Announcements: President Kathy reminded us that we would be back in Pearson Hall for our February 8 meeting. We need Rotarians to sign up in advance if they are going to buy lunch as we are committed to purchasing 40 lunches from the Methodist women’s organization.

 

Applications for the Kent Rotary Foundation are due to Carol Crimi by January 31 for consideration at the February 8 Foundation Board meeting. Application forms are available on the Kent Rotary website.

 

The auction committee will be meeting today in Pearson Hall immediately following the Rotary meeting.

 

Student of the Month: Kent Theodore Roosevelt High School Principal Dennis Love introduced senior Jayden Reynolds as the January Student of the Month. Jayden is an inspiring leader who wants to leave a legacy at Roosevelt High School. Family is important to Jayden, especially his mother Tiffany Green and little brother Jason. In his junior year, Jayden and his partner competed at DECA Nationals with their mentor/tutoring program. Jayden is an accomplished athlete. He has played soccer all four years earning All Suburban Conference honors. He has played basketball for three years and served as captain two of those years. He plans to major in business at either Kent State or the University of Cincinnati.

 

New Member: President Kathy introduced Bill Russell, Chief Officer for Behavioral Health for Portage County at Coleman Professional Services. Bill is a graduate of Kent Theodore Roosevelt High School, College of Wooster and Kent State University. He began work at Coleman Professional Services in 2004. He and his wife Anna Marie have three children Charlie, Alice and Dot. Bill enjoys games, reading, watching science fiction and stand-up comedy. Welcome to Kent Rotary, Bill!

 

Speaker: January Program Chair Mary Beth Harper said she was ending her month of “Let’s Talk” programs with a “Let’s Listen” program. She then introduced in turn four members who presented their “how to” subjects.

 

Dave Patterson led the way by educating us about slack.com. To demonstrate how to use this free instant messaging program, he created a prototype for the Kent Rotary. Slack can be structured into groups and then channels can be formed within the group. Dave said this dynamic tool can be used to make calls and do meetings like Zoom. He said he was able to stay in touch with family and friends during the pandemic shut down through slack.

 

Dr. Steve Dennis taught us how to turn $1 million in real estate into $25 through metaverse. He said metaverse is a digital land market as compared to a physical housing market. He said metaverse has gone wild with buyers paying as much as $2.5 million for a piece of non-physical, digital real estate. His advice is to stay far away from metaverse. He also reminded members to never speculate with more than 5% of your portfolio.

 

Rachel Kerns, assisted by her daughter Camille, introduced the club to bubble mold cookie cutters. These unique three dimensional cookie cutters have been in Rachel’s family since 1940. These works of art use the Betty Crocker Crisco cookie recipe. She said you can’t use butter in your cookie dough or the cookies would be too soft. She also said you can’t use cake icing on the cookies, you need sugar cookie icing. She passed around examples of the Christmas cookies she, Camille and Camille’s friends made at Christmas including Santas and stockings. She then distributed Valentine cookies they made Monday for members to sample. The unanimous response to the cookie tasting was, “Delicious!”

 

Tom Hatch shared his experience of building a boat in his garage. Two years ago he saw a video on Facebook and decided the boat would be perfect for Twin Lakes. He had to build his own saw horses because he needed them wider and sturdier than manufactured ones. The boat comes in a kit along with videos to show you how to do each part of the boat. He said, “For example, all parts of the hull need to be glued, screwed and sanded.” He discovered in Millersburg a shop for hand tools and in Massachusetts the store that mixes paint for boats. He enjoys chatting with the 5 or 6 other people building this boat from a kit. For more information, contact Tom or go on TomsBoat.com.

 

Response was by Sue Hetrick who congratulated Mary Beth on a great month of programs and saluted the participating members for their informative and in Rachel’s case “yummy” segments.

 

Respectfully submitted, Anita Herington