Updates & Announcements
Neil Rose is partway through his application to be a member. Guest Colleen Hughes came in as a guest again.
Announcements:
- Art was online and happy to report he is out of the hospital!
- Bill Taylor is moving to honorary member status. He served in Vietnam, received a degree in biology. Then he met a woman with two small kids, “a smart woman going to chiropractic college. I became a chiropractor as well.” He practiced 16 years in New Jersey, and started as a Rotarian in 1982. They moved to Colorado. His wife wanted to become realtors instead, which they did. “I got sick, was in a coma, and they gave me a 10 percent chance to live. After seven weeks in the hospital, I survived.” Both his appendix and intestines were removed. It cost $400,000 in medical bills, but we eventually paid if off,” he said. Bill joined Conifer Rotary in 1996. “In 1998, I suggested a corned beef and cabbage dinner for St. Paddy’s Day,” and then ran a golf outing for 9 years. He also started working with veterans’ events. Lately he has been busy with a part-time job in a liquor store. He has three children who live in Texas, California and Colorado, with the last working at the post office in Pine.
- Neil Rose is interested in doing something to help people as they age in place. He said his wife is in a wheelchair. “If I leave, I need to arrange care for wife, as well as dogs and horses. And everybody’s life is going to get like that, as one of us is hospitalized or otherwise.” He is thinking about creating small neighborhood groups who can be gotten together and get to know each other, and might be willing to help out with a ride, help with housework, or whatever people need from their neighbors. We will have a meeting on Thursday, Feb. 15 at the Conifer library, at 6:30 p.m. Stan commented that this project is in the true spirit of a Rotarian.
- Charlotte reported that Two Dads Restaurant in Bailey put up our MindFest poster and a $50 gift certificate for MindFest.
- Stan reminded everyone that we have a peacebuilding activity. Rotary magazine article says we now have a Rotary Peacebuilder center in Istanbul. We plan monthly activities at the Peace Park in the summer.
- Morti said she has received a lot of feedback from speakers, most of whom love our meetings, and questions. One speaker complained we were not on time, and the speaker didn’t have enough time as a result. “Let’s be mindful of the 30 minutes that we allocate for speakers.” Morti also said she is trying to track down a speaker to talk about US 285 highway projects.
- Ann noted that Elk Creek and Inter-Canyon Fire departments do individual home wildfire inspections for $100, and free chipping for a limited number of people. The sign-up is coming soon and ran out of space in an hour last year. Charlotte said the Platte Canyon Fire District in Bailey does free inspections, free chipping, and has 5 Firewise neighborhoods.
- 2024 Conifer Rotary Foundation Recipients:
- Boys and Girls Club of the High Rockies - $2,000
- Destination Imagination - Elk Creek Elementary - $1,000
- Mount Evans - Camp Comfort - $3,000
- MRC - Parent Workshop - $2,000
- Rotary Wildfire Ready - $1500
- StageDoor - $1750
- WJMS - Teacher Grant - $2,000
- 285 Literacy Project Funding Conifer/Platte Canyon Elementary Schools - $1,000 to match Club amount $1,000
Upcoming Events
- White elephant gift exchange will be Feb. 13.
Meeting program
Recipients of Conifer Rotary Foundation Grants presented:
- Trish, who is a board member at Boys and Girls Club with Morti, accepted a $2000 grant from Conifer Rotary Foundation. She said the club’s goal is to enable all young people to reach their full potential, including academic success, healthy lifestyle, good character and citizenship. She said they promote physical activities and healthy eating. For example, “We created a water balloon obstacle course, I teach a Zumba class, and we took them to Salida for a rock-climbing course.” She asked people to please become a friend of the club, join the board, and donate. “If you have questions, ask Morti.” “We need help, especially on Fridays when Park County has no school.” Or people can volunteer for chili cook-off and other events. The club encourages homeschooled kids to participate. It also needs volunteers after school, Monday through Thursday for tutoring, technology, reading to kids, nature walks. The kids also need male influence. This work directly with the kids requires a background check.
- Ann received $1500 for Rotary Wildfire Ready from Conifer Rotary Foundation. She explained that some of this money will go to entry fees for local events like Elevation Celebration, and most will go to upkeep and improvements on the RWR app. www.RotaryWildfireReady.com has all the downloadable brochures with information for the public on preparing for wildfire, but the younger generation wants this on an app on their phones. So we are reaching a new audience with the app. Cindy Latham, who runs RWR, will be at a future meeting to demonstrate it because she is the expert. The other side of RWR is the Safety Committee, which Ann runs and has successfully helped get the power companies Xcel and CORE to install wildfire-spotting cameras all over Jefferson County. The one in Bailey will go in when the new tower is complete. Now the committee is looking at the enormous increase in insurance, which is caused by companies using big data and satellite photos to rate our neighborhoods for wildfire. A rating of 80 out of 100 can make it difficult to get insurance. One company rates Ann’s neighborhood as a 97. The committee is looking into the criteria being used and it looks like there are some significant inaccuracies. For example, one company says that a wildfire will reburn in 2-8 years. But the Hayman Fire burned more than 100,000 acres 22 years ago and there is still nothing growing there. We need these ratings to be transparent and accurate so that we are all on the same page on what projects are priorities.