The meeting was opened with an invocation by Mary

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(notes provided by the venerable Neal Chamberlain)

The District Conference will be held May 3 & 4, 2014 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Champaign.

Scott announced the need for volunteers for the Interact International Fair, Central High School, April 3, 5:30 pm (help needed for booth set up).

Rod announced “The Journey Into Dyslexia”, March 31, 6:30 pm, Douglas Branch Public Library, 504 E. Grove Street, Champaign, IL.  This is a film screening Sponsored by C-U Rotary Club.  Please come join and assist our club in making this a great event.

Paul Conforti related his good vacation experiences in 80 degree weather in Arizona.  He enjoyed attending a spring training Cub baseball game.  However Paul was unhappy about a “prized foul ball” which flew into his section was snatched-up by a Cardinal fan (poor Cubs fans, they never get any breaks).

PROGRAM

Speaker of the day, Bruce Hannon, President and Director of the Land Conservation Foundation, was introduced by Tom Ulen.

Hannon stated “The Land Conservation Foundation” is organized and financed privately; it is not under government control. It is supported by private grants and donations. The foundation’s primary objectives are preservation, restoration and education.

Hannon noted that the foundation’s current project is the restoration and preservation of the wooded area along the Sangamon River between Monticello and Allerton Park.  In years past the area near the banks of the river was covered with trees and foliage.  However, land along the river has been sold and cleared of trees in order to allow for farming.  Therefore, coverage of plant life along the river has been fragmented.  The foundations plans include the following:

*Acquire, by purchase or donation, the land alongside the river which is currently privately owned.  These areas will be replanted with trees and shrubs.

*Restore and repair the existing levy (levy has been breeched 6 times).  The levy will restore flood control and provide a trail for hikers leading from Monticello to Allerton.

*Through these purchases and erosion control measures, the natural beauty and the wild game habitat will be restored.

Hannon said the foundation finds a wide variance in land owner’s willingness to cooperate with the foundation’s endeavors.  Some owners are very cooperative and encourage the use of the area by the general public.  However, there are others who are skeptical and fear that strangers will bring problems and prefer that they stay out of the area.  Some of these strangers are no doubt even stranger than Neal Chamberlain.

A note of interest about our speaker: As a hobby (avocation) Bruce Hannon repairs and restores old clocks, many of them in public buildings.

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Upcoming Schedule

April 3rd – Carly McCrory, Communications Director, Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, will discuss the 2014 Innovation Celebration Winners

April 10th – Jan Kane will discuss her mission trips to Haiti

April 17th – Varkki George, an urban planner who lived and worked for seven years in Dubai

April 24th – Dr. Stephen Boppart

May 1st – Samual Byndom, Director of Urbana Adult Education

May 8th – TBD

May 15th – Pat Titus, Titus Farms, representing the Illinois Pork Board

Announcements

(Notes provided by Allan Penwell).

Ata presented the club with a plaque from Konak RC and club president, Sureyya Percin.  This was a joint project to give the Behcat Uz Children’s Hospital an Innowalk medical device that helps disabled children to walk.  The cost was $51,700, and it was a joint project among our Rotary club, the Kassel-Hofgeismar Rotary Club in Germany, and the Konak Rotary Club in Izmir, Turkey.  Our club contributed $2,000 along with the other two clubs, along with grants from District 6490 and The Rotary Foundation.  This global grant was truly an international effort.

Rod announced that our club is sponsoring the HBO documentary, Journey Into Dyslexia which runs from 6:30-8:00pm on Monday, March 31^st at Douglass Library.  Barb Lintner was instrumental in obtaining the grant for this showing.  Volunteers are requested.

Tod Satterthwaite is back from our district PETS (Presidents-Elect Training Seminar) in Effingham.  He’s fired-up to be club president this summer and passed out the new Rotary themed pins, “Light Up Rotary.”

District 6490 Conference is Saturday May 3^rd and Sunday May 4^th at the Hilton Garden Inn.  Save the date.

The RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) is Saturday, April 12 at Allerton, and volunteers are needed to help with interviewing students in the afternoon.  Please contact Andrew if you are available.

Program

Jim Dey, opinion editor of the News-Gazette, was our speaker.  Jim discussed local, state, and national politics.  He noted that many races for local and state offices will be competitive and thus will mean increased political spending.  Get ready for more mailings and robocalls!

Jim also discussed the challenges facing the newspaper industry, including the lost revenue due to Craigslist taking away classified customers and no longer having the contract to print the Chicago Tribute for downstate customers.  Jim noted that the News-Gazette has undergone numerous cuts in order to stay profitable, but changes continue to be made.  Last year the paper started charging for online content, but that part of the business is still developing.

Jim mentioned the importance of the letters to the editor section.  Several comments and questions were directed at this subject, and Jim diplomatically addressed the fact that the section is an open community forum and it is healthy to have such dialogue.  The anonymous online comments are a completely different matter.  Be careful before you jump into chatting with that bunch of hooligans!

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Upcoming Schedule

March 27th – Bruce Hannon, President and Director of the Land Conservation Foundation

April 3rd – Carly McCrory, Communications Director, Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, will discuss the 2014 Innovation Celebration Winners

April 10th – Jan Kane will discuss her mission trips to Haiti

April 17th – Varkki George, an urban planner who lived and worked for seven years in Dubai

April 24th – Dr. Stephen Boppart

May 1st – Samual Byndom, Director of Urbana Adult Education

May 8th – TBD

May 15th – Pat Titus, Titus Farms, representing the Illinois Pork Board

Announcements

There are no notes this week because last week’s meeting was the all-area club meeting at the Round Barn Center.

Bowl For Kids’ Sake

Thanks to these loyal C-U Surnise Rotarians who braved icy roads, warm beer, and bad bowling skills in order to raise money for charity.  And a special thanks to Scott Paceley for his humorous pose (that’s similar to what the kids would call a photo bomb).

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Upcoming Schedule

March 20th – Jim Dey, Opinions Editors at the News-Gazette

March 27th – Bruce Hannon, President and Director of the Land Conservation Foundation

April 3rd – Carly McCrory, Communications Director, Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, will discuss the 2014 Innovation Celebration Winners

April 10th – Jan Kane will discuss her mission trips to Haiti

April 17th – Varkki George, an urban planner who lived and worked for seven years in Dubai

April 24th – Dr. Stephen Boppart

May 1st – TBD

May 8th – TBD

May 15th – Pat Titus, Titus Farms, representing the Illinois Pork Board

Announcements

(Notes provided by Allan Penwell, bowling team extraordinaire)

Jeff Van Buren was pleased to tell us that we will have a young woman from Spain who will be our visiting Rotary scholar for the next year.  We do not yet know details of her name or home town.  There is one family for her to live with, and we need two more.  They do not need to be Rotarians.

Scott Pacely reports that the Central Interact Club is having their international fair on April 3, 2014.  Volunteers are needed to set up and take down.  See Scott.

We received a thank-you letter from Eastern Illinois Food Bank with respect to the $5,000 donation they received from C-U Sunrise Rotary.

This is a reminder for those that have signed up that the all-area Rotary meeting is this coming Wednesday, April 12^th.

Mary Hodson posted the following on Facebook and asked Rotarians to help:

I was reading at Head Start (in Rantoul) and asked the teacher if the children had made snowmen. She sadly replied that they couldn’t play outside because not enough of the children had boots. She plans to go to garage sales and collect a boxful of boots to keep on hand. Can you help us collect gently used children’s boots, sizes 10-13, give or take a little? Or you can send a donation for “boots” to Champaign County Head Start in care of me at 2011 O Donnell Dr., Champaign, IL 61821. Thanks!

Larry Johnson is back from Hawaii and gave our club a banner from the Maui Rotary Club.

Rod Roberts is looking for our club’s assistance with an upcoming movie screening.  The movie, Journey Into Dyslexia, will be shown at 6:30pm on March 31^st, 2014 at the Douglass Branch Public Library (504 E. Grove St, C).  Rod would like CUSR members to help get the word out about the event, and he would appreciate a few people willing to volunteer to help on the night of the screening.  Rod will have fliers at an upcoming meeting.  Please talk to him for further details.

Late Breaking News

Everyone at Western Bowl had a great time last Friday evening.  There were two highlights especially worth noting.  First, Bruce Hatfield had high score of 170 (yes, we were just as surprised as you were Bruce).  Second, Tod Satterthwaite had a turkey in the tenth frame of the first game and followed it up with a fourth strike in the first frame of the second game.  The real highlight was that we raised $1,500 for Big Brothers Big Sisters.  Many thanks to Dave Krchak for organizing our club’s participation in this important annual event.

Several of us were at the Savoy Rotary Pancake Breakfast on Saturday morning, and names are being sent in as a make-up.  Allan Penwell won the 50-50 raffle for $111.00 which he is matching as a contribution to the Rotary Foundation.

Program

Mary introduced Lin Warfel of the Champaign Rotary Club who really needed no introduction because he has been a frequent visiting Rotarian to our club.  Lin is in his 52^nd year of farming the family farm which was established in 1882.  He is in his 24^th year of serving on the Parkland board which includes two years as chairman.  This is his third year on the board of the Champaign County Farm Bureau.  Lin has five children and is also the author of Song of the Prairie, which is a composition of 118 poems that he has written.

Lin began his presentation by saying, “It is a fascinating time to be a farmer, but it is also a good time to be a citizen of Illinois.”  We have the best farmland in the country, great universities, great research, thriving businesses, and great medical care. This is the most exciting time of his farming career to be in farming.  In the past he farmed 2,000 acres, but now it is only 800 acres which he can handle by himself with today’s farm equipment.

He began writing poetry when he was out in the field on his tractor or combine and used a Sharpie to write on the cab windows.  In the past you could not do this, but with today’s GPS technology, there is no need to steer as the machine moves itself.  The N-G editor, John Foreman, found out that Lin was a poet and wanted to publish his work.  After a year or so, Lin agreed to let the newspaper move ahead with the project.  It is for sale at the News-Gazette, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.  Any profits go to Parkland College.

In closing, Lin read his poem, Farmer Epiphany written in April 2010.  It begins

A year of planning

goes into the boxes

in the form of little seeds….

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Upcoming Schedule

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

March 20th – Jim Dey, Opinions Editors at the News-Gazette

March 27th – Bruce Hannon, President and Director of the Land Conservation Foundation

April 3rd – Carly McCrory, Communications Director, Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, will discuss the 2014 Innovation Celebration Winners

April 10th – Jan Kane will discuss her mission trips to Haiti

April 17th – TBD

April 24th – Dr. Stephen Boppart