Meetings

WELCOME TO OUR CLUB!

Spokane North

We meet In Person
Mondays at 12:00 p.m.
Bark, A Rescue Pub
905 N Washington St
Spokane, WA 99201
United States of America
We welcome visiting Rotarians and all Community Members interested in Rotary!!!
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2023-24: Create Hope in the World
 
RI President-elect R. Gordon R. McInally calls for Rotary to create hope in the world by working for peace and mental wellbeing. He urges members to engage in tough conversations and earn the trust that’s necessary to realize these values.
 
North Notes
Spokane-North Rotary Club
March 25, 2024
Calendar:
          
           April 1:  Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Michael Baumgartner, Spokane County Treasurer.
 
           April 8:  Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Rick Clark, Giving Back Spokane.
 
           April 15: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Hunter Abell, developments in the legal profession.
 
           April 22: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Rod Tamura, Japanese incarceration impacts on the Tamura and Oba families.
 
           April 29: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Mike Kobluk, Expo 74 50th anniversary memories.
 
Happy Buck$:
 
           John Mailliard offered “a few bucks” to celebrate the date for Medal of Honor recipients.  John personally knows two honorees.
 
          Steve Boharski, Lenore Romney and Melinda Keberle were happy for Zag teams’ successes.
 
          Dave Hayward was $5 happy when his grandson provided front-row tickets for the Velocity soccer game.
 
          Nancy Hanson donated pot-winning dollars “in honor of the Cougs.”
 
          Steve Bergman was $5 happy for the Zags and for a visit to San Antonio, Texas, for  family he had not previously seen in person.
 
          Ron Noble remarked, politely, how much four female family members carried on an amazing conversation during a gathering.
 
Holler for $1:
 
          Laura Zahn, who coordinated the club’s dinner for those at the Ronald McDonald House, said volunteers are needed 9-Noon, this Saturday, March 30, to help with a fund drive at the McDonald House.
 
3rd Quarter Report: Good grades and two challenges
      
           As the third quarter ends for the Rotary year, President Ron Noble and board members Bill Simer and Lenore Romney shared the results at the club’s March 25 luncheon.
 
          Simer, who heads the club’s charitable fund, said, “We are covered for the fiscal year.”
 
          But, he adds that the club does not have enough money to start summer projects, like next fall’s Holmes Elementary supply closet needs and the scholarship(s).
 
          So the challenge in the next few months is to raise adequate funds.  “Our goal is to reach 100 percent of the membership.  We need everyone to pitch in.”  Donors receive small red hearts on their club badges.
       
  Treasurer Lenore Romney said, “The club is basically on tract for the rest of the Rotary year,” which ends June 30.
 
          She said one cost eliminated was the system for on-line payment.  Since Feb. 1, she said, members can pay electronically by scanning a Q-R code.  Previously, it had cost the club as much as $30 a month to process dues payments, “even if no one used it,” Lenore said.
 
          As Ron Noble concluded as quarterly club president,  he talked about his 49 years of Rotary, starting in his hometown, Grandview, Wash.
 
          Ron recalled how a local newspaper publisher was club president when Ron attended his first Rotary meeting.  Ron helped demolition when the press building burned down.
 
          At his first Rotary meeting, Ron, then 26, said, “great food and I was hungry.”
 
          He operated an electronics business in a three-county area.
 
          Following a severe drought in the Yakima Valley area in 1977, Ron moved to Colville where he worked and taught at the high school, adding, “I always tried to work with youngsters.”  He helped with the track program at the school for many years.
 
          Of his years in education, Ron said, “It shows how adaptable kids are in bad situations.”  He recalled how one young man found “three suitcases on the front steps” when his family suggested moving elsewhere.  Rather than asking a buddy, the youngster called Ron, allowing the late-night visitor to stay the night.  “What are you going to do?” Ron said.
 
           In Colville, Ron worked with Donna Hanson and Tri-County Catholic Charities projects.
 
           Ron talked about his own challenges in 2003 when he learned he had breast cancer.  Fortunate for the early detection, but following an arduous recovery, he said he has been cancer-free since.
 
           At the club luncheon, Ron recalled the top-quality of speakers and programs, especially the field trips to Fairwood Village and Heritage cemeteries.
 
           In addition to the funding challenge, Ron said the other challenge is recruiting new members to the club.
 
          “I wanted to increase membership, but now we are down one,” he said.  But Lenore added, “We do have some prospects.”
 
          Bill Simer is club president for the fourth quarter.  
                    
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink.
North Notes
Spokane-North Rotary Club
March 18, 2024
 
Calendar:
 
           March 25: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Club President Ron Noble, quarterly report.
 
           April 1: Noon meeting at the Bark. Speaker: Michael Baumgartner, Spokane County Treasurer.  
                                          
            New options in cemetery choices
           
            Spokane-area burial sites are increasing as “eco-friendly” and park-like spaces are added to the more traditional cemeteries and mausoleums.
 
            At the March 18 club meeting, a dozen members and a few added visitors toured the Heritage Cemetery grounds to hear about the new concepts.
 
            Tour guides included David Ittner, CEO of Fairmount Memorial Association, and Jorge Vara II, sales director at Fairmount.  Club member Laura Zahn arranged the field trip and luncheon.
 
            Ittner led the group to Forest Grove, a “general burial and cremation” natural site where the interred are buried in ashes or shrouded bodies with no embalming liquids or other chemicals.
 
            The Grove has bark-chipped pathways amid a dense tree-filled acreage.  Basalt stone markers, native to the land, are allowed, but no traditional granite head stones, Ittner said.
 
            He added that graves are dug by hand, with no heavy equipment used on the site.
 
            “The sites are 6-by-12 feet – wider than normal casket and vault burial sites, which do not shift if the area ground moves slightly,” Ittner said.  He added that burials were at least 18 inches below the surface, safe from movement or digging by animals.
 
            Some burials are done in biodegradable bamboo caskets, but no metal caskets are allowed in the Grove, he said.
 
            Vara said no “scattering areas” of ashes is allowed in the Forest Grove area, but other sites are available in Heritage’s 85 acres to allow spreading ashes.
 
            Back at the main building Ittner showed a video of the Timber Run Reserve area designed to look more like a park than a traditional cemetery.  Wide paths have benches and a variety of flower beds surrounded by deciduous and pine trees.
 
           Timber Run will include some mausoleum sites.  Vara said the large existing mausoleum building is nearly filled.
 
            In background, Ittner said seven individual cemeteries were merged into the non-profit Fairmount Association.  Vara said some 60,000 have been buried “in the whole area” over the years.
 
            Ittner said burial fees include “interment rights,” adding that means the right to the burial, but “we own the land and pay the property taxes.”
 
            Additional costs include labor to open and close the burial site, a memorial and various funeral service items.
 
            Ittner said more than 80 percent of burials in Washington State are cremations.  He said while many cemeteries now are “land-locked,” with little new space, Heritage has 85 acres now and 80 acres more to develop, all the way to the Spokane River.
 
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink.
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