Rotary News

President Judy Moore called the meeting to order and introduced Henry Holland to do the invocation.  Newscaster Richard Piet brought us up to date on the day's events.  Art news was brought to us by Kristen Chesak.  The big art news was this is the week leading up to the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival.  April 24^th begins the festivities.

Judy Moore ANNOUNCED the coming of SRING!  Our snowbirds are returning.  We had three visiting Rotarians, and eight guests.

Announcements:  This is Administrative Assistance Week and a special recognition was given to Sue Esman, Rotary Secretary.  As Judy indicated, her only reason for accepting the position of President was because she was assured that Sue was going to be there to be her support.  Sue, Thank You for all your hard work.

The Literacy Project that Rotary was involved in made a huge impact.  There were 66 contributors who donated $3,400 in cash and 510 books.  There were 45 readers equaling 200 hours of reading and the program affected 100% of the club.  A $25 gift certificate was presented to Kennedy Fillar who won the drawing for completing the opinion survey for the literacy project.

Speaker/Program:  Nan Thompson introduced our guest speaker, local entrepreneur Steven L. Gibson.  Steve owned his own business in Kalamazoo for many years and more recently became an author.  He just returned from a national book signing excursion.  His book "Truth Driven Thinking" is becoming quite notable. 

Steve complimented Rotary for its work in helping the world become a better place.  And in the realm of making our world a better place, Steve posed the question, "What do we do when we disagree"?  Things in our world are not black and white, but there is a lot of gray.  If someone tells you that you are wrong about something, how do you feel?  Does it make you happy or is it painful.  Steve's point is that we need to value each others opinions and diversity.  He feels that we are afraid of the wrong things.  We are driven by emotion and are quite often ignorant of the beliefs of others.  Not respecting our differences can create a world that is unhealthy, segregated and full of disagreements.

Next weeks meeting will be held at Chenery starting with a performance of the Gilmore, followed by lunch.  If you haven't been at the Rotary meetings of the last two weeks, call in your reservation to Judy Moore (381-4000) or email Judy at jmoore@kazoochamber.com