October 30, 2017 Meeting Bulletin

Meeting commenced at 12.15 with Pledge of Allegiance and the Four Way Test.

God Bless America heartfully led by Ken Gass

Invocation thoughtfully presented by John Westerheide

Two Minute update was an amusing look back at the International scope of Rotary and his personal recollection of exchange students given in a fast moving 3 minutes and 35 seconds by Chuck Moss.

Lunch tickets were sold by Ryan Quinn, raffle tickets by John Schrot, the greeter was Oriana D’Amico, the sheriff was David Underdown (who donated his raffle winnings).

 

Marsha Kovacs enthusiastically enlightened about her work history, her personal living arrangements, her three cats and her delight with her Rotary membership.

 

Joe Bauman gave a foundation update and presented a Paul Harris (plus 2) to Pete Kreher.

 

Bill Roy reminded us that the next Hope Warming Center is November 8 and started the signup sheet for our December date.

 

Regan Gilshire urged us urged us to go to our website (http://birminghamrotary.com/) and order an “End Polio Now” T shirt.

 

Holiday lunch is set for Monday, December 11, The Country Day choir will be performing.  A signup sheet was started by Marsha Kovaks, choice of Salmon, Chicken or Pasta, $25 a head, you are encouraged to bring a guest.

 

Mark Anderson gave an update on the house at 16 Murphy Ave in Pontiac where a few volunteers have been working on each Saturday to prepare to house political (?) refugees.  All are welcome from 9 am on Saturdays.

 

The weekly raffle ($10) was won by David Underdown, 2 chances at the big pot were wasted by ‘yours truly’ and one chance by Mark Anderson. Pot Lives.

 

Joe Bauman introduced our guest speaker, Mr Calvin Ford, from Pentastar Aviation, who knowledgably educated us on the size, scope and direction of business aviation.

In a wide-ranging presentation and a lengthy Q & A we learned that this category encompasses all Piston, Turbo prop, Jet and helicopter transportation other than commercial airlines and military.  Whist not the same magnitude as the auto industry it does account for 1.2 million jobs and $150 billion in revenue annually.

The trend is leaning towards smaller and more efficient jets and there were 537 used jets sold in the first quarter on 2017, a record. 50% of all business jets are still flying after 40 years, which is excellent news for the maintenance business.

 

There was a lively discussion on the future of drones and we concluded the meeting with a hearty rendition of Smiles.

 

Our speaker next week is Tel Ganesan, the president of TiE Detroit and organizer of their three day conference which starts on Wednesday, November 8.

http://tiecondetroit.org/schedule.php

 

(Bulletin Submitted by Charles Wickins)