Newly minted President Patrick Hanes called our Friday meeting to order at the LCC West Campus on a perfectly beautiful summer day. Diane Sanborn inspired us with a thoughtful invocation and told us once again the health of the club is good. Mark Hooper lead the group in singing My Country Tis of Thee. We were a small group but our voices were mighty strong. Lisa Smith carried the mic to a single visitor brought by Umakanth Govinidarajan; her name was Melissa Rabideau and she runs the TinkrLab at Meridian Mall, which is a STEM learning facility.

 

Since we were at LCC’s West Campus, it was apropos that our hosts take the mic and sing some of the praises of LCC. LCC President Brent Knight let us know that LCC was recently named 2d out of 1100 for tech and career programs which was worthy of a round of applause. LCC Dean Mark Cosgrove told us that this past week LCC was honored by its designation as a school of excellence for Cyber Security, again, worthy of a round of applause. President Hanes did a shout out to Joan Bauer for her work with LCC and to President Knight, who is retiring next spring, for his years of service to LCC and the Lansing area.

 

One of the changes resulting from the recent, peaceful transition of power from one President to the next, was that President Hanes will be focusing on the nuts and bolts of some of what Rotarians do. New features of our meeting will be Board Liaison reports, Foundation updates and Rotarians in the news (if you’re a Muppet Show fan, imagine a booming voice saying “Pigs in Space” followed by an update of what they’re doing). Todd Gute gave the Board update and introduced us to recent efforts of the Recruitment Committee (headed by Michelle Lantz). The secret society known as the U-35 Group (under 35 Rotarians) recently held a mixer at the Lansing Brewing Company. Fun fact about the U-35s and contrary to the millennial stereotype, they did all the work themselves for their mixer and when Cathy showed up an hour early, there was nothing she had to do (a first!). A promising start for the U-35s. Our Foundation will also get its 15 minutes of fame (spread over several meetings). Incoming Foundation President John Person invited all who are interested to submit their names to be board members for the Foundation. The Foundation is stepping up in sophistication and will be looking at software to help with review of upcoming grant applications.

 

No special music today. Major bummer, but hey, real musicians have day jobs. If you really miss hearing Rotarians sing, though, take time out for 7:00 p.m. at the Urban Beat in Old Town on July 18 to go and listen to Lisa Smith sing.

 

We had two new member presentations today: Lolo Robison and Jay Moore. Lolo is into pot like nobody’s business. You could say she’s a pothead, but that wouldn’t really do her justice. More like it’s impossible to separate her from her pot. She likes pot so much she knows how to make pot and knows how to make different kinds of pot. She probably even throws pots. Of course we’re talking about pottery here. I mean, this is Rotary and the similarity between the Rotary Wheel and the potters’ wheel was too much for Lolo to ignore so she joined. She’s the Director of Marketing and Customer Experience at CATA, was a HS cheerleader in department of defense schools. She’s CMU and MSU educated and divorced in 1994, but not until she had 3 kids. She was the Lobotomizer on the Lansing Derby Vixens 2009 team until that broke her body (I think we should schedule a meeting at an upcoming roller derby).

 

Next up was Jay Moore. Jay is one of our U-35ers so due to his short life, his bio is considerably shorter. Jay correctly identified the hotel on the West side of town as the Sheraton where his grandfather worked there as a concierge, which may have been a bit of an overglorification of dear old granddad’s job according to Jay. His Grandmother was a social worker and educator and his dad worked at GM while his mother worked at the State of Michigan. Educated at Verlinden, Dwight Rich and Sexton, Jay then went on to college at Columbia in Chicago to become a teacher. He taught for 5 years before going back to school to get educated in Marketing. Jay works at Peckham for a day job but has an entrepreneurial spirit and is also the cofounder & Vice President of Communications for 180 Style, which is a men’s lifestyle service. President Hanes gave Lolo and Jay their blue badges, welcomed them to the club and adjourned the meeting at 12:58, a new record! Have a great week and enjoy this beautiful Michigan summer folks!

Kevin Schumacher's email is:  Schumacher@glassenrhead.com