Related Page

David was the winning bidder on the Indianola getaway package, which included a hotel stay, wine tasting, and balloon ride, donated by Jim & Rita Fromm.  The weather was perfect, and allowed a few soft landings to change passengers.

David's wife Brenda did not want to ride at first, but Rita convinced her as they rode in the chase vehicle to take advantage of this rare opportunity.  She got in the gondola and had an amazing experience.  David was kind enough to share photos with us.

If you are interested in helping plan next year's event, please email President Steve.

Training began in April; it was intense and time consuming, but Williams made the journey to crossing the finish line possible for 73 other runners from the Cedar Valley.  Through the process, Annie made new friends, learned a lot about herself and self-discipline, as well as her personal faith.

The entire journey was worth the cause for Annie.they ran to raise money for Team World Vision.  Their team name was Iowans for Africa and they raised about $40,000 to help ensure that kids in Africa are able to tend to the important things in life, like education.  Money raised will help to build 8 wells so individuals in the villages can have access to clean water.

Congratulations, Annie, we are proud to count you among our members!

Here is a Courier article by Karen Heinselman

"Everything we do through our Rotary clubs - from fighting poverty to eradicating polio - is intended ultimately to promote world peace. What better way to contribute to that effort than by helping to develop future world leaders committed to achieving peace and understanding?"

            Thefirst classes of our Rotary World Peace Fellows began in 2002-'03 and the first Fellows graduated in 2004-'05. Since then we have graduated 448 total alumni (masters and certificate programs) and have compiled statistics on 415 peace fellows (92.6%) that have reported their current position to The Rotary Foundation.

These incredible and accurate statistics are as of October 1, 2009.

Of these 415 peace fellows:

125 work for NGOs or perform other peace-related work (30%)

90 work for a government agency (22%)

52 are pursuing additional advanced degrees in peace-related fields (13%)

36 are teachers/professors (9%)

30 work in research or academic support positions (7%)

26 work for United Nations agencies (6%)

9 are journalists (2%) 

9 work for the World Bank (2%)

6 are lawyers or work in a law-related field (1%)

14 defy easy categorization; these include: bankers, human resource professionals, and business owners (3%)

15 reported they are actively looking for work in the field (4%)

The Peace Program is Rotary's highest educational priority.

First Gates Challenge has been met; one more to go.

            When Rotary accepted the first Gates Foundation challenge almost two years ago,  it worked out to $36 per member plus $50,000 from district funds. That worked out to $6,624 for our 184 members.

            New data from the Rotary Foundation report shows we've donated $8,902 to date putting us well on the way to meeting our second challenge. And there's more contributions to add to the total from last week's Rotary Zone Institute meeting.

            Tom Arthur's subtitle reminder that we are all members of the Membership Committee was lost on many of us, your sage reporter included. But the point was there.

            We can't wait for someone else to look for new members.

            You'll be doing your friends and business associates a favor by asking them to attend a meeting and to consider becoming a member.

            And this week's meeting with the three candidates for mayor on the program would be a great opportunity to showcase what we do.

            Our club's annual pork chop dinner will be Thursday, November 5 at the Rotary Reserve with a social hour at 5:30 and dinner at 6:30. Because of the event, there will be no regular meeting November 9.

            You may make reservations at our web site, www.waterloorotary.org Log in by clicking on the word LOGIN at the top right of the home page.  Enter your username and password, then click CALENDAR at the top of the page.  Browse to November 5th and click on "Pork Chop Dinner".

            Click the link "Attend or Decline" to register yourself and be sure to click on the "Register additional guests" button for your spouse and guests. You'll get an e-mail confirmation for each person you register.

            If you have problems logging in or registering, you can always call Kelli at the Rotary office, 234-1440 or email Mason.

And remember, it's not the swine flu

            Several months ago our friends at the Center for Disease Control mistakenly refered to the H1N1 flu as the swine flu; they corrected their error the next day, but by then the damage was done.