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President Smith called the meeting to order at 12:26. The invocation was given by John Pence, followed by a Rotary rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Dave Trumpie walked the microphone (which did little more than grant the right to speak) around the room for the introduction of guests and visiting Rotarians. Michelle Lantz let us all know that the health of the club is good. Dave then returned the one working microphone to President Smith who announced that one of our newest members, Gabrielle Haskins, was granted citizenship yesterday.
Red badges were presented to Rich Howard, Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters, sponsored by Chris Holman, and Emily Sutton-Smith, Development Director of the Williamston Theater, sponsored by Missy Lilje.
Susan Angel earned her blue badge by giving her new member presentation. Susan was born Livonia, then moved to Temperence, Michigan, which is just outside of Toledo. Her mother was the VP of a hospital. Her father was in advertising, and Susan found that she was really excited about what he did. She attended MSU to study Advertising and had a great time with lots of parties. She worked for WVIC, then moved to WFMK as sales manager. She soon married Scott Weatherford, a package deal with two children already, and had an instant family. Scott Weatherford – had 2 children already, so it was a package deal. She also gave birth to two children, and her second pregnancy was complicated by an immune condition that crippled her for a couple of years. She has switched from radio to television starting with WLAJ. She left WLAJ to move to WLNS, but recent changes have combined the two organizations. They also have a digital organization. Susan has 2 grandkids, 3 and 5, and pronounces them to be the best. She feels that she is at a place where it is really important to give back to the community and that led her to join Rotary. She is particularly interested in helping to mentor young professionals. She also enjoys helping small businesses grow.
Special music was introduced by Courtney Millbrook. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine began playing at age 3 and first performed with the Chicago Symphony at age 10. She shared that her violin was made by one of the two best violin makers in the late 1700’s. Her first selection was Paganini’s Caprice #4. This was a piece that looked to be very difficult to those of us in attendance. It featured quite a variety of playing techniques and was very interesting to watch. She followed that piece with some Scottish reels to warm us up for her performance on Saturday with the Lansing Symphony. She finished with a little piece that had us thinking of Chicago and the Blues Brothers.
President Smith introduced our Chair of the Day and Month, Maureen Hirten, to introduce today’s speakers. Maureen began with a brief history of the Capital Area District Library, or CADL. CADL was formed in 1977 and consists of 13 libraries covering the entire county, with the exception of East Lansing. Maureen then introduced our two speakers. The first was Heidi Butler, local history librarian since February 2014. Joining her was Erin Kurtz, digital literacy librarian since December 2013 when then position was created. Both women provide expert assistance to library patrons, including members of our club as they used many of the library’s resources to research the Club’s history for our centennial book. During the course of this research, arrangements were made for our club’s archive to move from a storage unit to the library and become part of the local history archives.
CADL has assisted various businesses and organizations with historical research, some of which has resulted in history displays. These include Lansing Brewery, neighborhood associations, Knapp’s lobby, Tavern & Tap, and the Lansing State Journal to name just a few. CADL is also working on an oral history project. Stockbridge has one interview already online and other communities will be joining them. The local history group is also working on digitizing area high school yearbooks. Other projects are utilizing photos and other materials from local governments and other organizations. You can explore the materials that are available online at cadl.org/lh.
Erin gives a lot of presentations at schools and senior centers, and told us about a wide range of digital resources available with your free library card. To get started, navigate to the CADL website (cadl.org), click on the Research and Learn tab, and then select Learn a New Skill. From this area, you can get free access to Lynda.com with thousands of online tutorials or learn a new language with Pronunciator and an app. From the Digital Downloads tab, you can access OverDrive to get access to 25,000 eBooks and audiobooks or Hoopla, which provides access to additional eBooks and audiobooks in addition to movies, TV and music. It was clear that having a library card could save you a lot of money. Since many of us do not have cards, Erin pointed out that there were a business cards on the tables with instructions on how to get a temporary card. They are also available by stopping into any of the branches.
A few additional tidbits were revealed during the question and answer session. Anyone can get a library card, but if you live in East Lansing, which is not part of CADL, there is a fee. Only about ¼ of the area’s residents have library cards. Pat Hanes let everyone know that our club’s book would not have been possible without the assistance we received from CADL, especially Heidi and her staff.
President Smith concluded the meeting by giving both Erin and Heidi a pocket piece with the Rotary Four Way Test inscribed.
Next week we will be meeting at the Lansing Country Club and Jack Davis will be presiding. Our speaker will be Charles Palmer, Cooley Law School professor who taught in China.
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