Announcements
(notes provided by the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, Ed Perry)

Temperatures and wind chills below zero did not deter many stout hearted Rotarian’s from making this morning’s meeting!

Chuck announced that Kathy Rector has set up a Rotary Leadership conference at Richland Community College on Saturday February 15th. See Chuck to get signed up.

Our Club’s next social gathering will be at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at “Krannert Uncorked” on Thursday, February 6th at 5pm. Join in with wine, friendly conversation and music performed by singer/songwriters Emilt Otnes and Megan Johns. Emily Otnes—a performer at the Pygmalion Music Festival and the Champaign-Urbana Folk and Roots Festival—combines folk, pop, and jazz in her original compositions. Returning Uncorked artist Megan Johns brings edge and dark wisdom to her folk music.

The annual “All Rotarian Club Meeting” will be at noon on Wednesday, March 12 at the Round Barn Conference Center. This meeting will take the place of our regularly scheduled meeting that week.

Program

Rick Schoell presented information and highlights about his career as the former Executive Director of External Relations for the University of Illinois. As Director, he was involved in the federal, state and private activities involving all of the campuses for the University of Illinois.

Rick started in 1987 and has been active in the many changes and growth that took place at the U of I. He touched on the U of I budgets, which climbed from $2 billion to over $5 billion, and student enrollment which is currently at 77,000 students enrolled throughout the state and of that 44,000 are on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Rick talked about the growth of the physical plant with over 800 buildings and 2,400 acres. He commented on the Research Park, NCSA, Bluewater, Beckman, relationships between the U of I and the State of Illinois regarding pensions, grants, endowments and U of I sports.

Rick presented interesting insight and an overall knowledge of many recent events that have taken place here at the University of Illinois. Now that he is retired, Rick spends time volunteering for several local community activities, stays active on pension reform issues, does a local jazz radio show, and continues to contribute to our community.

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Upcoming Schedule

January 30th – Christine Catanzarite, Director, OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars

February 6th – TBD

February 13th – Ken Buel, Past District Governor from Missouri and current Champaign Rotarian, will discuss the Foundation

February 20th – Patrick Mackay, President, 004 Technologies USA

February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center

March 6th – TBD

Wednesday, March 12th – All Club meeting at the Round Barn Conference Center

Mar 20th – TBD

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(notes provided by the erudite, Mary Hodson)

The March 13 meeting will be cancelled in favor of the March 12 All Rotary Area Meeting at Round Barn.

The next EIFB food truck distribution will be in Bement on January 25.  Sign up at the website or by contacting Phillip.

Contact Erik Batsie if you are interested in joining Rantoul “Bowl for Kids Sake”

RYLA will be held on April 11-13.  Please contact Andrew if you can help with mock job interviews on the 12th.

Rod announced that his business will have an open house Tuesday from 4-6 PM.

PROGRAM  

Mary introduced Dennis Roberts, member of the Urbana City Council and chair of the Sister City Committee.

Sister Cities International was started during the Eisenhower Administration.  Eisenhower believed that governments were too big to accomplish peace, but individuals could. The program is autonomous and independent.   It costs $450 per year for a city to belong to the program and it receives 15% of its income from the U.S. State Department.

The program got started in Urbana when a U of I graduate student whose father was mayor of E Mei,China, contacted Dennis.  After establishing the first sister city relationship, Dennis became aware of the Urbana First Presbyterian Church’s relationship with Malawi.  

Malawi, located in South East Africa, is one of the smallest and poorest nations of Africa.  The per capita income is $250.   Rotarian Don Mason, pastor of the Urbana  Presbyterian Church, along with his congregation, erected a church in the village of Domasi, near Zomba, and with the help of villagers, have dug over 700 shallow wells in the area.  These wells have drastically reduced the incidence of diphtheria and cholera. 

Through the church, Dennis established a sister city relationship with the villagers of Domasi.  The City of Urbana has since applied for and received two $100,000 Gates Foundation grants.  The first was used to put toilets in the Domasi school and to build an absolution block, with toilets, showers and laundry at the hospital.  

The second grant was to be used to foster a professional exchange between two sister cities.  People from Domasi traveled to E. Mei China to see their waste management plant and officials from E. Mei traveled to Domasi.

For its efforts, Urbana was named the 2012 Sister City of the Year.  Now they are working on establishing another sister city relationship, this time with a small town in France.

Dennis invited us to attend the Sister City Committee meetings, held on the third Wednesday of each month at the City Building and  the State of Illinois Sister City Association annual meeting, which will be held at the Landmark Hotel on April 12-13,2014.

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Upcoming Schedule

January 23rd – Rick Schoell, former Executive Director for External Relations for the University of Illinois

January 30th – Christine Catanzarite, Director, OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars

February 6th – TBD

February 13th – TBD

February 20th – Patrick Mackay, President, 004 Technologies USA

February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center

March 6th – TBD

March 13th – Dr. Stephen Boppart, Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC

Announcements

(notes provided by the striped-tie-wearing Allan Penwell)

Benny Lapid jointed us remotely from Israel.  His singing helped carry the club through its usual off-key, off-note, off-kilter musical efforts.

Program

John McDaniel introduced Paul Davis and Dave Shaul who are two veterans in the broadcasting business.  They thoroughly entertained us with the history of WCIA along with a few war stories.

Dave was with WCIA from 1962 through 1999 and then went on to work for WDWS.  Paul was with WCIA from 1960-1980 and was station manager.  He then moved to Chicago as news director at WGN Television.  Paul has received national industry awards for his career in broadcasting.

In Paul’s tenure, WCIA developed extensive news programming with not only a show at dinner time but one in the evening.  Because of this, it had a huge audience share and was dominant in the market place.  Things are more challenging today because of the plethora of cable shows, but WCIA still continues as the local market leader.

Many personalities have come out of the WCIA ranks which we can remember with the top of the list being the Channel 3 weatherman, Mr. Roberts.  Others include Judy Fraser, Jerry Slabe, Tom Schoendienst, and Cindy Close.  Most well-known is Dan Roan who started his sports broadcasting at WCIA and then went on to WGN many years ago.  Also, don’t forget about the live kids shows with Sheriff Sid and Captain Eddie and the afternoon teen dance show, The Hop.

Probably not amusing at the time, but there were occasionally accidental school closings reported because of bad weather.  Paul noted they closed Parkland, Sullivan, and some others.  As a gag, someone slipped into one of the closings that Katsinas was also closed, and it was read on the air.  (Katsinas was the bar and restaurant across the street from the station).

Here’s a picture of the young Paul Davis whose favorite beer must have been Schlitz.

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Upcoming Schedule

January 16th – Dennis Roberts will discuss the Urbana Sister City Program

January 23rd – Rick Schoell, former Executive Director for External Relations for the University of Illinois

January 30th – Chris Catanzarite from OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars

February 6th – TBD

February 13th – TBD

February 20th – Patrick Mackay, President, 004 Technologies USA

February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center

March 6th – TBD

March 13th – Dr. Stephen Boppart, Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC

Announcements
(notes provided by the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, Ed Perry)

The snow and cold temperatures could not deter the first meeting of 2014 or dampen the spirits and song quality of the club!

Andrew announced that Barb has broken her foot while preparing for the Winter Olympics and is now in a boot case and looking at 8 to 10 weeks recovery time. Good luck in Sochi, Barb!

Club members are asked to sign up for the service projects that take place this month for Eastern Illinois Food Bank. Please contact Phillip for more information on EIFB’s January Re-pack and also the EIFB’s Community Food distribution on Saturday, January 25th from 9 to Noon in Bement, IL. 

Program

CUSR Club member Dr. Kris Young, Vice President for Academic Services at Parkland College, presented information on the Parkland College Institute of Aviation at the University of Illinois. Kris and Parkland’s CFO have been directly involved in the discussions between the University of Illinois and Parkland College. The U of I began the initial discussions with Parkland College about taking over the program from the U of I.  After approximately three years of negotiations, and declining the offer due to concerns that included financial risks and the fact that Parkland knew very little about running an aviation department, a final agreement was reached. The agreement calls for Parkland to lease the 29 planes as well as facilities and classroom space from the U of I for a mere $2 per year.

The Parkland pilot training program (tagline: Snakes on a Plane) will begin in August 2014 and Parkland has hired Riverside Research to provide support for the first three years of the program. Riverside Research is a national firm with offices in Champaign and has ties with the U of I in aviation research. Riverside Research will oversee many of the day to day aviation operations and FFA regulations while Parkland runs the academic programs and has oversight responsibilities.  Riverside is on the cutting edge on research into uses of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAS and UAVs can be used to monitor environmental and agricultural land areas.   

Parkland’s goal for is to have 90 students enrolled in the program this fall and each year increase those numbers. Kris pointed out that at its high point the U of I had over 200 students enrolled at the Institute for Aviation. Parkland took over the program with guarded optimism as there is a need for this training and job opportunities. The two year technical program is a good fit with the mission of Parkland College.   Credit transfers with the U of I and EIU are complete and are currently being finalized with SIU. 

While regular classroom costs will be in line with Parkland’s regular course fees, there will be a need for additional flight fees of $4,000 to $6,000 per course. Parkland has also hired Sybil Phillips, past U of I Aviation  Institute’s Head and Chief Pilot, as Parkland’s Chair for this new department. At this time Parkland will not be teaching airplane maintenance but may add it in the future as it could be integrated with their current car and diesel training programs.  

Kris noted these are exciting times and that the Parkland College’s Institute of Aviation will meet Parkland’s overall mission and will help to fill the current and future needs of students who wish to enter into the expanding aviation field.   

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Upcoming Schedule

January 9th – David Shaul and Paul Davis will discuss WCIA and Channel 3

January 16th – Dennis Roberts will discuss the Urbana Sister City Program

January 23rd – Rick Schoell, former Executive Director for External Relations for the University of Illinois

January 30th – Chris Catanzarite from OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars

February 6th – TBD

February 13th – TBD

February 20th – TBD

February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center

March 6th – TBD

March 13th – Dr. Stephen Boppart, Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC

Announcements

Notes are light this week.  Please keep Barb Lintner in your thoughts and prayers as she recovers from a broken bone in her foot

Program

Alan Nudo and Steve Becket gave a highly informational presentation on the need to reform the redistricting process in Illinois.  Their proposal is based on efforts in California and other states, and is being pushed statewide to be put on the ballot.

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Upcoming Schedule

January 2nd – Dr. Kris Young will speak about Parkland’s new Institute for Aviation

January 9th – TBD

January 16th – Dennis Roberts will discuss the Urbana Sister City Program

January 23rd -TBD

January 30th – Chris Catanzarite from OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars

February 6th – TBD

February 13th – TBD

February 20th – TBD

February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center

March 6th – TBD

March 13th – Dr. Stephen Boppart, Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC