July 18, 2011, Club Bulletin #381
Program for Today: Girl Scouts of Iowa and Illinois...Joyce Vance
July 11 Invocation by: Rick Ray
New President Mike Ruby provided an update of the singing survey. There were 30 respondents and the conclusion is that we will continue to sing. We will try several formats for 6 months and see what is liked best. We will sing a patriotic song and a Rotary song.
Rotary guests: Our speaker Don Doucette and Mike Ferguson from the Muscatine Journal. Mike also induced Nathan Mather as a new member. Welcome Nathan!! His dad Mark received a special pin for sponsoring a new member. Kudos Mark and Jim Nepple for getting Nathan!!
Mike also told us that Jim Kent and Dave Stanley have been members since 1956. Kudos to these great longstanding members!! And Dennis Taylor has his 30 year anniversary today also.
Club News: Members should have received your third quarter billing, check your email. The Youth Exchange Committee will be meeting today. We have the honor of sponsoring a lovely young girl from Italy. The committee will decide based on available home stay sponsors.
Happy News: Harvey Allbee completed a bucket list goal by completing 1 golf stroke for each year old he is... and he topped that with a $1 for each in contribution to Rotary!! Dave Stanley proudly shared that he and Jeannie have been married for 63 years!! Karen Diercks proud grandma is happy that her grandson has safely returned from the Muscatine Youth Choirs trip to Greece. Another proud grandma, Ann Meeker is enjoying her granddaughter who lives here.
Program: Jeff Armstrong introduced Dr. Don Doucette, the new Chancellor of EICCD. Don comes to EICCD with over 30 years of community college experience. Most recently he was Sr. Vice President fo Ivy Tech which has 28 campuses and over 165,000 students. Community Colleges have come into their own by providing access to education for all and allowing economic mobility, enlargement of the middle class and higher education for many. Already Don has observed that MCC is a wonderful college with over 2000 students, 700 of which are high school students who are taking college courses. He lauded the Muscatine Learning Consortium which provides learning options for workers at 12 Muscatine businesses and industries.
His goal is to listen first. He will be working on improving community college completion rates and hopes to make EICCD the BEST Community College System in the country. The United States to remain competitive needs to double our production of degrees and credentials. Don is on board to improve that ratio!!