May Meeting Recap

For those of you on vacation or otherwise unable to attend, here is a recap of our May club meeting.
 
We recited the four way test to remind us of our Rotary ethics of truth, fairness, goodwill, friendships and beneficial to all.
 
We are looking for members of Service committee, if you are interested, let anyone on the board know, or just show up.  Meetings are on the last Tuesday of the month at 5:00, and can be accessed from our website.  We are also always looking for service projects, if you have any ideas, come to the service committee meeting or contact a board member. 
 
We are looking for more club members, if you know of anyone who may be interested, please get in touch.
 

Tri-Con (our Multi-District Conference) - was April 18-20, Sharon gave a short update, including the friendship table that they manned during breaks to spread the word about the Hungarian Ukrainian school project.

Happy Hour will be the third Tuesday of the month at 5:00 p.m. This is a change from the past few months of the third Thursdays at 5:30.

Reminder - For a Rotary club to be eligible for district grants, there is a requirement of an average $100 per capita to be given to the Rotary Foundation.

There will be a Friendship Exchange with Rotarians from District 6250 going to the Philippines May 17 - 22.   Cathy from our club is going.

 

Our 50/50 raffle winner was Peter Groth.

Sharon updated us on our current service project of supporting a Ukrainian-Hungarian Budapest school.  She will present to the Prairie du Chien club, and was at TriCon with a friendship table spreading the word to other clubs.

Our speaker was Valerie Wachuta, who spoke about the Operation Pollination project. 

District 6250 has partnered with nine other organizations for an Operation Pollination Partnership.  The Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) is leading the initiative for Rotary, and held webinars in March, which Val attended. ESRAG has two goals, habitat restoration and pollinator education.

In addition to ESRAG's discussion about what groups are currently doing, a bee-friendly gardening coordinator spoke on making areas bee and pollinator friendly.   This included taking care of nesting and overwintering, insect foraging, and integrated pest management. 

Preparing a site, methods of gardening, access to water, choosing plants and plant layout were all covered. 

Pollinator spaces are needed in all sizes, from container gardening to home garden, community gardens, or acres of restoration sites.  Back yards and patios help.    Ideas of things that can be done include

1.  Plant a pollinator garden

2. Hand out seed packets to school children

3. Stop/reduce pesticide use

4. No Mow May

5. Present educational programs in a community

6. Paint a mural

7. Help other organizations restore land

8. Support a pollinator organization.

Rotary clubs are encouraged to sign the Pollinator Pledge.  This is something that we can do, Val has been slowly adding pollinator friendly plants to her back yard, so this is pledging to do something she was going to do anyway.  Others are encouraged to help our pollinators.