Oh what a night! 1st Annual Wine into Water Benefit is a HUGE success

Something must be wonderfully right when practically the entire club membership (30+ people) pull together to create a completely new concept for a Rotary Club fundraiser.

The 1^st Annual Wine into Water Benefit for the Rotary Club of Millcreek was a true group effort with members buying all the wine (with subsidiaries from Utah wineries: Kiler Grove and Castle Creek), providing all the amazing delicious and apparently endless appetizers, contributing tables, chairs, musical entertainment, sommeliers, tablecloths, centerpieces, signage, printing, inviting nearly 100 people, and contributing a combined hundreds of volunteer hours to raise over $5,000 on one beautiful evening at the club president’s home.

 As one seasoned Rotarian said, “This is the most organized and fun event I’ve ever been to in Rotary.” And successful, too.

Since members covered every single cost, 100% of the proceeds can go directly to club projects such as the funding of two water filtration systems in impoverished villages in Peru. .. except for the $1,000 Grand Prize, won this year by a Millcreek member guest, Nadine Bone.

The fundraiser was also an opportunity drawing for that significant award, and many other great gifts, all donated by members: Verizon products (thanks, Jennie Ferguson), Ruth Chris gift certificate, Color or Cut at Steur & Friends (by our own Annie Cononelos), BBQ sauce basket, and a two night stay in a Kimball Junction condo donated by our own Shannon Tilly.

There are so many people to thank for this incredible event:

·        Club President Laurie Summers-Pisani for letting us use your beautiful home and backyard! I hope there wasn’t too much mess when we all left!
All the members who came early to help set up and stayed late to clean up, including Youthlinc Alum Leaders Ryan David, Isaac Puriri, Jaclyn Bawden, and Real Life in SLC intern Megan Dolle.

·        All the members who brought substantial appetizers – Many brought appetizers and they weren’t even assigned to bring them!

·        Thanks Ladd Tanner for the Dodo contributions and thanks Kevin Jones for Snap Daddy contributions.

·        Miriam Kramer for bringing tables and chairs, and with the help of other members, getting them all out of there! Julie Bateman for donating the tables, and Mustafa Celebi for the tablecloths.

·        Frank Lilly, John Zone, Ryan Van Dyke for supplying wine (Ryan’s own homemade wine was delicious!)

·        Pablo Fiesta for bringing some bubbly non-alcoholic beverages, and for buying so many tickets!

·        Janey Lyon for her lovely guitar music and her beautiful voice.

·        Margareta Vlasic for making and bringing our name tags.

·        Past District Governor Rick Cambra and Park City Sunrise Rotarian and Assistant District Governor, Derick Loyola, for helping with sommelier duty.

·        Frank Lilly for making our Peru posters and Laurie for all the printing.

·        Club members also pulled together to pay for our new club banner and our Wine into Water Benefit sign. We’ll have those for years to come.

So if you missed the event this year, watch for it next year in September. And if you want to see this ‘unstructured’ club in action, come visit us 1^st and 2^nd Thursdays of each month, 5:30pm, at Café Madrid on Highland Drive.  We are a great group. We’d love you to be part of us. We know how to make service fun.

September 6 Meeting Minutes

Miriam Kramer, presiding, Sonia Woodbury, Margareta Vlasic, Judy Zone, John Zone, Bill Kille,

Susan Marks, Jason Collier, Ryan Van Dyke (new member – gave his application to Sarah Grant with his membership check), Marty Gelman, Sarah Grant, Annie Nielsen Cononelos, Julie Bateman,

Ladd Tanner, Shannon Tilly Guest: Errol Eernisse

·        Susan Marks provided our “Rotary Minute” – we’re part of 1.255 million members Worldwide in 170 Countries with 35,000+ clubs and we need to “proudly wear” our Rotary Pins all the time; have a 30 sec “elevator pitch” ready when people ask “what is that pin for?” and be proud of the local, National and Int’l work we do!

·        Errol EerNisse, a guest from the sugarhouse Club, and representing the District 5420 Rotary Foundation Committee as Chairman gave us a wonderful presentation on what and how the foundation works.  The Foundation provides funding in matching grants to Clubs Worldwide and provides Rotary Districts with money to conduct – local, National and International projects – as a District we get back 50% of all money we contribute to the Foundation and the remaining 50% is available to the Worldwide fund projects of which we can receive funds from also; the management of the fund is such that ALL money used for projects gets distributed to the Project – 100% of money contributed is used – NOT one cent goes for management, overhead, etc – this is UNIQUE within the Charitable Giving World! – Thank you Earl for a great explanation of how the system works

·        Julie Bateman provided a report on our finances as treasure of our club; 4^th qtr dues are due and can be sent in to our address:

              Rotary Club of Millcreek
              P.O. Box 590
              Sandy, UT 84091-0590

·        Sarah Grant reported on the Membership Committee’s efforts to increase our numbers; we now have a “new membership check list”; name badges are in the works and a plan to “match up” our new members with those who are more experienced to show them the path

·        Judy Zone reported on our “Wine to Water” event this 13^th of Sept; she’s requesting “set-up” assistance at 3:00 pm, email her if you can attend; ticket sales are close to complete needing only 6 or 7 to sell out the 100 tickets – way to go Team!!!

·        Miriam reported that our support of the Sunnyvale Center will be Oct 31th from 5-7; Rotoracters and Interactors will join us to man booths, and support the Carnival, more info at our next regular on Sept 20^th

Great member participation makes planning a snap for our FIRST Benefit: Wine into Water, Thursday Sept 13 6-8pm

Great attendance, great participation at the Thursday, Aug. 31 planning meeting for our upcoming Benefit!

Thanks, Mustafa Celebi, Marlin Clark, Gina Coleman, Pablo Fiesta, Jennie Ferguson, Marty Gelman, Bill Kille, Miriam Kramer,  Frank Lilly, Susan Marks, Laurie Summers-Pisani, Ladd Tanner, Shannon Tilly, Margareta Vlasic, new member Ryan Van Dyke, Andrea White, Kim Williams, John Zone, Judy Zone, plus guests Ellie Goldberg and Andrea Olson for taking time out of your busy schedules to come to the meeting!

We want to welcome new member Ryan Van Dyke, a mechanical designer of surgical equipment.

Judy who is chairing the Wine into Water event reviewed member assignments, and she has sent out individual reminders to members about their assignments. Other ideas:

• We now have 64 tickets sold to the event, so members, start inviting your friends. Each member is responsible for 4 tickets. We must have check in hand to record the RSVP. Check our roster google doc, or send Judy an email.
• We will have a Program at Check-in with Interest cards for potential members
• We will have a flyer about the Peru water projects
• Everyone who can be to Laurie's house at 3pm to help set up, let Judy know judy@youthlinc.org
• All food to Laurie's by 5pm that day, and all wine to her house on Monday, Sept. 10.
• Judy will invite Youthlinc Alum Leaders and Miriam will invite Rotaracters to help with bussing during the event and clean up after.

We welcomed Ellie Goldberg, of the Sunnyvale Refugee Welcome Center in Millcreek and her intern, Andrea Olson. We are collecting items for the Center opening. Miriam has a google doc with needed items that all members are invited to. Check with Miriam@youthlinc.org Many thanks to Andrea White for scouting out donations at the U of U surplus. We are planning a Halloween Carnival for children in the area: Saturday, Oct. 27 10-Noon. Miriam has approached Salt Lake based Rotaract, and Westminster Rotaract Clubs to help us plan activities. Mark your calendar!

Our Happy Dollars all went to the purchase of the signage for our event, and club banner. Thanks to Shannon Tilly and Linda Book for large donations to kick it off. Everyone listed here paid in cash, so no need to add to the billing. We have enough now for the purchase! Here is the news:

• Susan Marks closed on a condo.
• Pablo and his family held panda bears in China.
• Laurie thanks all club members who voted for her son in the skateboard video contest.
• Frank is going to Berlin in September to visit his 'other mother' who is elderly and not doing well.
• Marty's wife Sheila is recuperating well from a shoulder injury.
• Margareta's mom is coming from Sweden for a visit!
• John is remarking, after multiple grandkid visits, that it is a good thing young people have children.
• Linda is happy that her whole family will be together for Labor Day weekend except for one fiance who has to work :-(
• Andrea is celebrating Texas overturning Voter ID laws that would suppress the vote of the poor, minorities, and the elderly.
• Marlin Clark is happy the LA Lakers have Dwight Howard.

In the inimitable words of Pablo Fiesta: Estamos fantastico! Si, es verdad....