For those unable to attend today’s meeting, we had a lot of good information disbursed. There was a total of 21 people on the Zoom.
President Goggin started the meeting with a prayer by our Chaplain, the Pledge and the Rotary Four-Way Test. He then introduced our guest speaker, Katy Downing.
Joe K. gave an update on plans for the Art Festival. Our next committee meeting will be held virtually on March 25th at 5:00 pm. There will be an article in the next issue of The Observer promoting the Festival and highlighting our featured artist, Eileen Dorsey.
Terri continues to work on the Four Way Speech contest. We have 4 students from Bay and 2 from Westlake committed so far. We are still waiting to hear from the Christian Academy. All judges are in place and the contest will be held virtually on March 24th at 5:00 pm. All Rotarians are invited to attend.
Kevin K. reported that he has started to get replies from other clubs regarding shoe box participation. So far, no negative responses.
We received a donation request from Anelize Nader of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. They received a new box truck for their deliveries and are looking for $1000 to provide signage for the new truck. The request has been forwarded to the donations committee for further review.
Holly reported that the Bay Schools will be hosting a virtual town hall, Empowering Woman, this Thursday from 6:30 to 7:30. It can be accessed at www.bayvillageschools.com/home.
Andrew reported that the library will soon have 1000 self-testing kits for the covid virus. Contact the library for further details and to reserve your kit.
Our speaker today was Katy Downing. Katy is the Planetarium and Program Specialist for the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village. You may recall that some years ago, we established our Rotary Garden at the center that is still present today. The center celebrated their 75th anniversary in 2020, although the planned celebrations were cancelled due to the pandemic. They are open and accepting guests Tuesday through Saturday from 10-4. Admission is free but they do request you register in advance so they know how many people will be in the building. There website is www.lensc.org. Among their many programs are virtual field trips, and Scout backpacks that can be rented and returned. These backpacks have all the items required to earn up to 9 Girl Scout badges and 6 Cub Scout adventures. Katy also showed a riveting video of a gull being rescued after biting into a fishhook and having line entangled in it’s beak and feathers. It showed the fishing equipment being removed and the subsequent rehabilitation and release of the bird. This is just one of the many animal rescues they perform each year.
After the speaker left the meeting, we had ample time for everyone to share their happy thoughts, most of which were dominated by the great weather we are experiencing.
The meeting was adjourned 9 minutes early at 8:21