coordinating projects, facility expansions, maintenance repairs, and maintenance crews. He joined Ft. Randall in 2015 as a mechanical engineer to assess problems, design solutions, coordinate the hiring of contractors to perform installations, verify quality of installations, witness commissioning and testing, and perform project close outs.

In 2018, he applied for and was awarded the Maintenance Supervisor position. He continues doing smaller project work but primarily focuses on working with the maintenance crew. He’s always learning something new! The maintenance group performs regular maintenance, troubleshooting, repairs, new installations, and upgrades on a variety of facility equipment.

He then fielded some questions from Rotary members. Thank you, Aaron, for a very informative and great program.

Since there was no more business, we closed the meeting in our usual fashion by singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”.

The meeting was adjourned.

Sgt. at Arms (Becky B.) levied the following fines:

• $2 Jordan W. for bribing the cooks to make his favorite meal

• $1 Jordan W. for also wanting his favorite dessert.

• $1 Craig K. for bragging about the USD Med. Student at his table.

• $3 Jeff D. for leaving “rubber” from one of his trucks on the highway

• $1 Mikaela K. – welcome back from baby leave

• $1 Gerrit J. for thinking baby leave and vacation are the same time off

• $1 each to Jeff D. and Jerry W. for eating their valentine suckers before the meeting was over.

Happy Fines:

• $2 Craig K. for his new Commercial State Bank winter hat

• $2 Mikaela K. for bittersweet being back to work after baby leave