As the club's 'Special Representative' of the District Governor (that's Rotary talk for 'I wanted to invite some of my dear friends to regular meetings of a social/service organization so I could see them more more often'), I can't be more proud of the enthusiasm and drive of this group. Also, they are so much fun.
Megan Dunn is a pre-school teacher at Challenger. She is the club's chartering President. She is a 30-something... low 30s, late 20s.. who knows... not polite to talk about a woman's age. She has taken the ball and is running with it. She will be a dynamic new leader for our club. She is pictured here with a whole bunch of coats in the background. We are collecting coats for our new Interact Club at City Academy. They are doing a Coat Exchange for Thanksgiving. We are also collecting any warm clothing or coats for the Bhutanese refugee community. 
Laurie Summers-Pisani is a retired teacher. She is also Vice President of Rotary Club of Millcreek. Laurie is such a dynamo. Not only did she run the first 'official' meeting after the Board was elected, she has volunteered to have our next club meeting at her home in the Avenues. Lugano's Loggia is not available because they are hosting a holiday event in the space we normally use. Stay tuned for directions to Laurie's house. Check the blog and don't forget our next meeting Thursday, November 10 5:15pm at Laurie's house!
Loralee Barlow is our club Secretary. She is amazing. She has been spending time on the Rotary International website rotary.org downloading all kind of pertinent information for the Board and Committee Chairs. Wow. Loralee is a commercial interior designer. She has two children, Samantha and Nicholas, who have participated in our New Roots Refugee Garden service project. We are very lucky to have her in an important position in our club. She will not just take and post minutes on the blog, take attendance, and register us all with RI, she will keep us all on our toes.
Peter Ingle is our International Service Chair. Pete wants to integrate what our club is doing to help the local refugee population with international service that our club plans. Pete is a professor and adminstrator at Westminster College. His background is in special education. He has, among other things, worked in professional development and project-based learning at the college. Pete is very funny, and he lives in Park City. He also takes groups of kids to Thailand every summer as part of Westminster's May term. Pete's wife Krista is a special educator in the Park City school system. They have two sons. 
The lovely and talented Miriam Kramer is our Community Service Chair. Miriam is the driving force behind our club's focus on the local refugee community. As part of her Master's, Miriam worked with Bhutanese refugee women to help them assimilate to our culture and find meaningful work to support their families. Miriam is all about sharing culture, and helping people help themselves. She is also the International Service and Development Director for Youthlinc, a Utah based service organization for youth. Miriam was the Rotaract (College Rotary Club) president for Salt Lake. She is pictured here with a really nice basket that the Bhutanese women make as purses, bread baskets, or cute ways to store children's toys or random things. We'll have some of these for sale at our Saturday December 10 Holiday Luncheon with the Bhutanese ladies... who are making us delicious traditional foods. We can shop with them Thursday Dec. 8 after 5pm, and we can cook with them Saturday morning, Dec. 10 too! Check the blog for more details!
Ladd Tanner is our Youth Service Chair. Ladd is a financial planner and insurance broker. He has his own company. Ladd used to be a member of Park City Sunrise Rotary Club, but he lives and works in Salt Lake City now. He has two kids and a really nice wife. Ladd has worked to form Interact (high school Rotary) Clubs in the past, and he is starting off by helping to charter an Interact Club at City Academy, a charter high school in Salt Lake City. He is working with Sonia Woodbury, the principal and also a member of Rotary Club of Millcreek. Ladd has spent some time explaining Rotary youth programs to the club, especially Youth Exchange where secondary students can spend up to a year living in another country, hosted by Rotarian families. 
Laura Rogers is our Vocational Service Chair. Oftentimes clubs struggle with defining what they should do for vocational service. Though Rotary was formed as a business networking organization, the focus on service sometimes makes Rotarians shy about sharing their professions, or professional expertise. Not so for our club! Laura plans on having us use our business connections and knowledge to work with the local refugee community for job training, shadowing, and actual jobs. Laura would also like to see our club reaching out more to our new Interact Club and Salt Lake based Rotaract as mentors and role models of our professions. Laura's background is in marketing, especially in the health science area. 
Annie Nielsen is a hairdresser extraordinaire at Steur & Friends in Salt Lake City. She is our Club Service -- or as we like to call it -- Social Chair. Being social is a big part of the Rotary Club of Millcreek. While you might have to get there early at other clubs to socialize, for us, the social part is 50% of the time. Heck, life is short. We must enjoy each other's company. We make that easy by having a 'happy hour' club, an after work place to decompress and enjoy your favorite beverage. But once a month we also have a social -- usually the last week of the month. We have already had a dinner at Lugano's restaurant, a Halloween party. We are all looking forward to our Holiday Luncheon with the Bhutanese community on Saturday December 10 and our Chartering Dinner at the Cottonwood Country Club on Thursday January 19 at 6:15pm. This club is so friendly, so relaxed, so 'not your formal meeting'-- Annie is the perfect Chair for this group. 
Last of our 'official' Board roster, but certainly not one to be overlooked, is our Host with the Most, the person Rotary International designates to keep decorum in our club -- our Sgt. at Arms Dr. John Zone. John debuted his talents at our Thursday November 3 business meeting, and he was hilarious. John is one of the nicest people on the planet, and if the rest of the Board did not convince you that this is a Rotary Club like no other - one you need to join - then you have not seen John regal us with his dry wit. We might go over our appointed hour meeting... but it's worth it. And he raises a little bit of money for our club coffers in the process. Thanks, John! (Full disclosure: he is my wonderful husband.)
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