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The club welcomed visiting Rotarian Ron Hughes from Excelsior and Bill Nielson from St. Paul. The newest Club member Dave Newman gave a brief classification talk noting that he is a recovering attorney who now works in residential real estate for the Bancor Group real estate company. They have developed more than 2500 lots in the Twin Cities area. He has been involved with Rotary for many years and is excited to be joining the Arden Hills/Shoreview club. He has been active with the Fast for Hope program.
The guest speaker was Christine Noonan who has been working in marketing and guest relations for the Minnesota State Fair since 2011. She noted that the State Fair began in 1859, before Minnesota was a state as a means to promote agriculture. In 1885 the Ramsey County Poor Farm closed and 220 acres were acquired and become the permanent home of the State Fair. The Fairgrounds is now 322 acres. They have not received any government assistance since 1949. The State Fair takes in about $57 million in revenue and annually invests about $6-7 million in capital improvements to the Fairgrounds. Christine showed a number of pictures of the fairgrounds and fairgoers and then answered a number of questions from club members. She even responded to one question asking why Sweet Martha's cookies are so popular and overated - (personal opinion - they are not overrated and they bring in more than $4 million annually in sales. By far the largest food vendor at the Fair.)