Rotary Bulletin June 22 (Jun 15, 2017)

There were 27 members present. Joe Flint represented Hadley at the meeting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Patti reminded the members who have volunteered to help the Winnetka Music Festival on June 24^th from 4-6:00 that they will be contacted for a brief pre-service training session. The Installation Dinner for incoming President, Tom Nash, is scheduled for June 29^th from 5:30-8:00 at the WCH and there will be no noon luncheon meeting that day. A very important gathering is scheduled for 5:30 on July 17^th at Clarkson Park in Northfield for the celebration of a scholarship being established at Northeastern University in honor of David Gotaas. The scholarship will fund a series of Master’s Degrees in Social Work. There will be a special meal prepared that evening by Dirk Tussing’s friend, Tom, who has a great reputation as a chef.

Patti reported on her wonderful experience attending the Rotary International meeting in Atlanta where she was joined by about 20,000 other Rotarians from all over the world. Other dignitaries there besides Patti were Bill Gates, the Mayor of Atlanta, the Governor of Georgia and a very inspirational speaker who has been a longtime polio victim. Gates gave a 2 for 1 matching gift for up to 50 million dollars and other countries chipped in with 1.2 billion. All of this will be used to make sure polio is totally eradicated for at least three years.. There were still 5 cases reported last year which means that the polio project is still not quite finished. Patti thanked the Club for helping her attend this very meaningful meeting and said that next year it will be in Toronto. To add to her memories of this event, Fred Schwimmer presented Patti with an antique matchbook cover announcing the Rotary International Convention of 1935 (which also was the year of Fred’s birth so it’s one of the few historical events that Fred has no memory of)!

Peter Skalski did the Dig N Grin and reminded us of how little time we actually spend “looking at our money” as we spend it, although the members were pretty good at identifying the people pictured on various bills. We also learned that the ten dollar bill is called a “sawbuck” because the Roman numeral “X” looks like a sawbuck, and that there are 293 ways to make change for a dollar bill.

GUEST SPEAKER BRIDGET MCDONOUGH: Bridget has been General Manager of the Music Theater Works (formerly Light Opera Works) in Evanston since its founding in 1981. She has also been a Rotarian for 27 years and was past President of the Evanston Rotary Club. She explained that MTW performs in Cahn Auditorium during the summer and the year end holidays so as not to conflict with Northwestern’s use of that space. She passed out information on this year’s performances which include Candide, Gypsy, Duke Ellington musical highlights and Peter Pan. She also explained the summer workshops MTW has for youth ages 8 to 18, which end in a youth production of Candide from June 12-29.

But most of her presentation explained the difference between “commercial” arts organizations and community based organizations that sponsor and support the local arts scene. Examples of commercial ventures are productions of Hamilton, Wicked, any Broadway Theatre production, Blue Man Group, Million Dollar Quartet, and Marriott Theater in Lincolnshire. These are underwritten by investors (mostly out of New York and from companies like Sony and Warner Brothers) who form limited partnerships to invest and underwrite the productions for the purpose of making a return on their investment. Although the investors thoroughly vet their potential productions, there is always the chance of a “flop”, such as the Spider Man musical.

Examples of community based arts organizations are MTW, CSO, Lyric Opera, Goodman Theater, Northlight Theater, Writer’s Workshop, Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf Theater and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. These organizations are usually not-for-profit and have to rely heavily on donor support in order to survive. They usually charge less for their performances. Corporate support for arts organizations has continued to dwindle and both federal and state governments have cut back on their funding.. The National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) gives less than 2% of what all of these arts organizations need to stay in business. The NEA’s total giving to all arts organization is less than 150 million a year, whereas France gives the Paris Opera organization 230 million. Bridget stressed that local organizations are important to the local arts community and that the money spent on local arts usually stays in Chicago, whereas the profits of the commercial ventures usually go back to the investors outside of the local area. In answer to questions, Bridget mentioned that MTW uses only professional musicians and actors and that their orchestra is usually made up of mostly union members. Local college students are usually too busy with their school activities to participate in MTW productions.