Our Arden Hills/Shoreview Rotary Club had a great 2016-17 year with leadership by Peggy Strom. Highlights included increase in membership to 29 members after several years at the 23-25 member level.The interactive pre-school education equipment at the new Ramsey County Library in Shoreview through $5,000 grant partly matched by District 5960 grant funds was another highlight. Our incoming Rotary exchange student, Jiui Youn, added greatly to our activities and the outgoing exchange student, Michaela Allen, went to Turkey. Continuing community, youth and club activities were also highlights.
Our challenge in 2017-18 is to maintain the momentum from this past year. Here are goals that I’ve set:
Increase to 30 members while retaining current members. To do this we need to keep our members actively involved and ask community-minded people to visit and to join our Club. Wouldn’t it be great to even increase to 35 members!
Additional community service activities keep our members involved. Most activities such as serving meals at Ronald McDonald House are led by a member with passion for some particular service project. Please talk to Mark Stange or any board member about your idea for another community service project.
We have the opportunity to do more in youth service. We are looking for a high school student who wants to take part in a summer-only international exchange program during the summer of 2018. Also, Mounds View High School wants to add the STRIPES program to provide a “safety-net” of support students. We can provide mentoring and help meet needs of these students.
There is an opportunity for an international project in 2018. Give your ideas to Bob Freed if you have a suggestion in an international service project.
We need to stay strong in our giving to Rotary Foundation. The combination of giving by our Club and our members was $10,572 in 2016-17, the largest amount in recent years. My goal is that we continue our giving to Rotary Foundation and remember that giving to the Annual Fund (SHARE) increases the amount in the District designated fund that is used to match community and international grants by clubs. Don’t forget the Polio Plus Fund too. Our club donates about $1,000 per year to the Polio Plus Fund and our members should remember to donate an additional amount individually as needed to complete the task of eliminating polio from the world.
Finally, to do community, youth and international activities and make donations from our club we need successful fundraising. Our membership dues only pay for direct club expenses, room cost, meals and District/Rotary International fees. We need fundraising for scholarships, youth exchange and similar youth expenses, Camp Enterprise fees and larger community and international projects. We used part of the balance in our Rotary Healthy Youth Foundation fund to support these added expenses this past year but we need a successful fundraiser this year. Please do your part in selling tickets and volunteering for the Rotary Taste of Hops.
Our major fundraiser is on Friday, August 18 from 5:30 to 8:30 at Snail Lake Park. It is vital to our club's financial health that everyone sell many tickets and help out. We will really need help with set-up and take down.
I want to thank all the Rotarians who have brought food for Nancy and me. It has made our lives so much better.
The Shoreview Library has posted the list of major donors, including our club. (The good thing about having Arden Hills in our name is that it gets us near the top of the list!)
Our meeting today was a "field trip" to the newly renovated MN State Capitol building. For a number of us non-native Minnesotans it was the first time to see the building, which is now in spectacular form following a four-year renovation project. For anyone who may have missed this event, I highly recommend doing one of the tours open to the public. This $310 million renovation and repair initiative represents the first comprehensive preservation of the Capitol building since its original construction in 1905, and ensures our Capitol will be able to serve the public for another 100 years. The official grand opening celebration will occur August 11th-13th. See this link for celebration details. https://mn.gov/admin/capitol-grand-opening/
Today's meeting represented an opportunity to hear from this year's inbound and outbound exchange students. Michaela Allen, who graduated last year from MV High School, talked about her time in the beautiful city of Izmir, Turkey. Michaela spoke highly of her host family and the kindness she experienced from fellow students. She was challenged, however, by the fact that she didn't speak Turkish and didn't really have the opportunity to learn, which made attending school problematic. For this and other reasons, she returned a bit early, arriving back home in March. She will be starting college at the U of M Duluth this fall. We also heard from Jiui Youn, who arrived in MN from South Korea last August 13th and spent the past school year as a senior at MVHS. Jiui recounted the many fun experiences she had with her three host families, other exchange students, and fellow MV students. She noted some of the things she most enjoyed about her experience here. At the top of the list was free time (school in Korea is a 6-day a week affair, lasting till 10:00 p.m.) She also treasured the exposure to nature - even squirrels were a treat and being able to see stars in the sky a welcome change from her urban life in Korea. She then noted the things she found difficult here. Top of the list - school lunch, followed closely by the lack of public transportation. Jiui will soon be joining other exchange students for a 16-day bus tour of the East Coast, then will return home to Korea on July 8th.
The Club welcomed visiting Rotarians Bill Nielson from St. Paul and Robert Atta from Ghana. Club member Glen Bowers provided an update of the Rotary International Conference that was held in Atlanta.
The guest speaker was new Mounds View High School Principal Stephanie Bruggers. She noted that she has three children, including one who is a Green Bay Packer fan. This fact was cheered wildly by club members Michael Anuta and Terry Schwerm.
Ms Bruggers noted that her intent was to continue to try and build on the strong sense of community that exists at Mounds View as well as the existing partnerships and collaborative efforts that exist at the school. She has served as the Vice Principal at the school for the past year. She discussed a new weekly program that has been put in place at the school called REFLECT, which has provided additional assistance and study help for students during the school day.
She noted that some of her goals included continuing to build on the District's Equity Promise and reduce the achievement gap that exists. She also discussed the many opportunities that students have to earn college credits through various programs that are offered at the high school.
The Club welcomed frequent summertime guest Bill Nielson from the St. Paul club. The guest speaker was Rob Reetz who serves as Principal at Chippewa Middle School in the Mounds View School District. Chippewa Middle School has a total of 1100 students in grades 6-8. He indicated that one of the greatest challenges in education is stretching some of the learners that are all very talented. He noted that learning is more about getting students engaged and making sure that they feel comfortable asking questions.
Mr. Reetz described how he is trying to change the learning culture at Chippewa so education is no longer about memorizing facts and formula's. Those are available to everyone on their phone. He indicated that learning is now Problem Solving and Product Based. He wants to develop students who are curious problem solvers and are exploratory learners. They have a saying at the school-Be the Spark-where they are trying to ignite and nurture students to achieve their aspirations. He noted that studies show that student engagement drops as students progress through the educations system. His goal through the Problem Solving and Product Based Learning is to maintain high levels of student engagement.
Through the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) they are using iCreate, Interdisciplinary Thinking, and Consumption/Creation based learning skills to develop products. The goal is to continue have joy in learning, teach collaboration skills through teams, and have people become problem solvers.