Rotary Bulletin September 25 (Sep. 17, 2025)

Meeting Notes 9-18-25

Posted by Amy Skalinder

President Ken opened the meeting, welcomed everyone – including special guests Marlene Frisbie (District Governor) and Sonya Martin (District Assistant Governor). Bob shared a thought for the day.

Ken shared a few announcements after lunch:

Everyone is reminded to please attend the Operation Warm benefit the evening of September 26. Tickets are still available (click here). Rich shared that there are many items available through the silent auction, and you can bid online even if you cannot attend. But please come!
We will be helping with the harvest at Glencoe Community Garden on October 9. Our meeting will start at 12pm rather than 12:15pm that day, and we will have boxed lunches delivered.
We will not meet on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Day – these holidays all fall on Thursdays this year.

Thomas shared that our Club will hold a happy hour at Fred’s Garage on October 14, 5pm to 7pm. He asked everyone to not only plan to attend but also bring a guest who may be interested in joining Rotary. There will be future similar events as well!

Michael shared a story for Dig-n-Grin, and Happy Bucks were shared by Patti, Moha, David (Birkenstein), and Tony.

Ken introduced our speaker, Marlene Frisbie, our District Governor. Marlene introduced herself and shared her history with Rotary. She shared reflections on the difference between joining Rotary and becoming a Rotarian.

Marlene then spoke about the Rotary Action Plan, a form of strategic planning that is being implemented across Rotary International. There are four key elements:

Increase our impact: measure your impact and tell the story of the good that you are doing.
Expand our reach: grow and diversify our membership.
Enhance participant engagement: do everything you can to ensure everyone is involved and having a positive experience.
Increase our ability to adapt: learn to do things in new ways and embrace new things.

Marlene shared stories to illustrate each of these points. She encouraged us to think long-term, continually looking three years ahead. There are many resources to help us create an Action Plan available on the District website (here) along with a toolkit available through Rotary International (here).

Marlene also shared three of her personal initiatives that she is working on during her tenure as District Governor:

Encouraging every Club to do some kind of environmental project and commended us for using compostable plates and forks at our meeting.
Encouraging more Rotarians to attend the District Conference, which will be held November 1 (morning) at the College of DuPage. Registration will be open soon. Click here for more information.
Raising awareness of cervical cancer, which is caused by HPV and is entirely preventable by getting vaccinated against HPV.

Marlene concluded with the Rotary mission statement and challenged us all to unite for good in our world.

The meeting adjourned with our usual recitation of the 4-Way Test.

Meeting Assignments

Posted by David Grant

September 25

Greeter	David Birkenstein
Thought & Sgt.	Debra Campbell
Dig-n-Grin	Vicki Bittar
Scribe	Thomas Applegate

October 2

Greeter	Terry Dason
Thought & Sgt.	Tony Kambich
Dig-n-Grin	Moha Bouacha
Scribe	Patti Van Cleave

October 9

Greeter	Robert Mardirossian
Thought & Sgt.	Bill Leske
Dig-n-Grin	Peter Skalski
Scribe	Amy Skalinder

If you are unable to fulfill your assignment, please find a substitute.

Attend the Weekly Meeting on Zoom

Posted by Rich Lalley

Here is the log-in info for today's Rotary meeting. Meeting starts at 12:15, with people beginning to gather around noon.

Thursday Lunch Meetings 12:15 pm -1:30 pm

If you log on with this link, you will not need a password.

https://zoom.us/j/198435237?pwd=NTNYbFg3WHpvNDkvVENOVlpaYUc2Zz09

Password: Win60093

Join by Phone:

312 626 6799; Meeting ID: 198 435 237; Password: 798428 (note, if asked for User ID, press #).

Reminder- you can give happy bucks, dig n grin, birthday donations and other donations to our foundation at https://wnrotary.org/page/donate/ or by texting DIGNGRIN to 44-321.

Winnetka-Northfield Rotary Club Creating a Women's Clothing Cooperative in Morocco

The Rotary Club of Winnetka-Northfield is teaming up with The Rotary Foundation and the Rotary Club of Rabat in the capital city of Morocco to establish a women's clothing cooperative in the village of Tomoulilt. This will be a project funded in part with a Rotary Foundation Global Grant (GG#2571461).

The program's objectives are to:

Create a revenue-generating cooperative run by stakeholders of village women/girls;
Empower women to run and manage a long-term sustainable and profitable business operation.

The project funds new equipment and training for the cooperative's participants. Training will encompass technical use of the equipment, entrepreneurial skills, business planning and management, sales and marketing planning, and financial management. The program's vision is to create a self-sustaining long term business enterprise for the participating women in Timoulilt.

Overall program budget is $100,000. The club is seeking cash and District Designated Funds (DDF) support from Rotary Clubs and Districts.

For more information, contact Club Co-President Moha Bouacha at m_bouacha@yahoo.com. Cash contributions may be made online by clicking here.

Support The Rotary Foundation!

At the March 6 meeting, Rich Lalley presented an overview of the work of our two foundations- the Winnetka-Northfield Rotary Foundation (WNRCF) and The Rotary Foundation (TRF) of Rotary International. You can review that presentation here.

The club's board has set a goal of achieving 100% participation in supporting TRF this Rotary Year. To reach this goal, every active member needs to donate a minimum of $25 to The Rotary Foundation. You can do this online by clicking here.

We also aspire to be a 100% Paul Harris Fellow Club. For member who are not yet a Paul Harris Fellow, once your donation level reaches $250 and you have made a contribution this year, our club will celebrate you with a Paul Harris Fellow Award.

We appreciate all of our members who have contributed generously to The Rotary Foundation and to our club's WNRCF foundation. Thank you!

Paul Harris Fellows

Bob Baker, Wes Baumann, David Birkenstein*, Moha Boucha, Debra Campbell, Ken Drummet, Tom Evans, David Grant*, Tony Kambich*, Marie Kuipers, Rich Lalley, Bill Leske, Robert Mardirossian, Ned Meisner, Chuck Norton, Lee Padgitt, ArLynn Presser, Fred Schwimmer*, Heidi Sibert, Peter Skalski, Liz Taylor, Barb Tubekis, Patti Van Cleave.

Bold indicates donation made this Rotary Year. * indicates Major Donor.