A small but determined (if not downright tenacious) contingent of Marana Rotarians met on July 21 at Nana’s Kitchen with President Alice Rigney presiding. The remainder of the Club members were scattered over various parts of the North American continent, or at least that’s what they reported. Maeve Johnson bravely led the song (Grand Old Flag) and George Rigney won $5 on the 50/50 drawing. George was very excited to win, claiming that he has never won, and proudly waved his $5 bill for all to see. A bit of a slow day in Marana.
 
 
Calendar Update
Sat Aug 1
The 2015 District 5500 Membership Seminar will be held at the Highlands at Dove Mountain. Register online at  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2015-district-5500-membership-seminar-tickets-17346954207. The seminar runs from 8:15am to 3pm, and the cost of $30 will be reimbursed by our Club.
Sat Aug 8       
Alice will be handing out tootsie roll pops on behalf of our Club at the free concert series held at Crossroads Silverbell Park (behind the Marana Wheeler Taft Abbett Sr Library) at 7pm. Come join her to help spread the word about Marana Rotary, and enjoy the music as well.
Mon Sept 28  
All Committee Chairs will meet in the evening with the District Governor Frank Presson. Details upcoming.
Fri Oct 9          
Our annual awards dinner at the Highlands! It is now named the Service Above Self Awards Dinner. Note to members:  now is the time to start rounding up raffle prizes for this gala event.
 
Other Announcements:
Alice announced that the Board voted unanimously to raise dues by $15 per quarter. This is effective immediately and will be reflected on your next dues invoice.
George reminded everyone who has NOT sold their raffle tickets for the Mustang to please do so. This project nets $4000 for our Club!
Mark your calendars ---  Friday May 21 2016 will be installation day for President Elect Mary Straus. Location & other details TBA.
 
Breaking News:
This segment of our weekly meeting review covers unusual, particularly surprising, &/or statistically improbable events involving our members. We hope that most of the time these will be happy events. Not today. New member Tony Hunter is still on the road to recovery. He was seriously injured in a cycling accident, and is still working (at the Town of Marana) only part-time. Breaking news is that Dan Contorno reports that Tony crashed in exactly the same spot as Dan did earlier this year. It’s referred to as fantasy island and involves a “surprise” 4 ft drop if you happen to wander off to the right. But there is light at the end of this tunnel -- word has it that Tony hopes to see us again in mid-August. Now that will require a real celebration and some happy Breaking News!
 
Guest Speaker:
So today was originally scheduled for Tony to give a talk about himself (“it’s all about Tony”). We were fortunate, though, that the indefatigable Suelee Edwards stepped in for him. Suelee gave a really nice overview of Rotary and our Club activities. Did you know that Rotary has 1.2 million volunteers in 33,000 clubs located in over 200 countries? Rotary was founded in 1905, and women were admitted as members in 1989.
 
At this point in Suelee’s talk there were a number of comments from the audience. Harold Burtzloff told us that in his Rotary club in Liberal, KS, the club President resigned when membership was opened to women.
 
The best Rotary Club in the world, the Marana Rotary Club, was established in 1988. Suelee remarked that we have a reputation for being friendly and diverse, with a great website, and really active for our size. Small & Mighty. Thank you, Suelee, for an engaging presentation!