Next week: We are dark next week for Thanksgiving. Next meeting is Theater Night, Dec. 3, at 8:00 p.m. Arrive early for fellowship!
Prez Jody Stickel opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Guests/Visiting Rotarians: Howard Fisher from Gualala club, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday! Carsten and Susanne Zehm from Starnberg, Germany. Also visiting are locals Kelly Grimes, Jim Douglass, and Denise (sorry I missed her last name) from Headlands Inn.
Visiting Rotarian Howard Fisher.
Visiting Rotarians Carsten and Susanne Zehm.
Happy Dollars:
– Jerry is happy to have had a 25-day trip through mid-America with his wife Cathy!
– Sean is happy that he was at the salmon run last weekend with Trout Unlimited, and our Interact students were there helping out. Also, he is happy that he has a vacation coming up.
– Erich is happy for a great celebration where he cooked for lots of people.
– Kathleen got new computers for her business and the data conversion is, happily, going well.
Visiting Rotarian Carsten Zehm shares gifts for our club to raffle off!
– Carsten is happy that we purchased Rotary Park, which he and his wife donated to last time they were here two years ago. He brought a painting from his Rotary club to ours, and a few other items for our club to raffle off, including coasters, Oktoberfest postcards, and a calendar of beautiful scenes from Germany, and a magnet showing an image of their beautiful hometown. Thank you for your generosity, Carsten and Susanne!)
– Jerry is happy to pony up for his wedding anniversary!
Visiting Rotarians Carsten and Susanne Zehm share gifts with our club.
Announcements:
Dean announced that we will make our Every Rotarian Every Year goal for donations this year, largely accomplished during last week’s polio eradication presentation.
Dean raises funds for Polio Plus.
John P. announced that all theater tickets have sold but 3, for our theater night out on Thursday, Dec. 3 at the Mendocino Theater Company. This should be a fun night out for all! Let him know if you know of any prospective new members who might like to join us.
Ray announced that we need to do another Highway Clean-Up, either Dec. 5 or 12 — it looked like we had a higher possible turnout on Dec. 12. He’ll send out an announcement to meet at 10 a.m. at the St. Anthony’s parking lot. Clean-up activity usually takes about an hour, maybe a little longer. Eula will buy a round of drinks for all clean-up volunteers after we finish our work that day! Hooray! (The number of volunteers increased quite a bit after her offer!)
Today’s Program:
Cornelia has been in touch with Mendocino Historical Review Board (MHRB) and the County about our Rotary Park. We would need a coastal permit to do anything more than landscaping and paths — so perhaps we can do landscaping and paths prior to planning any other more complex development. Let’s do the simple things first… We would have to go to the MHRB for landscaping, but not to the coastal commission. The inscribed pavers we eventually want to put in will have to be planned carefully and approved by both agencies.
Cornelia gets questions from local business owners and others in Mendocino about why we haven’t developed the Park yet. The organizer of the Mendocino Farmer’s Market is probably not interested in using the park, since it is not level, but said that maybe the prepared-food vendors could use the Park.
Matt O’Halloran talked to us about the trees in the Park, which will be trimmed tomorrow with the support of the owners of Sea Gull Inn and Headlands Inn and others. They will only be doing safety trimming (taking out the dangerous branches known as “widow-makers” from the trees), which will result in slightly opened up views for the Inns. There will be be firewood available after the trimming… They will start at 9am tomorrow. There was much discussion about the trees and which ones might be unsafe, both in terms of widow-makers and limbs that can be climbed.
We’ll need to bring in an arborist after the trimming to further evaluate the trees for safety.
Maintenance of the park will be an ongoing issue for the Park. Matt has been paying for the mowing, as his contribution to the Park project. We as Rotarians should pick up trash any time we pass through the park.
The picnic table that is in the Park now was donated by Gary Garcia, and made by Parlin Fork. The question was asked: Should we approach Parlin Fork to build us more tables? We’ve gotten lots of feedback that the picnic table is used a lot, perhaps mostly by transients, though visitors use it as well. The club majority supported the idea of adding two more picnic tables.
Local architect Kelly Grimes shares his thoughts.
Kelly Grimes, local architect, was invited by Matt to join us today and to share his views about Rotary Park. He questioned why to trim the trees tomorrow, when if they’re truly a safety hazard, perhaps we should spend our money and efforts completely removing the eucalyptus trees… As a group, he advises that we need to figure out what we want to do with the Park. He thinks that if we keep adding picnic tables, we may get sued for not having ADA access. We need to develop a plan. He had an idea about creating a stage at the uphill side of the Park, where musicians could play for the Farmers Market, using the natural topography of the Park. If we create a nice place that is open, we do not need to worry about the Park being overtaken by transients, in his opinion.
We need to start planning for our Christmas tree in the Park — we could put it up in about 3 weeks, and have Santa come for the tree lighting like we did last year. Tom Honer offered to provide the tree — thanks, Tom!
Today’s Raffle Winners: Erich and John C. Congrats!
“Remember as you leave that your job as a Rotarian is not ending right now, it’s just beginning.” -Prez Jody
Rotary Park tree trimming, 11/20/15.
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