Meeting Recap - June 7, 2016

President-Elect John Risdall (subbing for President Dana) opened the meeting with the Pledge. Sue Ager offered the invocation.

 

Prospective members Gina Jacques and Michelle Fettig visited the club for the second time.

Val Johnson introduced her guest, Profulla Pradhan, a Rotarian visiting us from Katmandu, Nepal. Profulla was in the Twin Cities to visit his nephew and found us via our website. He and Val are both members of WASRAG, a Rotary Action Group focused on water and sanitation issues.

 

Gerry Tietz made several announcements:

 

Next week's program will be poet and teacher Lynette Reini-Grandell.

 

John Risdall provided a Cuisinart Griddler for auction at the meeting. Thanks for your generosity, John!

 

NOTE: C.U. Companies is expanding into the area currently occupied by D.D.'s, and D.D.'s will be closing its doors at the end of June.  We have decided to relocate our Tuesday meetings to the Exchange, just across the street. Our first meeting in the new location will be July 5th.  If you have an opportunity to thank the folks at D.D.'s for their catering services over the past several years, I'm sure they would appreciate it.

 

Mike Neeley introduced our speaker, Fridley/Columbia Heights Rotarian Roy Goslin.  Roy is no stranger to most NBMV Rotarians...he's spoken to the club in the past and has been a very generous contributor of several wine tasting parties to help raise funds for our club projects.  Roy began his presentation with some background on South African wine production. As a South African Native, Roy is understandably partial to South African wines, but Roy makes a strong argument for the quality and value of wines from his native land.  South Africa has the strictest wine production laws in the world, and these laws are supported by vintners intent on being the best wine region in the world. These laws severely limit the use of chemicals and require labeling on every bottle that traces the contents back to the vineyard.  Roy and his wife Diane travel to South Africa for two months each year, tasting 650-800 wines to identify the wines that represent the best value, concentrating on the "sweet spot" from $8-20. A favorable exchange rate of 1.5 to 1 makes it easy to provide stellar quality wines in this economical price range.  Roy's company, Z wines, has the largest selection of South African wines in the U.S and you can find them at quality liquor stores all around the Twin Cities and Minnesota.

 

Roy and Diane's trips to South Africa have made them critically aware of the privileges that we enjoy in this country and this awareness leads them to offer their resources to benefit those who are less privileged.  One disparity that they see is the lack of government support for preschool education in South Africa.  Well to do families can afford preschool, but children from poorer families are educationally well behind their more fortunate peers as they enter elementary school.  Roy and Diane would like to help by seeking a Rotary Matching Grant to help build preschool classrooms from used shipping containers.  The grant has been approved, in principle, by the grants committee and the Fridley/Columbia Heights Rotary Club has agreed to raise $5,000 of the $7,500 needed to provide the classrooms. Roy is looking for support from our club, and others, to raise the remaining $2,500.  After District and International matches and the local club's participation, the total project cost would be $34,000 to provide preschool education for 600 students over the next 10 years.  Roy hopes to have the project completed prior to the start of the school year in January, 2017. Roy is pictured below.

 

At the conclusion of the meeting, our guest from Nepal, Profulla Pradhan, presented us with a banner from his club (see photo below).