We kicked off the meeting with Ann Norman’s invocation that enlightened our membership about the end of tax season and its importance to the community as whole, before leading us into the pledge of allegiance.  Colleen Turner introduced our guests attending the meeting, which is always a pleasure.

We kicked off the agenda with our vocational minute led by John Martinka, who reminded us about the importance of Rotary and its connections to support business.  He recounted his own story of how Rotary connections helped him successfully develop business opportunities.  A useful reminder of the value of our vocations, while still being focused on Service Above Self.

Chris Boland took the opportunity to rally us around the support our Race sponsors have provided this year.  We had the opportunity to hear from one of our sponsors, Randi Brazen, who introduced us to the new Central Bar in Bellevue that the Brazen family are opening.  The Brazen family have been long time supporters of the run, for which the BBRC are truly appreciative of over the many years that they have been involved with the event – thank you!

We had the pleasure of inducting a new member into the club – Caitlin Devaney.  Caitlin was joined by her fiancee, Nick Odeh.  Caitlin was a prior member of Eastside Rotaractors, and we have been impressed with her involvement and commitment to the Rotary cause through this group.  We look forward to seeing Caitlin become active with us at the BBRC, where she has already signed up to join the Preserve Planet Earth, Youth Services and World Community Service committees. These committees also seem to align well with Caitlin’s enthusiasm for the outdoors (skiing, hiking, biking, camping and CrossFit) and her work at as a youth minister at the Holy Family Parish.

Finally, our program was kicked off with Sue Brooks and Alli Frank who are co-founding the International Friends School in Bellevue.  We learned about Quaker Education, the critical role that bi-literacy has in preparing students for their futures and a new way to implement the school calendar to minimize summer learning loss was thought provoking and makes a lot of sense.

We certainly wish them the best of luck in growing their attendance the first few years while IFS grows their class mix and reputation.  At this time, we concluded our meeting with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

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