Northfield Rotary Club

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

The Rotary 5960 Newletter for January 2008 (PDF) is now available.

I took this photo at last week’s lunch of club member Mark Quinnell (center) with two youth, Alexander Santos (left) and Javier Arevalo (right). Click photo to enlarge.

I asked our club’s Youth Exchange Coordinator Vicki Dilley for more info on these young men.

She wrote:

Alex is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He lives in Leblon, 2 blocks from the beach, next to the infamous Ipanema!  He is thrilled with the snow, and said to me this morning, “We South Americans always think this white fluffy stuff looks so fun, but we don’t know how cold it is with it!”

Alex is my daughter Riana’s host brother. She lived with his family last spring while studying at PUC university in Rio and she is there now with his family. We found his family by contacting Lino Krohling who was a GSE team leader here and stayed with us. She needed housing so I contacted him and he then contacted Sergio Misse who is the Youth Exchange officer in Rio and he knew Alex’s family as they live in the same building as Sergio. Small world when Rotary makes the connections!

Javier is one of the three students Rotary has now. He is from Macas, Ecuador in the Amazon forest and the Quinnell’s are hosting him. One great kid! He is a triathelete and Ecuador wanted him back while he was here to do a try-out for the Olympic team (I think I have that right).

Mathew Taylor, an outbound student in Bolivia last year, presented to the Club at yesterday’s lunch. Click photos to enlarge. Right photo: Mathew with parents Candy Taylor and Cliff Taylor.

Update 01/10: From this week’s Cogwheel:

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.

• Today’s Program: Mathew Taylor, Returning Exchange Student (Taylor)
• Birthdays: Marie Perry (12/31), Fred Rogers (1/4) and Curtis Tiano (1/6).
• Next Week: Linnea Johnson, Returning Exchange Student
• Last Week: The fabulous Troubadours took center stage and shared their holiday concert with us. Our own Gary Meidt conducted. Fifteen strong, the Troubadours’ song list included reverent patriotic tunes, buoyant pop medleys and traditional Christmas carols, all with barbershop harmonics. They hit it out of the park! The Troubadours are always looking for new blood. Don Anderson extended an open invitation to our members to consider joining their ranks. (Has he heard us sing?) Their rehearsals resume on Wednesday, Feb. 6. They practice from 12:30 to 2 p.m. every Wednesday and perform concerts in June and December.
• Guests: Scott Davis and Alex from Rio (Dilley).
• Scholarship Enhancement: John Stull and friends
• Announcements:
• Saturday, Jan. 26, will bring “To China & Back Fundraiser” featuring Gao Hong and the Chinese Dance Theater. Tickets are now available. Rick Estenson said volunteers will be needed that evening to usher and help with food. More later.
• Rotary is responsible for delivering Meals-On-Wheels January 13 - January 26. Contact Joseph Crippen if you can help.
• Marie Fritz Perry, our club’s very own children’s book author, appeared on KARE-11 TV last Saturday to promote her new children’s book “Cecil’s New Year’s Eve Trail. Congratulations Marie.
• Coming Up:
  Jan. 17 – Javier - Exchange from Ecuador,
  Jan. 24 – Chinese New Year, Tom Durkin and Rick Estenson
  Jan. 31 – Bill Ostrem – Non-motorized transportation, Safe Routes to School, (Chris Richardson)
• New Members
  Steve Ryan — Manager, Paint Products
  Jim Grabau — Sales Genome Sequencing

If you’re interested in joining the Northfield Rotary Club, contact a current member about sponsoring you, print out this membership form (PDF), and send it to our membership coordinator listed on the form.

We’ve added a Join the Club page to the web site.