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Executives & Directors
President
Matt Ruppert
 
President Elect
Julian Easter
 
Immediate Past President
Bryant Powell
 
Secretary
Jacquie Smith
 
Treasurer
Dan Govinsky
 
Director - Sergeant at Arms
Aaron McDermid
 
Director
Len LaFlesch
 
Director
Tracey K. Yamamoto
 
Director
Brian Kabat
 
Chair - Club District Foundation Grants
Len LaFlesch
 
Chair - Club Membership
Len LaFlesch
 
Co-Chair - Club Rotary Foundation
Bob Crow
 
Co-Chair - Club Rotary Foundation
Dan Govinsky
 
Co-Chair - Interact Club of Apache Junction High School
Tracey K. Yamamoto
 
Co-Chair - Interact Club of Apache Junction High School
Heather Itz
 
Bulletin Editor
Robert Homann
 
Webmaster
Dan Govinsky
 
Russell Hampton
National Awards Services Inc.
Sage
Club Information
Welcome to our Club!
Superstition Mountain
Service Above Self
We meet Wednesdays at 12:10 PM
Gold Canyon Golf Resort
6100 S. Kings Ranch Road
Gold Canyon, AZ  85118
United States
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District Site
 
VenueMap
Venue Map
Stories
GUESTS AND VISITORS
Posted by Robert Homann on Oct 14, 2015
​Two out-of-state Rotarians visited our club today. They were Barbara Hanna of the Riverside (CA) East Rotary Club and Leland Smithson from the Cedar Rapids, IA club which has over 400 members!  Cheryl Kramer was a guest of Harvey Clark and Anjah Baig was a guest of her husband Fareed Baig. Vicky McLaughlin, our speaker, was also a club guest.
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND CLUB BUSINESS
Posted by Robert Homann on Oct 14, 2015
  • ​President Matt announced that the new Meridian/U.S. 60 interchange is set to open October15.
  • Next week we celebrate World Polio Week.  Our speaker will be Rod Daniels - the district's Polio chair. Come prepared to put a little extra in the polio can on Wednesday.
  • ​The Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley sent a "Thank You!" letter to the club for sponsoring a hole at their golf tournament.
  • ​Mike Munion spoke on behalf of our own golf tournament coming up on January 16, 2016.  The lions share of our revenue comes not from golfers fees but from the event sponsorships, hole sponsorships, raffle tickets and the silent auction of donated items.  So we need lots of donated prizes - cruises, vacation weeks, rounds of golf, bottles of booze, tickets to events, etc. Get out and start beating the bushes.  Be creative.  We also need event sponsors and hole sponsors and of course lots of golfers.  The event will be the Can-Am format we have used in recent years.
  • ​There is a Board meeting today following the regular meeting.
  • ​We received a "Thank You!" letter from Joseph Gunkel who received one of our college scholarships.  Joseph is an Eagle Scout.
  • ​Jim Erickson noted that only Mike Dungan and Ed Shockley were newly registered on the My Rotary web site.
  • ​Jim thanked the five Club members who attended the Growing Your Club Membership seminar - LaFlesch, Govinsky, Jones, Erickson and Homann
  • Sharon Thanked club members for wearing purple today for Family Abuse Awareness month.  She pinned purple ribbons on those not wearing purple.
  • ​Sharon encouraged Rotarians to attend the CAAFA Giddyap Gala this Saturday.  Rotary paid for a table so you can sit there.
  • Sharon handed out cards supporting the bond override measure and encouraged us to vote in favor of the measure to ensure the quality of our local schools.
  • ​Mike Cowan needs one more volunteer for the October 24 Ranch Rodeo event.  See Mike if you would like to volunteer
  • Bill Burrows brought us the news On this date in history, the Battle of Hastings was won by the Normans and Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in an X-1 rocket plane.
  • ​Aaron McDermid served as our Sargeant-at-Arms
  • ​Guest Leland Smithson won the drawing and $10 but drew the four of spades.  The pot was worth $234 today.
  • ​Aaron McDermid will sub as President next week as Matt Ruppert and his wife are going to Italy to celebrate his birthday and their anniversary.
SPEAKER
Posted on Oct 14, 2015
​Sharon Stinard introduced our speaker, Vicky McLaughlin, the Executive Director of the Superstition Mountain Museum.  Vicky and her husband moved to Arizona from Alaska in 2010.  She got involved with the museum very early after they got here and, after doing lots of volunteer jobs, is now serving as the Executive Director.
​The museum got its start when a group of six individuals interested in the Lost Dutchman mine and the geology and lore of the Superstition Mountains formed a historical society in 1980.  Initially they met in homes, but then moved to rented space at Goldfield Ghost Town.  In 2003, the by now much larger group came up with a financing plan to build a museum with no city, county or state funds involved in the project.  They bought 12 1/2 acres on the Apache Trail and built a building now called the Superstition Mountain Museum.  The site features two buildings moved from Apacheland - the Elvis Presley chapel and the barn which features displays on western movies and cowboy heroes. There is a huge stamp mill which is due to start running in November.  Vicky is proud of the gift shop which she feels is as good as any she has seen.  They have a reconstructed western town with living history actors.  There are four walking trails on the site.  The views of the Superstitions from the Museum are spectacular and people like to take photos from there. The museum offers a very popular free lecture series on Thursdays at 2 PM from January through April.  You need to bring your own folding chair.  The museum is run by 200 dedicated volunteers. 
​Sharon noted in the discussion afterward that former club member Rene' Leseutre plays a key role on the Board of the museum.
 
THE BENEFITS OF "MYROTARY"
Posted by Jim Erickson on Oct 14, 2015

The Benefits of MyRotary

Did you know that as of October 1, 2015 only 13 of our club’s 43 members have

logged into MyRotary on the Rotary International website. That represents a

percentage of .3023. Now if you were a baseball player, a batting average of .302

would be close to making you a super star. However, as an indicator of how many of

our club members have used this very useful tool, the number tells kind of a sad story.

So what would seem to be the problem? I suspect the members that have not used

MyRotary either do not know how to use the site, or they don’t care to use the site. In

other words they see no benefit to MyRotary.

Located on the Rotary International website is a short 3 part video course entitled

Learn Rotary – The New Rotary.org. You can find this material at

http://learn.rotary.org/pages/course/CourseMaterial.aspx?courseid=106

The third video in this course is entitled “My Rotary Video Tour.” The video, which

runs about 11 minutes, does a very nice job of explaining MyRotary, how the site

works, the information that can be found on the site, and most importantly, how to log

into MyRotary if you have never done so. You can even go back and watch how to

log in more than once if the pace of the video is too fast for you! It would behoove all of

our members to watch this video and then establish an account at MyRotary. Am I

dreaming? Perhaps – but even if we could raise our usage from 30% to 60% we as a

club would be money ahead. And who knows, we might even collectively become

more knowledgeable about Rotary.

Once you have established an account at MyRotary you’ll be able to create your own

personal profile. You’ll find a quick club snapshot and you will be able to access

Rotary Club Central and view your club’s goals. Look these goals over. You might

learn something you didn’t know about your club, as you will see information on

membership trends, gender trends, and age trends. You’ll see information about

goals, engagement, communication, and public relations. You will be able to view

your giving history, and finally, if you so choose, you’ll be able to make donations to

The Rotary Foundation.

BUT WAIT – THERE’S MORE! You will also find featured links that will provide useful

and interesting information. On the top menu bar you’ll see where you can exchange

ideas, take action, find learning and reference material, find management tools for club

administration, find information about TRF, find RI news and information, and access

various online tools. Do you know what TRF is? I hope so, but if not it is The Rotary

Foundation.

So what is stopping you? Click on the link above (or type it into your browser) and get

started on MyRotary. Let’s see if by the end of this month we can have registered

MyRotary users at 60%. If you need help in this I’ll be happy to provide same. And by

the way, are you/we taking the over or under on the 60% number?
OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES
Posted by Robert Homann on Oct 14, 2015
MEMBER BIRTHDAYS
​Pete Polster           Oct 3
​Jay Jones              Oct 7
​Ben Fellows           Oct 13
​Murray Hiatt          Oct 15
Matt Ruppert          Oct 18
WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES
​Matt and Carolyn Wright-Ruppert       12 years
​Ron and Mary Knies                          43 years
​Dan Govinsky and Marian Bass           13 years
Jeff and Tamara Cutler                       21 years
Frank and Gloria Hulme                     25 years
​DATE JOINED ROTARY ANNIVERSARIES
Heather Itz         Oct 17    3 years
​Tom Puklin          Oct 30  13 years
 
 
UPCOMING PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
Posted by Matt Ruppert on Oct 14, 2015
​​October 21 - Rod Daniels - District 5510 Polio Plus chair
 
October 28 - Robin Stinnett - SRP
 
November 4 - Doris Helmich - President, Central AZ College
 
​November 11 - Sue Black - AZ State Parks Director