2017-08-30 Meeting Report
Amy Dismukes, Horticulture Agent for the UT/TSU Williamson County Extension, spoke to us today about Hummingbirds. I think everyone in the room learned a lot about Hummingbird habits and likes and dislikes. Good flowers to have in your yard to attract Hummies include Red Buckeye, Anise Sage, Lantana, Indian Pink, cardinal climber and Caster Bean plants. Hummingbirds like plants with long tubular flowers. If you want to attract hummingbirds, you should have your feeders up by April 1 each year (and take down at end of October) and you can make your own nectar -- 4 parts water to 1 part white cane sugar (no dye) - boil until completely dissolved, cool and store in refrigerator untik ready to use. Hummingbird nests and eggs are Federally protected. You can find more information at hummingbirdresources.gov .
Birthdays this week: none (If we ever miss your birthday, please let us know. You can always go to the DaCdb site and check if your information is listed correctly. Remember other members who log on can only see your Month and Day, not the year. Rotary International uses the year for statistics, i.e., percent of Rotarians between the ages of 40 and 50, for example.)
There will be a New Member Orientation Meeting on Tuesday evening September 12th. 6:00pm at 104 Breckenridge Road, Franklin (just east of Williamson Medical Center, off Hwy 96, about 3/4 mile from I65) If you've never attended one of these meetings, you should. We'd especially like all new members and committee chairs to attend, but all members are certainly welcome. Please let David Beasley or me know if you plan to attend. Finger food and beverages will be served. In this meeting you will learn about what our club does and how you can be involved, as well as how Rotary International is involved worldwide.
Dictionary Deliveries start next week. On Wednesday, 9/6, we have Walnut Grove scheduled for 9:00am and Poplar Grove scheduled for 11:00am (We have to double up some weeks to get to every school before Christmas break.) Each week your bulletin will list the schools we'll visit that week.
Boys and Girls Club Homework Help and Smart Girls Program.We started the signup list this week so we can get started next week. Because we're going into a Boys and Girls Club, each person who wants to help has to have a background check. Denise or I will get in touch with those who signed up to talk about next steps.
Chris Whitney with OneGenAway is working on getting a big truck of food to deliver to Texas for the Hurricane victims. There are many agencies on the ground there now helping with immediate needs. Once they are gone, there will be long lasting financial issues with a lot of the victims, so his first trip will be later in October. Stay tuned for more information.
Happy Bucks collected today and (at least) next week will be for the hurricane victims. We will either send to the Rotary Districts in the South east TX area or donate to help with the food distribution later -- or maybe both. Your Club's Board will discuss and we'll do what is best for all. Just today we took up over $700 for this purpose. If you're concerned about a tax writeoff, you can make a check payable to the club and designate for Harvey victims. (For those of you who don't know, some of our past officers were very smart in getting our entire Club incorporated as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.)
If you are a Rotarian, you might want a specialty license plate for your vehicle. We need 1,000 orders to start the production of these plates. I've attached a sample of the plate and a registration form for your use. If you're wondering how we can get 1,000 applications, it's state wide, not just our club or even our District. In Tennessee, we have over 5,000 Rotarians.
Our Golf Tournament is only 38 days away. We need you to bring in those Hole Sponsors. While we have commitments from companies that will put our Corporate Sponsor total above that goal, we're way behind on the total $'s. We need to bring in about $75,000 in the next 5 weeks to meet our Gross Goal of $130,000. That's the approximate amount we need to meet our Net Goal of $100,000. Remember 100% of our net proceeds goes to our charitable accounts. It is not used for club administration.
Friday, September 15, is next Board meeting and Friday night Social. We're looking at a local Mexican restaurant for September's night out. (We're planning to go to Jerry Sewell's home in October.)