December
19, 2005
President Rick McKernan rang the Optimist Bell and kicked the meeting off with members responding “I feel goooood!” Bo Bossaller gave the Invocation and Greg Schneider led the Pledge of Allegiance. Nearly 60 members & guests shared the Christmas fellowship.
GUESTS
Colleen and Britteny Schneider, wife & daughter of Greg; Joan Sullivan, wife of Sid. Good to see John Harre visit us often, Valerie and Ed’s son; Tom Fick, brother of Larry. Melanie and son Ian Current, guests of Rick McKernan. Melanie submitted her membership applicaqtion today as well. Rick also had Susie, Stacey, and Reece McKernan as guests. Phil Weedin brought his wife, Mary. Wayne Taylor, after a month at the tree lot, treated his wife Shirley. Bill Drummond had Shirley as his guest. And Jim Beckett had wife Shirley as guest. Shirley is a great name. Also guests were Lorenzo Alvarez and Carl Hill, who were important to us this year in filling gaps where we could not get volunteers.
MYSTERY PERSON
Bob Merriman was our Mystery Person today. Bob awarded a free dinner to Wayne Taylor for the good job he did on the Christmas tree lot at Rock Bridge.
BIRTHDAYS/ANNIVERSARIES
Happy Birthday for next two weeks to Steve Meyerhardt; Travis Scott; Ed Musterman; Ed Harre; Christina Campbell and early January, Carl Scott. Christine McGraw their celebrated 20th anniversary.
TAIL TWISTER:
Santa came in the position of Steve Henderson today. The tail twister did one elf of a good job sharing his jokes today.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
**Our Grand Avenue tree lot was robbed last Saturday. We are grateful that Pat Brown was not severely injured in the attack.
**Lot tear down Dec. 22. 8:00.
**Lunch will be served Thursday after the lot tear down. It is open to everyone. Lot tear down workers will get the lunch free otherwise there is a charge for the lunch. If you haven’t signed up, call Jake Jolly at work, 474-3708 before COB on Wednesday.
**Pat Brown and Jake Jolly received Life Membership in Optimist International as recognition for their work as Downtown Optimist Club Presidents.
PROGRAM
Excellent Christmas season singing was provided by the Les Chanteur singers from Hickman High School, under the direction of Mr. Hook.
Rick Mckernan ended the meeting at 1:00 pm with the creed.
NOTE: Next Meeting will be Jan 9th.
Respectfully
submitted by Joe Sestak
December
12, 2005
President
Rick Mckernan rang the Optimist bell at 12:15.
Rick started the meeting with announcing that his mother had
passed away. Jay
Ketchie gave the invocation and Garry Spotts
led the Pledge of Allegiance. Attendance
hovered right around 60.
GUESTS:
Brandon
Beddoe, sales manager for Courtyard Marriot was the guest of
Rick McKernan. Susie
McKernan, wife of Rick McKernan was also a guest.
Jim Yankee was the guest of Travis Kempf
and had also filled out an application for membership.
Connie Howe had 7 guests all from the Board of
Directors of the Neighborhood Watch program.
They were James Russell, Melissa Hendren, Brenda
Campbell, Dan Adams, Anne Westfall, Mike Hayes, and John White.
MYSTERY
PERSON:
Jess
Weaver was the mystery person and awarded the free lunch Carol
Irish in recognition of her working so hard on the sign up
sheets.
TAIL
TWISTER:
Steve
Henderson the tail twister gave Brian Hudspeth
his free lunch from the week before, hope the food is still good.
BIRTHDAYS/ANNIVERSARIES:
Dottie
Stoeker-Peters announced that Kelly Buxton, Gary
Meyer, and Joe Reardon have birthdays this
week.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
-
Rick McKernan reported
that tree lot sales were at $87,000 for both lots.
The lots will operate through December 21, with the tear down
being the morning of December 22nd and both lots.
A lunch will follow the tear down starting at 11:45 am.
The lunch is free for members that are tearing down and $8
each for anyone else. We
need to get a count of how many people will be at the lunch.
Please sign up or let Jake Jolley know by
12/20/2005 so we can let Hoss’s Market know how many will be in
attendance. The menu is
roast turkey and roast beef, with sides of mash potatoes and gravy,
green beans, salad. The
will be ice tea and coffee and brownies and cookies for dessert.
-
Rick announced that
there would be a board meeting 12/15/05 at 7:00pm and that all were
welcome.
-
Crunch
Time on Dues: we have
to drop any non-pays before December 31st. Get 'em in to
treasurer Steve Klein.
PROGRAM:
Andy
Anderson
with the Boone County Sheriffs Department was the guest speaker.
Andy is a detective with the department and gave a presentation
on Internet Crimes Against Children.
There are now 8,000 ISP’s, 35 million AOL subscribers, 75
million logons per day and 600 million personal e-mails per day, 1.5
billion instant messages, and 14.4 billion web hits per day.
As far as pornography on the internet there are 100,000 web sites
that display child pornography. 80%
of the purchasers of that pornography abuse children.
Andy reported that our children are using chat rooms and that 1
in 5 is of a sexual nature.
Andy’s
department has started to investigate this in Boone County by covert
investigation. He stated
that the offenders have offered the children air plane rides, clothes,
and gifts-money. Characteristically
the offenders are white males, above average good employment, and well
educated.
Some
of the more dangerous cases have involved sexually transmitted diseases,
assault, and bondage. 43%
of children have no computer rules.
One way to combat is to keep computers in common rooms rather
than bedrooms. Another is
to not let kids have any privacy passwords
Rick
Mckernan ended the meeting at 1:00 pm with the creed.
NEXT
WEEK'S PROGRAM
December
26th - NO Meeting
January
2nd - NO Meeting
January
9th - Elson Floyd, President, University of Missouri
System
Submitted by
Jake Jolley
December 5, 2005
President Rick McKernan rang the Optimist Bell and we all responded to Rick’s greeting with a strong “I feel goooood!” Bo Bossaller gave the Invocation and Bob Merriman led the Pledge of Allegiance. Nearly 60 members shared the fellowship of Optimists at Dulany Hall this week.
GUESTS
Diana Duncan was a guest of Susie Naeger, who not only brought a guest but also turned in her own application this week! Ayesha Harmon was the guest of Lorenzo Lawson. Welcome Ayesha and Diana - we hope you will be back with us again soon!
GREETER
Meredith Donaldson was our greeter this week. Meredith briefly discussed her work with Rock Bridge State Park, followed by her personal reasons why she is proud to be numbered among the Downtown Optimist Club members.
MYSTERY PERSON
Roy Robinson was our Mystery Person today. Roy awarded a free dinner to Steve Henderson as a reward for the consistency in the quality of his weekly jokes....
BIRTHDAYS/ANNIVERSARIES
Happy Birthday this week to Lori Anne Gaddy and Ira Hubbell.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ø Crunch Time on Dues: we have to drop any non-pays before December 31st. Get 'em in to treasurer Steve Klein.
Ø Central Missouri Food Bank: Denise Payne will be calling for staffing help in our first-Wednesday volunteer time slot.
Ø Help sell those trees! We have 42 slots to fill per lot each week. Only a couple weeks left. Lets fill those sheets! Lot captains this week are Grand: Sid Sullivan, Tel 234-2374, and at Nifong: Greg Schneider, Tel 815-0198.
Ø Chamber of Commerce is hosting a breakfast with our state representatives on Friday, December 16th. Contact the chamber ASAP if you wish to attend. The club is a chamber member so you should receive member pricing.
NEW MEMBER INDUCTION:
Three new members were inducted into the club at lunch Monday. We are honored and proud to recognize the following: Steve Povinelli, realtor with Keller-Williams. Steve is sponsored by Pat Brown. Brant Bukowski, online marketer with the Mortgage Research Center. Brant is sponsored by Red Leighton. Brock Bukowski, mortgage broker with Mortgage Research Center, and also sponsored by Red. Your service to the youth of our community will bring you rewards beyond measure.
PROGRAM
Dr. Phyllis Chase joined the Columbia Public School system as superintendent three years ago, coming here following a successful tour of duty in Springfield, Missouri. Dr. Chase humbly begged forgiveness for having earned degrees while disguised as a Jayhawk.
Columbia is a leader in the state for the number of National Merit Scholars produced here. Dr. Chase outlined the many diverse disciplines that have to work together to deliver education successfully: transportation, finance, food service, as well as fundamental classroom education. Columbia continues to be a party to the lawsuit against the state for the flaws in the legislature's foundation formula which provides about 1/3 of the district's funding.
The informative question-and-answer session following her presentation affirmed how fortunate we are to have someone of Dr. Chase's caliber at the head of our kids' education here in Columbia.
NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM
Sheriff Andy Anderson, Boone County Sheriff's Department
Crimes against Children and Internet predators
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