Meeting recap - February 16, 2016

Linda LaFond opened the meeting with the Pledge and an invocation.

 

Our guest today was Richard Scovill.  Richard saw an article about our club in the paper (nice work, P.R. Committee).

 

Our District governor's newsletter contained a couple of items that seemed of particular interest:

"Rotary Global Rewards" is one more perk of Rotary Membership.  This program entitles Rotarians to discounts from an extensive list of retail and online businesses.  Check it out at Global rewards.

Blaine/Ham Lake Rotary is offering an opportunity to hear Maria Pacheco, founder of Communities of the Earth, speak about her economic development work in Guatemala.  The presentation is at TPC in Blaine on Feb 26th, 7PM.  Click here for details.

 

President Dana noted that the Board will meet next Tuesday at 11AM.

 

Next week's program will feature new member Winie Bradford and Gerry Tietz, showing us how to get more from our website.  Future programs can be found in the left hand column.

 

Don't forget that our March 8 meeting will be offsite at CPY's 5th Annual Spring Luncheon.  The keynote speaker will be John Turnipseed, a great speaker with a compelling message.  The luncheon will be held at the New Brighton Community Center from 12-1 PM (Check-in begins at 11:30).  Click here for details.

 

Paul Founier took the podium to firm up responsibilities for the Gold Plate Dinner, which is only 6 weeks away.  John Marg-Patton, Mark Beisswenger, George Winiecki and Bob Barmore will handle the bingo, Gerry T. and Jim O'Brien will decide on food choices,  Mary Ann Bawden will work with a yet unnamed person on the decorations and printed programs, Cindy Carlson, Glenna Dibrell, Margaret and Gerry Tietz will work on sponsorships, live auction and other fundraising opportunities, Val Johnson and John Ordway will take care of payments at the dinner and Val Johnson will get the gambling license.  If I have erred in recording any of these responsibilities, please let me know and I'll issue a prompt retraction!

 

Cor Wilson introduced today's speaker, Tyler Middleton, VP of Operations, MN for CenturyLink.  Tyler provided an overview of Century Link and I think many were surprised at the size and scope of this 18 billion dollar company.  The company owns and operates 240,000 fiber optic route miles domestically and owns or leases 280,000 more fiber optic route miles internationally, but they  are working at a furious pace to expand their fiber network to bring 1GB service to Minneapolis and 15 other major metropolitan areas across the U.S.  To be clear, 1GB is a thousand megabytes per second, a bandwidth that would have seemed completely unnecessary 10 years ago.  Tyler explained that many home networks now have 20 or more networked devices and that video streaming has led to an exponential increase in bandwidth demand.  Netflix alone accounts for 50% of internet bandwidth!  Fiber-based GB internet also has the advantage of symmetrical upload and download speeds, unlike asymmetrical systems which have upload speeds only 10% of download speeds.  GB internet will also let CenturyLink provide a new internet based television service called Prism TV.  Prism TV will compete directly with Xfinity, breaking the monopolistic stranglehold Comcast has had on TV viewers for so many years.  Prism TV comes with a wireless set-top box with no coaxial cable connection, allowing you to take TV programming to any location, even outside.  With 210 channels of HD content, instant channel changing and  PEG (public, educational and government) available for other Twin-Cities metro communities, CenturyLink should be very competitive with Xfinity.  To find out more, click here.  Dana and Tyler are pictured below.