The View, 7/9/15, Mendocino High School

Next week: Lindsay will present a program… be sure to be here!

Prez Jody Stickels opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, and a rousing rendition of God Bless America.

Guest: Noah Gold, today’s speaker from the faculty of Mendocino High School.

Visiting Rotarians: Doug Hammerstrom and Tim Bosma, both from Fort Bragg Rotary.

Guest Noah Gold, today’s speaker.

Visiting Rotarian AG Doug Hammerstrom.

Happy Dollars:

Jerry’s happy!

– Jerry is happy that John P is here, and not stuck in the Ukraine needing money wired from us.

– John P is happy that at least one Rotarian offered to help with $5.
– Tom is happy that South Carolina’s confederate flag is being retired!
– John C is still happy that he’s not the club’s president anymore.
– Pete was happy to share a thought for the day about the difference between optimists and pessimists.

Pete shares his happy thought for the day.

Sunshine Report:

We received report that Walt McKeown, a regular speaker at our club, is recovering well from surgery. We were shocked to hear that club member Jeffry S’s daughter passed away suddenly this past weekend – our hearts go out to him and his family.

Announcements:

Kira shares vital info about our Golf Tournament, 8/22/15.

Kira updated us on the status of our biggest fundraiser left for this year, the Mendocino Rotary Club Golf Tournament! It will be on Saturday, August 22, 2015, starting at 8:00 a.m. at the Little River Inn Golf Course. Harvest Market will help with food and vendors (thank you, Harvest Market!!). There will be several food and drink stations, including sliders, a cheese station, and a Bloody Mary bar in the morning, and more!  There will also be a BBQ lunch, tee prizes, a raffle and auction. Kira will have a sign-up sheet to pass around next week, so think about where you want to help. We need a clean-up crew for sure. Hole sponsors are extremely important ($50/each), as all this funding comes straight to the club. Kira passed out hole sponsor and donation letters, and team sign up sheets. Please do your best to get several hole sponsors to sign up! Club members should each also donate at least one raffle prize, such as wine or gift certificates, valued at least $25+. The better the raffle prizes, the more raffle tickets we will sell. Hole sponsorships are tax deductible for businesses as advertisement. The success of this event will determine how much we have to spend on our club activities next year. It’s important!!

Jerry gave us a 4th of July report — all the American flags and ice cream coupons were given out, as well as the 50 candy bars, to kids attending the event. It was great fun! A successful event in the park!!

Jody announced that our next Board meeting will be Monday, July 20, at Mendocino Hotel at 12:00 noon; please bring $20 for lunch if you want to eat. All members are welcome to attend this Board meeting.

Today’s Program:

Speaker Noah Gold.

Jody introduced today’s speaker: Noah Gold is the athletics director at Mendocino High School, and also the career counselor, student body advisor, and scholarship coordinator. He’s spent 8 years so far in this job, and loves it. He thanked our club for our consistent giving through our scholarship program, as he’s seen the positive impact it has on the high school kids.

Noah used to be a jewelry sales person in New York, climbing the corporate ladder. It was not a fulfilling career for him, though. He had a friend in Mendocino, and had the time and money to help out with the girls basketball team at Mendocino High School when they had a need. This was his first stint at coaching, and he found his calling. Soon after, the athletic director position opened up, and he applied and got the job. When the career counselor job opened up, they smashed the two jobs together so that Noah could have a full time job.

Athletics Director role: in this small school, the athletics program is competitive, but not with overbearing pressure. Kids who have never tried a sport before can try it and contribute to the teams here. They have almost 80 athletes every year, in a school of 200. He doesn’t know of other schools that have 40% of the student body involved in sports. They’ve had a two year winning streak in football, and the volleyball team is strong. The basketball teams are strong, with two full teams of 12 players each. They revised their sports policy in the last year to better define the expectation of sportsmanship, with an emphasis to be gracious hosts and to win and lose gracefully.

As student council advisor, he works with student government weekly, to see how they can better serve the community. He has a group of students who are ready, willing, able and it’s their job to serve the community. We should let him know if we could use some help… Set up an appointment with him to explain what we need, and they’ll line up some manpower to help.

Career counselor role: 75-80% of MHS students go on to higher education. The guidance counselor helps these students. Noah’s role is to help the other 25% of students navigate their way into the working world with a sense of direction. This is among the most rewarding parts of his job. He’d like to partner with local business owners to help these kids get right into meaningful work right out of high school.

The high school does a career fair every other year on Fort Bragg High’s campus. Local business people come in and share what they know about the various careers the kids have expressed interest in. Mendocino High and Fort Bragg High combine efforts on this event.

An audience member asked if they are willing to set up a “life skills” set of talks for MHS students, on topics such as basic personal finance, insurance basics, stock market basics, and the like. This had happened in the past, but it’s been a few years. Noah offered to serve as a bridge with the faculty at MHS to see if we can set this up again.

Today’s raffle winners: Erich and Noah, who each took home a bottle of wine.

Jody closes today’s meeting with the raffle.