Club Meetings
 
Morning - Are held every Tuesday, 8:00 AM at the Mountain Resource Center on Kitty Drive.
Evening - The next evening meeting will be Wednesday, May 4th at 5:30 PM at Our Lady of the Pines Catholic Church in Conifer.
 
Announcements
 
  • Club Service positions available:
    • Sergeant-at-Arms for June & July - Join the fun at the Tuesday morning meeting by welcome members!!
    • WebMaster - If you would like to be the webmaster, please email Diana P. for information.
 
Upcoming Socials - All are welcome!
 
  • We are in the planning stages of a May social, more details to follow. 
 
Guests
Welcome Carrie L. she has been to two of our Tuesday AM meetings
 
Upcoming Events
 
Rotary International Conference - May 27-31, 2023 Melbourne, Australia
 
Coniferfest - August 12, 2023 In the event field behind Our Lady of the Pines
 
Program Rotary Wednesday PM 4.26.23
Wellness Fair Update:  
  • Yvonne and Bridget provided an update on the wellness fair idea  
Refugee Family:  
  • Rotary will support a refugee family.  
  • Let Johnathan Ramsey and Stanley Harsha know if you are interested in helping  
Conifer Fest Update:  
  • Work in progress  
Next meeting is on May 4th
 
Program Rotary Tuesday AM 4.18.23
 
17 of our members are going to the area 8 social.
 
Scotland event:  zoom event May 3, noon, must sign up in advance.
 
Conifer Area Council meeting at 7.
 
Ed: I made labels for the One School, One Book books. All the kids up to the 5th graders all get the book. Younger ones are encouraged to have parents read it to them and they do exercises talking about the book. They picked out the book. Need some help labeling them.
 
Ann asked for help with the Rotary Wildfire Ready truck at the end of June and end of July for Bailey Days and Elevation Celebration.
 
Diana: Our zone includes Co, Utah, Wy, Montana, Neb. Wildfire Ready was given an award for Extending Our Reach. Conference is last weekend in April.
 
Young RYLA: We received applications for two from Conifer, two from Platte Canyon and one from Bailey and Tim Berg’s son. We have room for all of them.
Stan: We are working on a matching grant proposal for a Mental Health Fair next February. We will present to the group.
April 28 is a district mental health day in the south metro area.
Stan: June 11 is the dedication of the peace park. We will put up a sign-up genius for installing the peace poles. Dennis is a landscaper and wants to plant the week before.
We are trying to find out if we have 6 people who would support a refugee.
Speaker Sara Gardner: I am a certified financial planner. I have been in the business 25 years.  Topic is ESG investing: Environmental, Social and Governmental concerns, because I heard a lot of questions after a previous speaker mentioned it.
My financial education as a child consisted of budgeting and nothing else. My parents retired. Last five years before they retired, they asked what is a 401k? But no one tells you how to invest it.
A lot of people think they can’t invest.
When ESG first came up decades ago, you had to do ESG investing to make yourself feel good. Now you can also get great financial returns. The first step is to remove the things they don’t want in the ESG fund. The first level does not include oil and gas, oddly. Some oil and gas companies are moving into wind and more sustainable energy.
Middle level is sustainability.
Then social: Equity for gender etc., unfair compensated executives. Diversity. Bringing in more diverse people into the field.
About 91 percent of S&P 500 have ESG reporting. Some is independently audited instead of just self-reported.
By 2025, they're expecting $23 billion in ESG. That’s a third of global investing. If you're looking at those companies that are already doing their ESG due diligence right.
Walden Asset Management is one of the good ones.
I focus mainly on mutual funds, but you can make individual investments by company.  I found though is ultimately it's easier to go with the mutual fund for diversification, and I'm all about diversification to manage risk.
Midcap strategy ends up meeting all our protocols so the performance balancing ESG is there.
Impax: They have a high-yield bond fund. They are well positioned and they're looking for that more sustainable global environment. They have many other funds, too.
SBA in this area means not Small Business Administration but sustainable business advantage. They are investing in companies for sustainability.
Calvert is probably the most well-known.
TIAA has a socially responsible for ESG. They originally started with teachers and not-for-profits, creating retirement plans for them.
There are ETF and I-shares if you're looking for that that aspect.
Recently Tesla seems to be a big conversation, because they don't meet the ESG criteria because of the governance practices and source of some of the battery materials, etc. I believe the technology is still advancing, and it’s only going to get better. Things can cancel each other out so really you have to figure out your priorities.
If you want to go with this investing strategy, it's no longer giving up performance. You don't have to be against your conscience anymore if you need to invest for retirement savings.
A lot of my business comes from Fidelity and Charles Schwab. We are a preferred advisory firm.
Dean: There are a lot of well-established money holders driving our economy the wrong way. Is ESG investing now getting rid of the people who are doing the wrong thing?
Sara: We didn’t used to do ESG investing. We have it now because our clients asked for it. So the money is behind it. We have ultra-high-net-worth individuals giving back, not leaving it all to the next generation.
Jonathan: A lot of companies are seeing the governance piece done by others, and see that people want that, so then they do it.
 
Program Rotary Tuesday AM 4.11.23
 
Coniferfest planning meeting tonight, area party and district conference coming up in April. Diana suggested going on the website and checking the list.
RYLA applications deadline is Friday.
International Rescue Committee is very enthusiastic about Conifer Rotary sponsoring a family. They have a group in Parker signed up to sponsor a family, need more help including financial. A church in Arvada may help. I’ll ask the whole group if we want to go in with a group of six in Parker. Think it is for April 30. I was going to discuss with our peace committee. We’ll delay our peace committee meeting a week.
We installed a new member, Kristin Davis. Bambi Moss said she is honored to be her mentor. Kristin: “I don’t take this honor lightly.  I have been at Microsoft for 18 years, lost my job unexpectedly. I decided to meet new people and give back to my community. I met Bambi at EAPL. We moved to Evergreen, but this room has been amazing, the vibe is so great. “It’s really nice to be a part of this group.”
Diana: We are working on an exchange student from Brazil for this coming year,
Morti: Speaker is Pam Swift.  From non-profit called, “Hide in Plain Sight.” https://www.guidestar.org/profile/47-3094771 Pam had a career in human resources, then raised her kids. She then found her calling in helping young adults affected by homelessness and other difficulties.
Pam Swift: I was unexpectedly widowed 13 years ago. I quit my job and stayed home to raise my children. We do scholarships for Front Range youth. Because of Covid, there is a lot of government money for education. But the students don’t have money for food, rent, gas, child care, laptops, Wifi. We do. We are removing barriers to education. That sets us apart from a lot of organizations.
Joe Reese is the founder and a Rotarian. He met a young woman aged out of the foster system. Foster parents will tell them to leave on the day they turn 18 (That’s when the payment from the government
If you can get an associate’s degree, you can earn $8000 more per year; with a bachelor’s degree, $27,000 more a year. according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. I would like to find the same stats for vocational education as we need and pay electricians, plumbers, etc.
If you can get someone an education, you have given them a hand up, not a hand out.
We have a full-time executive director, total of two full-time staff, and we have given out $800,000 in scholarships.
I do development. This year we had 85 (or 62?) applicants.
We have met our financial obligations through June, so at this point, everything we raise all goes to students. We are part of state program called Cozy, which doubles the donations. We all work from home.  Our biggest need is financial.  We have a gala on April 23 in Denver, at the Charles Schwab center, in the afternoon. Food and drink included. Several Rotary chapters have empty seats at the tables they have purchased. Castle Rock, Castle Pines, Highlands Ranch rotaries will be there. I can offer you a free seat to come.
We work with COSI, a state program. (https://cdhe.colorado.gov/programs-and-services/cosi-colorado-opportunity-scholarship-initiative) It’s for homeless, impoverished etc. Our grant money can support them. If a student doesn’t fit, we can’t use our COSI money. But we can use our own money.
We work with the McKinny Vento program for homeless students in school. True homeless. Douglas County has a McKinny Vento  program and we have 121 homeless kids in the high school. One lived in an abandoned RV, no running water or electricity and graduated from high school. https://nche.ed.gov/legislation/mckinney-vento/
Sara Gardner: I have been donating. The success rate is great, such low overhead. 3.65 GPA, majority work.  92 percent graduation rate.
Pam: We interview applicants, you can see it when they are proud of what they have done and they are going to succeed. One young woman said,  “I want to have a house someday, so my girls don’t have to move out of an apartment every six months.”
Young adults often don’t feel seen. One young woman with two children, in nursing school. And she took the interview in her car, we told her she is amazing. And she put her head down and cried  because no one had ever told her she was doing a good job.
Sara: You are on Colorado Gives.
Pam: Starting in October, Colorado Gives starts to match donations.
We have a special needs man now, applied to be a welder. That’s going to make such a difference in his life.
Board and staff each takes on a student and reach out regularly, sometimes becomes a mentorship. We don’t have the skills or training to be mentors or counselors.
Morti: When a kid has connection in the first years of college, it increases the chance of graduation by like 70 percent.
We had a homeless kid live with us for two years, It changed his life as well as ours.
Applications open in about two months. Please pass the word around here.
One young woman, Brooke, is due to graduate, lost her husband, living in her car with 2 children. Son asked if superheroes are made or born that way. She said made, determined to change her life.

Program Rotary Tuesday AM 3.28.23

Health Fair is 10-4 on May 6 at Our Lady of the Pines
Home and Garden Show: Janine is now in charge. Will be working with Erica. Ground too hard to put the signs up. Only two banners. Please publicize it! Share with friends on social media.
Thursday, April 20 is the area 8 social; Black Hawk, Clear Creek, Evergreen, Foothills and Conifer clubs. Please pay by April 12 if not earlier.
We need more applications for scholarships. We have four applications for scholarships from Conifer, none from Platte. Publicize this!
We will apply for a DDF grant for mental health.
Janine: CHS robotics team won sixth place at national.
We inducted three new members!
Jonathan Ramsey—mentor Stan
Sandy Lipini—mentor Ann
Nicholas Guenther—mentor Charles
Speaker: Dan Jorgensen, Rainbow Rock program, lives in Milliken, Co.
Writer, public relations, journalist. Most recent book is a mystery thriller called “Rainbow Rock.”  I joined Rotary because of Polio Plus. We had polio in my family. A high school sports star who got polio right after graduation. He was in an iron lung for two months. The college that gave him an athletic scholarship gave it to him anyway.
Forty percent of our world’s population can’t read. So I support adult literacy.
I give part of the proceeds of my books to Polio Plus. I sell books for $15 and $3 goes to Polio Plus. I wrote my first book for a class at Colorado State University. I had been a journalist, then in army in Vietnam. Then I went to CSU for creative writing. Professor said we’ll write short stories every week.  I turned in a chapter every week. It was my first book, “Killer Blizzard.” I brought in my first chapter, thinking I was doing great. But classmates were brutal. Professor was kind, said take all these suggestions and rewrite Chapter 1 and then write Chapter 2. I got a lot of criticism but it was better. By the sixth chapter, the complaints faded. By the end of the semester, I had a book. Professor offered to try to sell it. Writer’s Market book tells you what every publisher wants. I found a few. Professor said, “Go to bookstore and see what’s selling, see if any of the publishers on your list published those books. I found five. I made copies of the printed manuscript, sent them off with self-addressed envelope so they can send it back with the rejection letter. I received two rejections, then a maybe, and then a letter from Major Books, a contract and a $1,000 check. I about passed out. I asked the professor, “What should I do?” He replied, “Are you nuts? Sign it!”  But it was 10 percent royalties, instead of standard 12-15 percent, even 50 percent when an author sells a lot.
That book sold 27,000 copies in the first year. This book is in its 13th printing. It just keeps going and going, like the EverReady Bunny.
I moved back to Colorado from Minnesota, and decided to write a novel based on my time in Black Hills. It is set in 1894, a time of tourism to Wind Cave, hot springs, etc. Outlaw gang threatened luminaries. Bat Masterson, a deputy US marshall based in Denver but covering multiple states, is a character I used in the book. Also Nelly Bly, Will Rogers, Theodore Roosevelt. Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill. It was the first time that I tried historical fiction.
Rainbow Rock is about a drug cartel operating in Black Hills, trying to get luminaries and natives hooked.
Young woman I knew said her uncle was killed by a drug gang in the 1950s, near Rainbow Rock. This refers to location, and also a Fairburn agate found in the area. It’s a murder mystery thriller.
My next book will be set just before the building of Mount Rushmore in 1920s.
One won the Colorado Book Award.
I was the only kid in my class for eight years in a one-room schoolhouse. I read everything, by lantern light.
Today, 90 percent of sales are e-books. That means they are on sale worldwide. But you might get 49 cents for e-book selling for $4.95. I don’t complain about Amazon because they sell your book worldwide.

Today, 126,000 copies of Killer Blizzard have been sold. Movie rights have sold, don’t know if they will make the movie. I don’t have any in audible books right now.