Rotary To Select Major Project

Local Club to raise $200,000 to $250,000 for local project

February 1, 2009       Leave a Comment
By: Stephen Kent

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Last Weeks Meeting - January 27, 2009

The Rotary Club focused on selection of its next Major Project at last week's meeting. The five year project will raise between $200,000 and $250,000 toward one or more local projects.

Previous projects was the funding of the Bay County Library System's first Youth Outreach Librarian for five years. That was followed by the current project which placed three historical kiosks around the downtown area and contributed to the renovation of the Pere Marquette Station downtown.

Over the past few months the club developed a focus for the new project and prepared guidelines that were distributed as a request for proposal throughout the community.

The Major Project Committee received 18 proposals. Five of those were selected to make presentations to the committee. The top three were invited to last week's meeting to present their proposals to the entire club.

Each of the three finalist met the criteria established for the project. They are all worthy of funding and all are well under way to be completed.

After hearing the three presentations Club members were asked to rank projects on a number of criteria. The committee will review these rankings and make a recommendation to the club. The committee has the option of recommending a single funding focus or could fund multiple projects.

Kurt Miller took off his Bay Medical Marketing and Public Relations Director's hat and put on his Bay City Player's hat to present a proposal for supporting Phase Three of the Player's Building and Renovation project. The Players is the oldest community theater in Michigan any may be among the three oldest in the nation. Miller reviewed the renovations project's history then outlined the many programs and services provided by the Players. Besides the usual theatrical productions, the largely volunteer organization supports two youth theater program and a senior program. Act III of the $1.2 million project will cost $664,296.

The Bay Area Family Y is currently working on a well publicized capital campaign aimed at building a new facility on the property just south of City Hall. Chuck Brooks, Executive Director of the Y, brought the club up to date on the $15.5 million campaign. The effort is over 2/3 complete building on a $4 million pledge from the Dow Chemical Company. Brooks outlined the mission of the Y, the need for the new facility, and its importance to the community.

Patti Stowell, Bay City's Economic Development Marketing Manager, presented a proposal for support of the Way Finding signage project now being planned for the city. Under this plan, well designed signs will be placed throughout the city to guide visitors, both in vehicles and on foot, to the City's many features and attractions. Way Finding has become something of a science and Stowell pointed out many of the considerations and showed examples, both good and bad from other communities. The project is underway now. The reach and number of signs will be based on the amount of funds raised. Midland spent over $700,000 on their recent project.

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CLUB NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS

Rotary Homecoming: Rob Clark reminds everyone to remember that February 3, 2009 is Rotary Homecoming Day. Past members and prospects are all invited. The second annual ROSE award will be presented. A special appearance will be made by that all knowing, all seeing, visitor from the East The Great Rotariac, who is long overdue to grace our podium with his predictions of things to come and words of so-so wisdom. Wear your school colors to the meeting - a college shirt, sweatshirt, hat or other getup!

Membership: The next new member orientation will be held January 7, 2009 at the Stein House.

GSE Team from Thailand is scheduled to be here April 5 through 10. Contact Hratch for more information.

Vocational Days will be March 3 and 24.

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Upcoming Programs

(See the official schedule at RotaryBayCity.org )

Feb 3: Rotary HOMECOMING This is the day to welcome back former Rotarians and invite prospective members to join us for lunch. Also we will be awarding our second Rose Award --- You don't want to miss this date. And wear your old college sweaters, shirts, pins or whatever!

Feb 10: Angel Food Ministries Joyce Wetters form First Church of the Nazarene will talk about program that the club has pledged $7,200 for.

March 3: Vocational Day First of two job shadowing day for high school students.

March 24: Vocational Day Second of two job shadowing day for high school students. Pat McCormick will speak about the Michigan Lottery and how funds support our schools.

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Visit RotaryBayCity.org

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Stephen Kent
Steve Kent and his family have lived in Bay City for 40 years. He is VP of Technical Services at MMCC which produces MyBayCity.Com. Kent is active in many Bay City civic organizations. More from Stephen Kent

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