Greg chaired the meeting with Bill’s assistance. There were 18 members present and 7 members were on Zoom. Guest was Michael Goldenberg, a financial planner from Northfield, invited by Robert Mardirossian.  Thought of the day was given by Rich Lalley.  David Birkenstein led the Pledge of Allegiance and Eric Birkenstein handled the Dig N. Grin. Michael Wurzburg (honorary member) celebrated a birthday and Monica Dombrowski celebrated 1 year membership in the Club.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:  Bill Leske announced that our Club would have booths at both the Winnetka Farmer’s Market (Saturdays) and  Northfield’s FM (Wednesday evening).  He will provide details later but we do need volunteers to work our 10x10 tent at each event.  It was mentioned that the  renovated Northfield FM was a huge success last year with live music, games for the kids and plenty of social time for the adults—its hours are about 5 to 9 PM each Wednesday evening and its FM replaces the one that Northfield used to have on Saturdays across from New Trier West.

 

HAPPY BUCKS:  Fred gave in celebration of qualifying for an Illinois Driver’s License for 70 straight years;  David B. gave in honor of those who wore the Ukraine colors to the meeting; Rich gave due to his sister being able to be a sub teacher this year at Skokie school and offered a part time teacher position next year. Heidi gave in honor of the contribution David Birkenstein made to the WCH on behalf of his family  as memorialized by the wooden chair next to the sidewalk on the south side of the building; and Keith Reed gave as a tribute to all the help David Grant gives to the current Club scribes and the times he fills in as a scribe.

 

SPEAKER HEIDI SIBERT:  Heidi is a long time member of our Club and a landscape designer/manager with James Martin Associates in Mount Prospect. She explained the personal conflict she has had with helping clients make their properties look pretty versus the damage that landscaping and well manicured properties do to the environment. Her presentation was very informative and is available on our Club’s list of presentations.  Among the many points/facts she mentioned were that Earth Day was started by a Senator from Wisconsin in 1970; that Rotary International has followed up with its own program to promote environmental efforts; 8 to 10% of our environmental problems are caused by the disposal of old clothes in landfills; only 1/3 of the food produced in the world actually gets eaten, the rest is disposed of as garbage; only about 10% of the plastic we use gets recycled, the rest goes into landfills or our water systems; most of our recycling programs are inefficient especially when the bad waste gets mixed in with the recycled material and contaminates all the material; as mentioned by one of recent speakers from Grand Foods, the Mississippi River Basin (including its coral reefs) is dying; that dealing with North Shore suburbs regarding water management is difficult because they have different rules; in Winnetka the front yards have to be 35% impermeable but the rest of the lot 50%; underground retention systems are becoming very common but very expensive and the release of water from those tanks is very gradual which creates other problems; our Club member Carl Yudell has been very active in the Wetlands Initiative which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the wetland resources of the Midwest to improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and reduce flood damage; and birds and bees are important to pollinator spaces and many people are foregoing large lawns to provide such spaces.

 

Chair Nelson adjourned the meeting at 1:30 with the reciting of Rotary’s 4 Way Test.

 

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