BREAKING NEWS

Breaking news: Babette takes the plunge for the Salvation Army.

Having raised over $1,000 for the Army, CLK Rotarian Babette Tikkanen (and about a hundred other brave souls) braced the freezing temperatures of Hancock, ran across the Portage ice and plunged into the icy waters of Portage Lake. To prepare themselves, the polar divers first heated themselves in the Ramada Inn sauna and hot tub. How was it, we asked Babette. "Great," she said, "but the run back to the Ramada after the dive was the worse part, terrible, in fact." We wondered if she was going to repeat the dive next year. "Absolutely," she said.


Her husband, Tom, dressed warmly, along with hundreds of other spectators cheered her and her fellow divers as they took the Plunge.


(Fresh from the sauna, Babette races across the ice toward the hole in the ice)











(In she goes!)



















(And out she is hauled)








Congratulations, Babette. See you next year. And thanks, Tom,
for the photos.


(And the race back to the sauna.)

Regular Meeting, January 28, 2009

Hello everyone.

This post is my penultimate blog before heading to Florida for the next three months. If one or more members care to send me synopses of meetings, I will gladly post them for all to read. Next week I will bring a rough outline of the kind of information I have been posting. Any takers? Believe me, it is fun to do.

The meeting was well attended: 22 members, 2 guests (Mike and Nancy Aten) and Soon-to-be-Member Ole van Goor, a total of 26.

After lunch, Mike and Nancy Aten took the floor to give us a little slide show of their daughter Hannah's trip to Poland last summer. Hannah was our Rotary Exchange Student and was a very good representative of not only our club and area, but of the entire United States.

The Atens attest that Hannah has grown from this experience and that she is more confident and poised with a better grasp of foreign relationships. In short, Hannah came back a different person. Mike, who is the Executive Director of Little Brothers, ran the projector while his wife provided the narrative.

(Nancy and Mike Aten, parents of our RYE student Hannah Aten)


Another reminder that in a little over a month, our fund-raiser, the Community Spaghetti Dinner (held in conjunction with the Great Bear Chase X-country ski race) will be upon us.

Next week is our business meeting during which we will deal with the scholarship proposals that have been studied. If everything goes as planed, we'll have a deal and at least two students will have their $1,000 scholarships next June.

Regular Meeting, January 21, 2009

(V.P. Jim Lowell, who chaired the meeting, makes a salient point to Dick Shaefer who looks somewhat skeptical.)



There were 18 members and 5 guests at the meeting. Guests were Pete Pietri of the Houghton Rotary, Ole van Goor, who is about to become a member of our club, Betty Kilpela, and two guests of Tim Baroni, John Leahy and Dave Varden.

After lunch and a round of Happy Dollars, Dan and Amy gave a spirited presentation on the Rotary Foundation fund-raising opportunities available to members. Among the methods available was the EREY (Every Rotarian, Every Year), a program that asks $100 from every Rotarian per year. This can be accomplished through the Global Contributions method using checks, wire transfers, credit cards, or other instruments of money transfer and can be earmarked for the fund of your choice if you so desire, programs such as Polio Plus, The World Fund, The Humanitarian Fund or the SHARE programs.

All contributions can result in recognition points for a future Paul Harris Fellowship, for example, or some other memorial or honor to be bestowed on someone of the donor's choice.

Dan and Amy ended their presentation by forming a Top 5 club which requires five members to donate $50 per quarter for the next five years with the benefit being that every member of the Top 5 will receive a Paul Harris Fellowship within the five year period of time at the rate of one fellowship per year to be drawn by lot from the five. The CLK Rotary's first Top 5 members are: Tim Baroni, Dan Dalquist, Don Kilpela, Peter Vorhes, and Andy Murtaugh. We'll be looking for someone to start another Top 5 Club soon.

Thanks to Tom Liligren, Kevin Store and Don K., $500 was raised to match Babette's pledges to the Salvation Army as a result of her dive into Portage Lake this weekend. Gotta love Babette's SISU. Perhaps a picture next week??

Regular Meeting, January 14, 2009

(After the meeting, Andy and Peter examine the leftover brownies. Taken moments before they devoured them.)

Hello all. Attendance was 15 members and 2 guests: Coreen Balbough and Assistant District Governor Bob Sharkey of Houghton. Before lunch, Bob reminded everyone of the Polio Plus Recognition Dinner to be held at the MUB on the MTU campus March 9. The bulk of the dinner will be covered as a luncheon substitution with (perhaps) a slight surcharge. In addition there will be a cash bar. Members are asked to bring a polio survivor as a guest if possible.

After lunch, President Kevin shared his vision and experience with the newly founded Community Partnership Committee, an organization of about 20 members representing a cross section of the various community organizations from education to industry. The organization will be structured as the Keweenaw Community Partnership Corporation and its principle purpose is to bring development dollars into the community as needed. For example, when a new industrial enterprize desires help and cannot get it because their business model doesn't meet present requirements, the corporation will step in and assist them. This can work for a number of organizations in education, industry, medicine, etc. Think of it as sort of a lynch pin tying all the often disparate groups in the Keweenaw Peninsula together.

All in all, it was an interesting presentation and we wish them luck.

Capt. Don is committed to raising at least $500 to provide matching funds for the Polar Dive by Babette with all funds raised to go to the Salvation Army. If anyone wants to contribute a few coins to this brave feat and worthy cause, see Capt. Don next week or the following week when Babette will make the dive into the chilly, choppy waters of Portage Lake. Brrrr.

Next week's program will feature a presentation by the Keweenaw Brewing Company of Houghton.

Regular Meeting, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year everyone!

Our regular Wednesday meeting landed on December 31 so instead of a speaker or program, we just entertained ourselves and our tablemates. After the usual opening, there was a round of Happy Dollars and a good report on the luminaries which are now put away and stored until next Christmas Eve. An amazing number of people drove by the project and were awed by the sight. Someone suggested we make it the cover of our Rotary Christmas card.

Thgere were a total of 19 members present including two guests. The guests were Rylie Store, daughter of Kevin and Heather, and Ole van Goor of Copper Harbor. Ole is a past Rotarian and Paul Harris Fellow and is looking to restore his membership in Rotary.

(Table 1 hosting guest Ole van Goor, Table 2 with no guests, and Table 3 hosting Rylie Store. Our guests are pictured below)










































Next week, you can look forward to a business meeting. One item to be discussed at that meeting will be the Educational Scholarship Proposal.

Also, there will be more information on how we can contribute to the Polar Bear Dive by "you know who" at the next Heikkan Paivan Festival.

Finally, be reminded that our next two major fund-raisers are the Community Spaghetti Dinner in March and the Tamburitzans in August. Ideas for promoting attendance at both are highly encouraged.