Northfield Rotary Club

The 2008 Jesse James Bike Tour brochure (PDF) is now available. See Northfield Rotary’s JJBT web site for all the details.

I got this email from Sarah Hale, an advisor and art teacher at the Northfield School of Arts and Technology/Artech.

I am in Peru and and having the time of my life with the Group Study Exchange! 

We have been here for one week and have three and a half more ahead of us, have visited four cities, met with six different Rotary clubs, and stayed with two host families. 

I am so thankful to Northfield Rotary for sponsoring me! We are keeping our own blog of our travels… pathwaystoperu.wordpress.com

Left: the blog; right: the Flickr album.

From Sarah’s About page:

Group Study Exchange is one of the most popular and rewarding programs of The Rotary Foundation. This program has provided educational experiences for about 25,000 business and professional men and women around the world.

Visiting team members meet, talk and live with Rotarians and their families in a warm spirit of friendship and hospitality with the purpose of learning about another country, absorbing vocational and cultural opportunities and serving as ambassadors of goodwill for Rotary and their own country.

Both the March 2008 and April 2008 District 5960 newsletters are now available in PDF versions.

The Feb. 2008 District 5960 newsletter is now available in PDF (above).

I’ve also converted it to a Flash-based newsletter for a different viewing/reading experience.

I interviewed Northfield Rotary Club member Richard Maus this week. Richard is the author of Lucky One: Making it Past Polio and Despair and has been involved in our club’s polio eradication activities since he joined.

The Gates Foundation recently awarded the Rotary Foundation a challenge grant of $100 million to eradicate polio (see the press release) and clubs throughout the world are now involved in fundraising efforts to meet the challenge grant.

District 5960 sent a polio team to Africa a few years ago (see this 2004 press release) that included club members Charlie Cogan, Rick Estenson, Jim Pokorney, and Brett Reese.  See the District’s PolioPlus Partners Goal for 07-08.

The video is 20 minutes long. Click play to watch. Option: drag the slider to these segments:

• Richard’s arrival in Northfield: 0-4:40
• His polio story: 4:40-9:45
• Rotary and the polio eradication effort: 9:45-20:00

The Club held a Youth Exchange fundraiser, dubbed To China and Back, at the Middle School last night.  See the album of 60+ photos or this slideshow:

RI has several videos on its own area of YouTube, including this one on polio. (More info on our club’s involvement with the $100 million Gates Foundation challenge grant coming soon.)

I’ve set up a club events calendar on a new Calendar page using Google Calendar. The events are also available on a left sidebar widget, and can be subscribed to via an RSS feed and iCal.

Use our Contact form if you’d like to submit an event.

A group of club members attended the Rotary District 5960 Midterm Seminar yesterday in Lake Elmo: Mark Abbott, Jim Blaha, Anne Bretts, Charlie Cogan, Vicki Dilley, Rick Estenson, Jean Larson, Chris Weber, Laurie Williams, and yours truly.

 
Right: Charlie Cogan doing booth duty during an intermission. Click photos to enlarge.

After the morning plenary session (above left), everyone broke up into smaller roundtable topic sessions. I attended the CICO (Club Internet Communications Officer) session led by Wes Taylor, Public Image Chair for the Mankato Rotary. Wes is also the new DICO (District Internet Communications Officer). One exciting development to come out of our gathering: Wes and I are going to set up a Basecamp project group for District CICO’s to communicate with one another.

 
We’re using a widget box on the lower left sidebar of our website to subscribe to Rotary International’s newsfeed. It automatically imports the ten most recent headlines from their news and information source. (The image above is a screenshot. Scroll down to see the real thing.)

Of course, you can use your own newsreader/aggregator to subscribe to RI’s RSS feed, as well as the RSS feed for the Northfield Rotary Club’s blog.

On Saturday, Jan. 26, the club is hosting the ‘To China & Back’ fundraiser featuring Gao Hong and the Chinese Dance Theater.

Club members Tom Durkin and Rick Estenson are leading the team to put this on. At today’s club lunch, Rick emphasized that a Chinese food dinner will be served at the event, so come hungry.

See this Dec. 5 Northfield News article on the event. The poster (PDF) includes this info:

The Northfield Rotary Club and the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Division are proud to present a Chinese New Year Celebration featuring Ms. Gao Hong, world renowned Pipa Soloist.

January 26, 2008 - Northfield Middle School Auditorium - Doors Open at 6:00 pm

Reserved Seating - Advance Tickets: $20 Adult, $15 Student At the Door: $25

Proceeds to Benefit Northfield Rotary Club International Youth Exchange. Tickets available through the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Division - 1651 Jefferson Parkway. Please call 507-664-3649 for details and more information.

Here’s a YouTube video of Gao Hong speaking and performing.

Some of the 08-09 outbounds were at the Club lunch today.

L to R (click photo to enlarge): Naomi Miessler, Rachel Miessler , Ronya Gettis, Greta Klawiter-Lien.

This will be a record year Youth Exchange Outbounds with 12.

Rachel Miessler to Denmark
Greta Klawiter-Lien to Brazil
Ronya Gettis to Chile
Juli Elmer to Thailand
Naomi Miessler to Lithuania
Ethan Neal to Bolivia
Meara O’Neill to France
Michael Goodwin to Taiwan
Jessica Klimisch to Argentna
Margy Shuster to Germany
Sam Studer to Slovakia
Breanna Tetrault not yet decided

Linnea Johnson, an outbound student in Brazil last year, presented to the Club at today’s lunch. Click photos to enlarge. Right photo: Linnea with parents Natalie Johnson and Keith Johnson.

Due to popular demand, the password for the member pages has been changed. We’re back to using the old scheme. Contact me if you’re not sure what that was!

• Today’s Program: Linnea Johnson, Returning Exchange Student
• Birthdays: Rotarians around the globe.
• Next Week: Javier: Hello from Ecuador
• Last Week:
  Mathew Taylor had his travails during his year in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. But he emerged intact and grateful for the exchange experience.

  The first three months were difficult. He struggled with his Spanish, had far too much alone time with his first host family and found his school experience uninspiring. On top of that, the drivers scared him to death, and he was mugged on Christmas Eve.

  Not the best start, but with the turn of the calendar and a move to his second host family — remember Geri who spent a year in Northfield a couple of years ago? Her family — things turned around.

  “Once I got past that, it was so much fun,” he said. “Everything went so fast and pretty soon, I was home again.”

  Matt was able to travel throughout Bolivia with other  exchange students and found that to be the highlight of his trip. He also observed, sometimes first hand — an extremely dynamic, bordering on incendiary, political scene.

  Matt is now back at Northfield High School and looking forward to a return trip to Bolivia.

• Condolences: Longtime Rotarian Burton Peterson died on Tuesday, Jan. 1, at the age of 86. The club extends its condolences to his wife, Helen, and his family.
• Guests: Alex, Javier and Katrin (Quinnell), Matt Reppmann (Yogi), Cliff Taylor (Mittelstaedt) and Kip Coonley (Coonley).
• Scholarship Enhancement:  Fred Rogers
• Announcements:
• There are still tickets to be had for the “To China & Back” midwinter event Saturday, Jan. 26. If you are interested Rick Estenson has them at easy terms.
• Paul Harris Fellowships are available at a deep discount for a limited time. Bob Will, who should think about a second career hawking furniture on cable, says mega-billionaire Bill Gates needs are help. I think I detected an ironic twinkle in his eye as he uttered that sentiment. Anyway, it all goes to the eradication of polio. See Bob if you want to take advantage of this annual one-time offer.
• First a teacher/then a bard/Lutsky wants signs/In his yard. See Neil about his Burma Shave Sign Contest. Entries are due on Leap Day, Friday, Feb. 29.
• Coming Up:
  Jan. 24 – Chinese New Year, Tom Durkin and Rick Estenson
  Jan. 31 – Bill Ostrem – Non-motorized transportation, Safe Routes to School, (Chris Richardson)
  February 7 — (The Other Richardson)
• New Members
  Steve Ryan — Manager, Paint Products
  Jim Grabau — Sales Genome Sequencing