Happy December Rotarians! After a long, beautiful fall, it still doesn't quite feel like winter but the holiday season is definitely upon us. Please plan to join our get-together at Ken and Fran Hola's home on the evening of December 13th. This is a great opportunity to get to know members and guests just a little bit better. We will not have a regular morning meeting on that day and we have also cancelled the December 27th meeting since so many are travelling during that time. While it is a relatively quiet time of year for our club, things have been busy at our District 5960 level. The Group Study Exchange team members have been selected. They are eagerly awaiting their trip in April to Northern Australia District 9550. The District's celebration of The Rotary Foundation on November 12th in St. Paul was a big success, celebrating 100 years of doing good work in the world. Arch Klumph created the foundation with these words: “We should not live for ourselves alone, but for the joy in doing good for others.” These inspiring words carry special meaning at this time of year. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!
Our club's Holiday Party is on Tuesday evening, December 13, at Ken & Fran Hola's home at 5608 St Alban's Circle in Shoreview. These parties are always fun and I encourage you to come.
The fundraising plan is coming along with several of our members helping out. It really helps the committee when others with particular contacts and abilities come to our assistance, We will talk about the event at our club assembly on the first Tuesday in January.
Our bell-ringing for the Salvation Army pulled in a whopping $3040.46 on Thursday, Dec. 8th, to go with another $586.50 gathered on the 7th. Did anyone notice who might have made the major deposit on Thursday (see anyone stuffing hundreds of ones, or even a couple dozen $100s)?
The library has our Rotary grant in hand and the pre-school literary items have been ordered. They should all be in place in time for our next off-site gathering at the new library on March 15th. (Highlight that date on your calendar!)
Today's speaker was Noel Lutsey, member of the Blaine/Ham Lake Rotary Club, whose presentation focused on his club's "Guatemala Project". This project started with a global grant from Rotary in partnership with Allina, focused on maternal and child health in rural Guatemala. It has evolved into a program known as Wakami, which is a business incubator that targets women in rural villages throughout Guatemala by teaching them how to make bracelets and necklaces. The women receive training, then work together to produce the jewelry which is then sold through an organization in Guatemala City to buyers in Central America, The United States and Europe. Plans are in place to expand to South America, Asia and Australia. The Wakami methodology transforms the lives of families by giving women a source of income. They gain for the first time the ability to feed and educate their children and the ability to earn the respect of their husbands and the community. Over 500 women participate and their children have 140 percent higher school attendance than the national Guatemalan average. There have also been significant improvements in nutritional status and a resulting decrease in severe chronic malnutrition, all within just the past several years.
The guest speaker for the day was Todd Otis, Senior Vice President for External Relations for Think Small, a non-profit agency based in Little Canada supporting early childhood education. Todd indicated that the organization had been around since 1971, however, in 2012 they merged with other organizations and were rebranded as Think Small. Their mission is to advance quality care and education of children in their crucial early years.
Their organization focuses on professional development of child care professionals through training and publishing resource material, strengthening families through family education and referral, and also does policy advocacy and legislative initiatives. Mr. Otis also indicated that these services are critical because 50% of Minnesota children are not prepared for kindergarten. Further, studies have shown that many children who are not prepared for kindergarten will often never catch up. He believes that early learning is the best investment for young children.
The Club welcomed guests Council member from Arden Hills, Jean Kummerow: visiting Rotarians Ron Hughes (Excelsior) and Bob Burmeister (Roseville); proposed new club members Miriam Zachary and Bob Freed: and Tod and Ona Lentz.
The guest speaker, Todd Lentz, presented a pictorial history of the renovations for the Minnesota State Capitol. The State Capitol was designed by Cass Gilbert, a famous architect who also designed the United States Supreme Court building. He noted that the design was originally selected because it was plain. He also noted that it has the second largest marble supported dome in the world. The Capitol housed all of the divisions of State government when it opened in the early 1900's.
As Mr. Lentz showed various pictures of the Capitol during the renovation process he indicated that the restoration of the structure cost $310 million dollars and will be 95% complete by January, 2017. He encouraged Rotarians to visit the Capitol when it is completed because it is a tremendous state resource with spectacular architecture. He also briefly discussed the artwork throughout the Capitol.
Our speaker today was Dave Boden, President and CEO at Hiway Federal Credit Union in St. Paul. Dave provided an update on Minnesota's project to bid to have the World's Fair in our state in 2023. Former Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is the President of this bid committee and spoke to our club on this subject a year or more ago. The effort was launched in 2014 and is nearing a key deadline of December 16th for formal submission of a bid. The big transitions occurring in Washington D.C. make this timing now a bit dicey, as the bid must actually be submitted by the federal government and there is no assurance yet that will happen. Boden is "cautiously optimistic" the bid will be submitted but there is further effort required after that point and somewhat less optimism that the U.S. State Department will agree to next steps, given all the other work of transition at the federal level that will be occurring at this time. The proposed theme for the fair is aligned with MN's education focus on math, science and wellness. A site has been identified and much coordination is occurring with the State Fair organization as well as with other organizations such as chambers of commerce. The City of Houston, Texas has also been an active partner as they are working concurrently on a bid for the 2025 World's Fair. Most recent Fairs have been held internationally; the 2012 Fair was in Korea and the 2015 Fair was in Milan, Italy.
The Club welcomed prospective new member Glenn Bowers who announced that he intended to join the Arden Hills/Shoreview Club which was greeted by loud yee-haw by Ken Hola. The Club also welcomed JP Barone, the guest speaker. It was announced that the Holiday party would be held at Ken Hola's house on Tuesday, December 13th from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
The guest speaker, JP Barone, works as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota and also dabbles in community theater. He was at the meeting to give an entertaining presentation on the history of kidnapping in St. Paul in the 1930's. As a context, he provided background on the St. Paul Police Department's "O'Conner System" for dealing with out of town criminals and gangsters. This system required that the criminals not commit crimes in the City, that they spend their money locally, and that they pay the police a bribe. This ensured that they would not be arrested on any warrants or charges while they were in St. Paul. This system continued until the 1930's when there were a two high-profile kidnappings.
The first kidnapping involved William Hamm Jr., the President of Hamm's Brewing, in 1933. The kidnapping was done by a combination of the Barker and Karpis gangs and they asked for $100,000. The kidnapping was successful and lasted a fairly short time before the ransom was paid and William Hamm was released.The kidnapping was given an assist from Police Chief Tom Brown, who led the investigation of the kidnapping, who received a $25,000 bribe from the gang.
The success of this kidnapping emboldened the gang and they kidnapped Edward Bremer, a bank President whose father also was the owner of Schmidt Brewery. The ransom requested, in this case, was $200,000 and it did not go as smoothly as the Hamm's kidnapping. Bremer proved to be a less cooperative victim. Although the ransom was paid and Bremer was released a few weeks after being taken, it resulted in the FBI becoming involved in the investigation. This case ultimately brought down the Karpis-Barker gang as several members were either killed in shootouts or arrested and convicted of this crime.
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Our club's Holiday Party is on Tuesday evening, December 13, at Ken & Fran Hola's home at 5608 St Alban's Circle in Shoreview. These parties are always fun and I encourage you to come..jpg)
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