December 16, 2013, Club Bulletin # 491

Program for December 16, 2013: Flickinger Learning Center by Paul Brooks

Invocation by: Craig Bode

No Rotary Meetings on December 23 and December 30!!

Guests: Emily Smith, Molly Matkovich, Sylvia Pellegrino, Lucas Jacobs, Bara Norton, JoAnne Ruby, Karey Hawkins, Colleen Welch, Cath Hahn and Mark Olmstead.  Cath Hahn's name was read for the first time as a potential new

Happy News: Rich Dwyer reminded us of the Salvation Army Challenge for the club to meet the $1000 gift of an anonymous Rotarian.  Keith also asked the club to support the RYLA Conference Project.  Marv Krieger asked for support of Toy Time. Karen Diercks was grateful for the Holiday Stroll, the Christmas Symphony Program. Dave Stanley was proud of the Muscatine Symphony and the Hawkeye's as participants in the Outback Bowl!! Lucas Jacobs was happy that he won his first wrestling match and yes he lost the second one!! Rich Dwyer reminded us of the United Way Campaign and asked for support of the annual campaign.  Mike Ruby was happy to have Gary and Colleen Welch as house guests along with Sylvia Pellegrino.  Lucas joined them for supper on Sunday evening!!

Rotary Program: Mike Ruby introduced Gary Welch the designer and organizer of the revamped RYLA Workshop Conference.  Gary did a lot of research in best practices for student leadership workshops. In his research he came across the Rocky Mountain RYLA Program.  Some points he picked up were: we learn better if we are having fun, a great leader has passion, a successful workshop is 90% experiential.  The RYLA Conference will be held at Grinnell College for 1 week this summer. Needed are students, Rotarians and former participants. Rotarians serve as volunteers and the former participants are youth counselors.  Topics of the conference are:  Respect for Youth, Leadership Training, Recognizing Youth as Leaders in their own communities and Youth Implementation of the Program.  Sophomore and Junior students in high school are eligible to participate and can apply by completing the online application