Rick levied fines for members who were not on a committee (no-one), had not brought in an auction gift, and did not participate in the nut drive.

- Randy Jenkins, Gananoque: fundraiser at Gan Playhouse, October 2, one-woman show; proceeds to Rotary Foundation; tickets directly from Randy

- Foundation Meeting today. Greta: 5 p.m. at Greta’s; all welcome; will make selection of members of community of Paul Harris awards to present in November

- Board Meeting 7 a.m. Wed September 12th at Response IT

- District Conf. meeting Wednesday September 12th, 4 pm

- Thursday meeting with Diana who will interview us as a possible customer for Club book keeping (Robert, Adam, and Rick)

- Thursday September 13th, 4 p.m. at Response IT Membership Committee

- National Committee is meeting

- Grant Applications due Sept. 30th; encourage people to apply. Details on club Web site.

Club Assembly, led by John Farrow

Membership Committee Report (Rick Frasso, Chair)

The Membership Committee is dedicated to getting rid of the recently introduced venue fee!

The Membership Committee is dealing with administrative items from last year. Looking forward are two important events: table at Chamber of Commerce Connect. Attempt to get everybody in our club involved. That table will be next to his table. Show up when you can. Last Friday and Saturday in September. Location for the two events: Olympic Harbor

2. Fall Promenade (last weekend in September September 29th; lots of fun; John Farrow gets lots of speaker ideas from it!). Table reserved. Will be voted on by Committee. It will put our Club front and center.

Thanks to all members of membership committee, all have done fantastic job, very enthusiastic. Please send email to Rick if you have ideas. 

Corporate Membership and Friends of Rotary (Ana Sutherland)

Working on this. More complicated than our first area of focus—Friends of Rotary. Get more people involved in Rotary doing the work that we do. Approach people that are interested in Rotary but can’t come to meetings regularly. Will develop and present to Rotary. Example: Mara Shaw of Loving Spoonful. Friend would pay a (reduced) fee, would be covered for District liability. Would pick one project a year, come to meetings as they wish, welcome to social events. An entry point to Rotary and possible path to full membership. We could have a hundred Friends of Rotary.

Corporate Membership is more complicated. Want to make sure that we don’t loose current members through becoming part of a corporate membership.

Birnie: Friends of Rotary are also part of a world-wide pool of volunteers for projects that need hands-on support.

John Farrow: What are we trying to achieve? Club fulll of people who like to have fun, represent diversity of Kingston. Brainstorming. (see materials provided). Classification survey, including ones we don’t have. Think of who we can invite to Rotary breakfast. Think of family, work colleagues, friends, people who have spoken, auction donors. Lots of productive discussion ensued at each table.

Get names to Rick Frasso, together with Rotarian who thought of the person. Keep Rick informed of what action you may take.

John: Use of “Be Our Guest” cards. Can use for prospective members. Can come to two meetings gratis. What’s Rotary? Cards from RI. Great elevator pitch. Will get a few more. Upcoming presentation at Senior’s Centre, to be scheduled. Great deal of energy on Membership Committee. More welcome.

Bill Egnatoff: please make use of Web site and suggest improvements since this is a great way to introduce prospective members to Rotary and our place in it.

John Farrow: consider representation from our major educational institutions: Queen’s, RMC, SLC; also Forces Base

Auction (John Farrow)

Now 182 gifts. Try to get repeat gifts by end of month. Entry process not onerous but time-consuming. Don’t wait; start now!

Greta: people who give gifts don’t seem to realize benefit of getting early exposure on Web site.

John: Elizabeth has a donor who wants to be first donor on Web site!

Greg: Per item hits data from last year; Greg can give that information from last year.

Murray Cotton: spreadsheet of your donors has some of that info

John Farrow:

• one contact a day
• visiting personally great; but emails and phone calls work
• let auction committee know if need help with pickup
• if new, take an experienced Rotarian with you (Greg, Murray volunteered for that)
• (on table) “orphaned” donors; would be “slam dunks”
• ask John for donation list if you want

Murray Cotton (donor story)

- Fishing Charter gift valued at $540, day fishing. Donor asked whether we feel we get good value for the donation. Spectacular value to donor. Friends come back and bring their friends. One trophy fish—his name on trophy; got more charters from that. Great advertising.

Sponsors: use sponsorship money to pay for cost of auction. All gift money, 100% goes to our service activities. Currently have a couple of openings: Funeral home (let us know of any contacts). Just one sponsor of each category for $1500. For $500, multiple sponsors in any category. Also looking for insurance company at $1500 level. Murray has packages to make pitch simple. Would like help on that.

Product donation can be written off as business expense (advertising).

Greg Mumford: donor benefit sheets are printed. Use them. Written for accountants. Will update Auction tab on Auction site. If anyone needs any data, or electronic versions of poster or benefit sheet, ask Greg.

Drop-dead date for gift entry: end of October. Never too late too start but always too early to quit!

Draw (for Ace): Anita Mercier. Gets $10.