With plenty of snow on the ground for this point in the year, Karan called our meeting to order today at 12:15 p.m. Ryan Murphy lead us today with the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. Chuck Dib lead us in “The Four-Way Test,” and Julie Huttenlocher led us in prayer. For lunch we had some salad and rice with beef as well as some healthy broccoli. There was also some cake for dessert.
PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Karan announced some people have expressed interest in the open board positions but we still need a few more people to participate. PLEASE consider volunteering for one of the positions including: president, president nominee, secretary, treasurer, and two board positions.
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- She also announced that Doug Norris got engaged in Nova Scotia! Congrats Doug!
GUESTS AND VISITORS
Nancy Dedenbach announced the guests and visitors today which consisted only of our speaker Sylvia Hubbard.
MEMBER BIRTHDAYS AND FLOWERS
- Julie Miller handled the flowers today with some help from Ken Steele.
- Bill Patterson’s wife Sheree had a birthday this week
- We had a few club anniversaries: Chuck Dib (3), Glenn Burton (25), and Mary Ann Hosey (28.)
- Kristine Howell bought a flower for Margo Baker for attending Macomb Reads together.
- Gary bought a flower for Ken Steele for setting up the
piano every meeting.
- Chuck Dib bought a flower for our speaker Sylvia Hubbard.
- Val bought a flower for Jessie Johnson for taking minutes in her absence at the board meeting.
- Jessie bought a flower for me for my “wonderful” Spokesperson writing style
MUSIC
Ken Steele led us in music today with “America the Beautiful” and “Vive la Rotary.”
SUNSHINE/GOOD WILL REPORTS
Kris Howell asked for prayers for Jackie James Hicks as he is dealing with constant whole body cramping that nobody has been able to help him get rid of. Please keep him in your prayers.
Dave Meldrum was very happy to announce that his mother-in-law was in Texas!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Julie announced the giving tree was back to get gifts for families at Turning
Point. We are all very fortunate to be able to give our children and grandchildren gifts at Christmas time. Please help to brighten Christmas for families that are not nearly as fortunate! Please bring the gifts back wrapped by 12/17 with the tag on the outside of the gift.
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- Val announced that this Friday, November 15, she will be working with the Interact kids and hopefully many Rotarians on the Santa Parade float. Please let her know ASAP if you can help from 3-6 p.m. The Santa parade will be Nov. 23.
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Come and march with the club!
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- Don announced that we need to sell as many 50/50 tickets as possible for the fundraiser.
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Christmas bell ringing will be at the Kroger at 21 and Card 11/30 and 12/14 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Please sign up. We really need more help for the 11/30 date!-
- Gloria announced the Christmas party ticket sales are doing great at 124 sold so far. Get yours quick if you haven’t yet! Don’t miss out!
RECOGNITION
Glenn Burton was back for another round of recognition!
We started with some Rotary trivia that only one group answered correctly! Dave Gerlach got the award (actually fine) for the most-missed Rotarian.Dave Meldrum sold his boat but had to give some of the proceeds back to the club!I got the best dressed award/fine. Cecilia had to pay for the flower that Glenn gave to her. Apparently nothing is free in life!
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SPEAKER AND PROGRAM
We had the pleasure of hearing Sylvia Hubbard speak to us today. She is a proud mother of three children and an author, publishing over 40 books!
Sylvia spoke to us about the difficulties of being a single mother in today’s world and how that can present even more challenges for the mother as well as her children. When Sylvia had her first child, her mother called to see how she was doing. She decided to take a plane down to help out the next day. During the stay Sylvia’s mother taught her to plan, pray, and parent. Plan for things to go wrong but keep going forward anyway. Pray for knowledge of how to get what you need. Parent -- run a house like a business. Practice what you preach and do what you teach.
She opened up to us with some stories from her past that had some wonderful lessons. At one point she lost her job, the unemployment checks stopped because of a government shutdown, and her house burned down. She said, even through all of this, her lowest moment was when she was getting the kids ready for school and her son told her that he didn’t have any shoes to wear. She said after that happened she pulled up her PayPal app and she saw a message that someone posted for her. It said, “If Sylvia has ever helped you with anything, please donate a few dollars to her.” She said that she had received a few thousand dollars in donations!
She told us another moving story about her son. She found out that she was pregnant with a boy and decided that she didn’t want to have a baby as she had trouble with other men in her life. She prayed that God would end her pregnancy. She wasn’t gaining weight and went to her doctor and found that the baby wasn’t moving or growing much. The doctor told her that the baby would have lifelong problems if he even made it to birth. She went home to think about what she wanted to do. She started to feel bad and prayed that her son would make it so she could tell him that she was sorry. She says that she then started to gain weight again and her son was born a very healthy 11 lbs. He is doing very well today!
Valerie Miller won the 50/50
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Happy Birthday!
11/13 Sheree (Bill) Patterson
Celebrating Club Anniversaries!
Chuck Dib 3, Glenn Burton 25, Mary Ann Hosey 28
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