Dayton Rotary Happenings
This Happened Last Monday...
President Kim Bramlage called the meeting to order at 12:09pm welcomed everyone, noting her 2 ½ months remaining as President. The last 2 weeks were Rotary on the Road and the solar eclipse and it was good to be back together at Sinclair. President Kim gave the usual disclaimer that meetings are recorded.
Fran Rickenbach delivered the words to live by, and noted that the beautiful weather we enjoyed over the last week, may be attributed to the changing weather patterns and read a poem from Jay Perini titled: Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County. Fran asked the membership to think about the actions you take daily and perhaps there is a small thing you can do to help reduce your impact and make the world a better place. Fran then led us in the pledge of allegiance before sharing news headlines of the week.
Bill Nance delivered the April 1 fools day news of the day for the April 15 crowd. Here’s Bill’s April fools news….
- The Dayton art institute has defaulted on all their debts and are being evicted. We Care Arts is moving into their facility and we're offer not only the well-known “we care artworks” but food and games, such as we care pop tarts and we care darts.
- H2O cheerleader and club secretary Sarah Hippensteel Hall is out of town on vacation this week, visiting her favorite cities around the country, including Waterloo, Iowa, Watertown, Massachusetts, and Clearwater, Florida. When she returns, she is planning to attend a ceremony in nearby Mercer County that will name her honorary mayor of Coldwater Ohio.
- Former Rotarian and accordion buff Charlie Campbell recently went out to eat and left his car unlocked with his accordion in the back seat. When he returned, there were three accordions.
- April 22nd is red ribbon takeover day at Rotary. The group is trying to room thing never done before- offering facelifts for overturns. It's called red ribbon makeover day.
In real news today, Bill reported that 2 men in Germany, tried to rob a post office and ran off with the wrong bag. They had stuffed money in the bag, but when the alarm went off the panicked and grabbed the wrong bag, and took an employee’s potato salad lunch instead.
Today is Bring a Guest Day and we had a lot! Katie Neubert introduced all of our guests in attendance and thanked them for coming.
Sarah reported that she was in the right place at the right time today and received a “hand me down” Rotary Jacket when she modeled from the podium. Sarah read the Birthday list
Announcements were made reminding the membership of the upcoming April 24th Fireside chat. Other updates:
- Tracey Tomme provided an update of the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA). A successful Camp Kern trip for Dayton youth was completed, thanks to Rotarians Ann Riegle Crichton, Paul grunter, Shannon Bozeman, 2 teachers, bus drivers and RTA who transported the kids to Camp Kern for the annual outdoor outing.
- John Lohbeck announced that the club is transitioning from Bowling Outings to 5 Golf Outings this year. If anyone is interested our club will participate in 5 local golf scrambles, anticipated to be at Oakwood club, Centerville, Walnut Grove, Dayton Country Club, Miami Valley, or others to be determined. Let Jack know you are interested and he will add you to an e-mail chain for notification 2 weeks before T-Times. Dayton Rotary Club will have 3-foursomes to fill for each scramble and it will be a first come first serve opportunity. The cost is to be determined and the first 12 people will get a spot.
Three Rotary Awards were given a commemorative Dayton Rotary Club book signed by Dave Williamson.
- Tracy Tomme for her role in RYLA, stepping up and helping out with this important program. Rotary volunteers provide critical roles, including getting kids on and off buses. This year a couple kids needed special assistance and rotary volunteers helped get those kinds home earlier than planned and safely. Tracey and Sarah mentioned the Club is seeking volunteers for next year to help with the continuation of RYLA. Ask Sarah or Tracey if you are interested.
- Linda Groover for filling in for Sarah while she was on vacation.
- Shannon Bozeman for visiting two different Rotary on the road locations.
Secretary Sarah reported her weekly water fact, focusing on MCD recording its 7th high water event of the year, recorded April 11-15. Peak water storage was 5.4 billion gallons. This event ranks 126th of the largest Miami Conservancy District storage events. Englewood Dam is still storing water as of Monday, April 15. An increase of 228% of storage events where dams and levees are holding back more water has been documented by the Miami Conservancy District over the last several decades.
Following announcements, Sarah opened the floor up for limited Day-10 donations and since time was limited, please get your donations to Laura or bring them for Red Ribbon Takeover:
Linda Groover - $10 for the student youth exchange program and announced the need for area families to host exchange students. The students are 15- to 19 year olds and attend a local school. Host families host for 3-4 months and the student stays with 3 families throughout the school year. We need to get a commitment from the first family now.
Ann Crichton- $166 which is the sum of a math problem that includes her age (for her birthday), a digit from today's date and a number from a sci-fi question that only the geeks in the room would understand. For the Red Ribbon Project.
Amy Radachi - $100 to her Paul Harris in recognition of her son who was in the Navy and was deployed for four months on foreign soil and surprised the family with a visit last week, safe and sound.
Annie Foos - $50 to recognize Dots Market’s Grocery Store Games- Cheeseboard/ Charcuterie Challenge. Happening April through July, you can sign up for classes to do a fun grocery store game to collect items from the shelves and assemble them onto a cheese board and enjoy some cheese and mimosas at the Centerville Dot Market.
Kappy Kilburn - $39 to recognize Human Race Theater Company unveiling of the 39th Season tonight at the Loft Theatre.
Jean Maychack - $100 for her birthday for the Red Ribbon Project
Kim Spurgeon - $100 for Red Ribbon for her birthday and in recognition of the Rotarians who participated in this year's Rotary Reads project.
Suren Singhvi - $100 for his safe return from 2 months in India
Frank Scott presented Steve Naas with his pin and memento recognizing him as a major donor to the Rotary International Foundation. He was recognized not only for his donations but the generosity of his time in contributing to the technology for the club and the youth exchange program.
Bill Nance did a Peace Builder interview of Tom Webb, Associate Vice President of Accessibility and ADA /504 coordinator, Office of Disability Services Wright State University. Tom came to the area about 10 years ago from DC. Wright state is rated #3 in the U.S. in being the “most accessible campus with accessibility services. Tom is hoping to work his way out of a job and works hard across the university to bring awareness and change to the planning, design, and construction of buildings, courses and anything that may help reduce the barriers to education of people with disabilities. This falls into the peace category because it helps with peace to people who may be otherwise overlooked in traditional educational settings.
Jack Lobeck was chair of the day and introduced Jeff Hoagland, President and CEO of Dayton Development Coalition. Jeff provided an update on the regional economic conditions of the Miami Valley. DDC covers a 14-county area and focuses on three major areas of interest such as economic development, support for Wright Patt Air Force Base and federal advocacy. Jeff talked about the metropolitan market that includes 1.9 million people from Auglaize County to Montgomery County to almost Franklin Co. Jeff provided trends and economic analysis of how the region is much stronger from where it was in 2012. Highlights of Jeff’s presentation are noted below.
- Our region led the state in job creation: 5212 Jobs created in 2023 in DDC region vs. 3248 in Columbus in second place.
- Past 3 years our region has crated more than 15,400 new jobs and retained 15,80 jobs, capital investment from those projects totaled $7.45 billion, 491 regional wins 2011 through 2023.
- The job growth in the region continues with Advanced Manufacturing, Aerospace and Aviation, Automotive, Food Sciences and Agriculture, Healthcare, Information Services and Software, Logistics and Distribution being the leading sectors. Numerous DDC projects and leads are in the pipeline in these and other sectors.
- In comparison to 2011, regional population has grown by 3.9%, jobs have increased by 6.6%, unemployment rate is lowered by 3.8%, per capita income is up 32.6% and median household income is up 28.7%.
- A summary of Honda and Joby were highlighted and Ohio and the DDC region competed well and won.
- Why Dayton ? Proximity to WPAFB is key to this success and having sites available is key to success of attracting and winning new projects. Have not seen manufacturing of full aerospace here since WW2. Always had the office jobs, now getting the manufacturing jobs.
The DDC hosts an annual meeting and the 41st Annual Fly-in to DC is coming up at the end of the month. DDC also hosts the NCAA First Four Big Hoopla as a March-Madness Celebration Kickoff each year. DDC also does a lot of stuff with the Dayton Dragons, the arts, and making the military experience better for military families and support services.
In response to the question of what the biggest threat to our region is, Jeff responded that it’s all about workforce. The region has a lot of people who can retire and we need to get high school students, community colleges and tech centers to get students attracted to non-degree programs. There are several non-degree jobs that pay $75k/year. DDC is working with Wright State, UD and Cedarville University and others to bridge this gap, but more action is needed to close the workforce gap.
No Queen of Hearts today due to bring a guest.
President Bramlage reminded us that next week is Red Ribbon Takeover; She led us in the 4-way test and adjourned the meeting.
Link for Meeting Recording