John Harris - Music Nathan Twining - Invocation New Member Vinson Latimore
Vinson & Roma Latimore Business's
February 7, 2022
Opening Welcome:
President Peter rang the meeting to order at 12:30 PM. The meeting was held in a smaller, cozier room on the first floor of the Sheraton, and Peter asked for feedback from members about making this a permanent change.
Invocation
Nathan Twining gave a particularly timely and meaningful invocation, worthy of sharing:
With the constant negativity of our news cycle, it’s easy to get depressed and lose hope in our world. Indeed, depression and anxiety are two of the leading psychological maladies of our modern times. We all want to be happy, but it can be a challenge when you get sucked into the pessimism that we’re always being bombarded with.
If you investigate studies on Happiness, you’ll often find that there is a recurring theme to what makes people happy. It’s not wealth or station, and neither is it a perpetual state of happiness that you simply attain and remain at. Rather, happiness stems from essentially two traits: gratitude and giving.
So, if you want an antidote for the gloom that may have settled on your heart or that you may feel in the future, try this: each day, reflect on the things you are grateful for and think of ways you can give of your time and resources. Rotary can be a vehicle for those things, but it’s up to us to make it happen. Let us pray:
Lord, please fill our hearts with the gratitude to see and appreciate our many blessings. Help us find the faith to give of ourselves selflessly and generously.
Amen
Book Review by Jack Mulhern: "Lightning Down" by Tom Clavin
This is a true story of a local Whatcom County boy becoming a man. It is historical, educational, inspirational and emotional. It is about the WWII adventures of Joe Moser, who spoke to our Club shortly before he passed away on December 2, 2015 at the age of 95.
The future Army Air Corps P28 pilot was born in Ferndale, WA on September 13, 1921. He was the oldest of 5 kids. He was always asked about his size, being 5 ft 6 in, 130 lbs, and his standard answer was that his mother only had a 3 ½ month pregnancy. Read the book for more details. The family grew up on a farm near Slater Road and Ferndale Road. This is where Joe got his love of airplanes, watching the small planes leave Bellingham's small airport. The old airport had many small fighter aircraft tucked away between the trees, with small taxi ways which became, after the war, a go-cart track and drag strip.
When Joe finished flight school and training, he was sent overseas to join the fight. On August 13, 1944, his plane was shot up and he had to bail out. Captured, he spent time in 5 different prison camps. According to the Geneva convention, he should have been sent to a prisoner of war camp, not to the concentration camps where he spent his time. He was liberated on April 29, 1945. After the war, he struggled with anxiety and terrible dreams. He finally got out and spoke to different groups and told his story and, upon leaving one gathering, he overheard someone say that what they heard could not be true. At 90 years of age, he told his story as he remembered it, along with other fellow prisoners. He and Gerald Baron, a local businessman, collaborated on a book, A Fighter Pilot in Buchenwald, published locally in 2009. Relieved that he had told his true story to his family and friends, he was at peace at last.
Club and Committee Announcements
There will be a Board of Directors meeting this Thursday, February 10, at 3:30 PM on Zoom. Any member may attend; contact Sandee for the link.
The Super Bowl numbers for February 13th are: (Click Here)
There were no committee announcements this week except remember to get your Community Boating Center pledge forms in ASAP to avoid a phone call.
You will still receive an email from Sandee each week prior to the Monday 12:30 meeting if you are unable to attend in person (you can start logging in at 12:00 for short socializing) with the link for that privacy-protected meeting. If you have not done so, please download the Zoom app on your computer (you need a camera and microphone on it), iPad or phone. There is no cost to you. If you do not have either, you can also call in. On the invitation, there are US phone numbers you can call and enter the meeting ID number also indicated on the invitation. HERE ARE ZOOM INSTRUCTIONS.
Four Points is now requiring a Contract thru March 2022. We will continue to evaluate other locations for a permanent location. Lunch will be $22 for a sit-down meal. We must notify them by Wednesday at 4:00 pm each week prior to the Monday meeting as to the number of members attending. We are sending out meeting “Invite's” weekly and members are asked to sign-up ASAP. You can also sign-up by going to the event section of our website at bellinghamrotary.org. If you sign up for a meal at the meeting, you will need to pay the $22 even if you don't wind up attending the meeting after numbers are turned in. If you plan to attend but not eat, PLEASE indicate that on your sign-up so we don't overorder meals and still make sure there is enough seating.
Four Points also will not collect the payment weekly, so the Club will collect payments prior to the meeting or at the door.
We urge members of the RCOB to set up a Venmo account for ease in payment of Meeting lunches, Happy Bucks, Minister of Fun, Dues or donations to the club. Our account is @RCOB-Bellingham. If you do not have a Venmo account you can set up an account with your computer then download the app. on your phone (just Google "Venmo" and you will find all the information you need) You then attach it to a debit or credit card (a fee on your end) or attach to your checking account at no cost. Payment will be sent directly to the RCOB checking account. When you use it for the first time it may ask you the last 4 digits of the RCOB phone number which is 0282. Give Sandee a call if you need help. 360-734-5532
Other payment options are to bring a check in the correct amount to the meeting made out to RCOB or cash in the exact amount to speed up the payment process. There is also the PayPal option as usual and we are set to take payments at the meeting. We have a QR Code that you can simply click on to pay thru paypal also.
Website and Phone App instructions:
Here is a tutorial on how to login for the first time. (Click here) Go to bellinghamrotary.org first. In order to login you need to know your user name and password in your Clubrunner account. The user name is Yourfirstname.Lastname.264 unless you have changed it. Example: Sandra.Lindhout.264 The password is initially set by Clubrunner at 264 unless you have changed it. Sandee can see your Username from her computer but not the password. She can also change your password for you from her computer at your request if you run into problems.
Once you have originally created your User Name and Password you can download the ClubRunner Mobile app on your phone:
Please contact Sandee at 360-734-5532 or rcob@comcast.net if you run into any trouble.
Guests:
Chuck Snyder and Gary Goldfogel joined us from Arizona
Other members who were on Zoom: Bob Morse, Roland Trenouth, Del VandeKerk, Dennis Williams, John Pedlow, Ken Marzocco, Ward & Shauna Naf, John Moffat, Robin Halliday, Andy Day, Monty McAllister, Dick Tucker and Ann Jones.
Presentation:
New Member Talk by Vinson Latimore
Vinson owns Gibraltar Business Group. He was born in South Carolina, graduated from the University of South Carolina (the real USC!!), moved to Seattle for grad school at UW, where he earned an MBA. He then moved to Bellingham in 2007, and acquired his first business in 2011. Vinson credits RCOB member Doug Cole for believing in him and helping him immensely in getting established in Bellingham. He married his wife Roma in 2012. They have a cat named Reuben and a Doberman named Mae Mae.
Vinson's community service activities include membership in Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, YMCA board member since 2016, on the Whatcom Racial Equity Commission since 2021, Rotarian in Seattle, 2006-2009, and member of RCOB since 2020. He enjoys golf, snowboarding, working on cars and farming. He and his wife own a 20-acre farm with trees and a mini-orchard. (If anyone wants to help prune next weekend, he’s got extra boots and gloves!)
Vinson's work expertise is in Medicare, Medicaid, long-term care and medical equipment and supplies. He owned and operated and recently sold Gibraltar Senior Living in Tacoma. Opening in Spring 2023 is his 50-bed Ritzville Memory Care Center near Spokane. He has 3 retail medical equipment and supplies store locations, called Choices, and his wife manages Bellingham Wedding and Event Rentals, and Peacock Invites. He enjoys being a resource around long-term healthcare needs. If you wish to connect, call him at 206-250-6873.
Program: Rodd Pemble, SSC Trash Talk: Where Does it All Go?
Program Chair Doug Cole introduced our program speaker, Rodd Pemble: Rodd has been the Recycling and Safety Manager for Sanitary Service Company since 1996. SSC covers over 45,000 residential, commercial, and institutional customers. Over the last thirty years, Rodd provided on-site technical assistance in waste prevention, reuse, and recycling to thousands of localbusinesses, government agencies and public institutions in Whatcom County. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Washington State Refuse and Recycling Association since 2009. He is currently Chair of the Government Affairs Committee of the Association. Rodd was the chair of the Built Green Board of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County from 2012-14, and chair of the Green Team for the annual Ski to Sea Festival.
He served from 2003-2009 on the Whatcom County Solid Waste Advisory Committee and currently serves as Chair.
Rodd is a graduate of The Evergreen State College, the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, and the University of Tennessee - Chattanooga. He has volunteered on all of the Bellingham Greenways campaigns, was president of the Birchwood Neighborhood Association from 1996-2002, and continues today as a volunteer trail builder with the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition. Rodd is an avid road and mountain biker, bicycling to work daily for 26 years. He has been married 36 years to his wife Janie and lives in the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood.
Whatcom County sends its trash to two out-of-county landfills, which are located in drier climates, thereby causing less contamination of ground water:
Bellingham’s residential waste ships by rail to Klickitat County, WA, near Yakima. Interestingly, a West German company is now mining the capped landfills to extract metals. There is also a methane gas recovery program, aligning with the Climate Action plan, that harvests the gas that comes from biodegrading organic matter in the landfill. The gas is collected, refined, and used as energy to run their operations. Any left over is sold. Commercial waste and county waste is shipped by truck to Columbia Ridge, OR.
The City of Bellingham has asked SSC to change its curbside 3-bin recycling to one large bin, single stream recycling because of the potential energy and financial savings due to less labor and less gas. For that reason, 3-bin recycling is becoming extremely rare in Washington and around the country. SSC will soon be doing a pilot project for single stream recycling on the South Side of Bellingham for six months to assess efficaciousness. Some of the anticipated challenges are that 15-30% of single stream is contaminated, whereas only 1% of 3-bin is contaminated. The mills love Bellingham’s recycling because it’s so clean. The hope is that Bellingham has been so well educated with 3-bin that a switch to single stream will continue with clean material. That’s the recycling Holy Grail: clean single stream!
Final Announcement:
President Peter thanked all those members who made this meeting possible and rang us to adjournment at 1:35 PM.
