President Lynn King called the meeting to order.

Meeting location was USCB - HHI campus 

Kevin Courtney offered the prayer and led the pledge to the flag

 

Announcements:

 

Next week's meeting, January 21, will also be at the USCB-HHI campus.
Please provide Lynn with your thoughts, both positive and negative about this venue becoming our meeting place.

 

Board will meet on January 23 - Lynn will be following up with email

 

Foundation Chair Greg Wynn recognized John Farrenkopf by presenting him with his Paul Harris Fellow +7 pin.  Congratulations and thank you, John for your support of our Charity, The Rotary Foundation

 

Auction - February 23 is the date - bring your auction stuff next week!  Rack cards will be here next week.  February 15 is the filming for WTOC.  It appears that this year will be the last time televising on WTOC.  Make this a special event.  

 

Founder's night will be the second last Saturday in June and held at Spring Lake.  More details to follow.

 

Hal Wilson was inducted by Bruce Yeager. His sponsor is Dave Pierce  When you see Hal, please welcome him to the club.

 

Sergeant at Arms, Julie Camp-Tome welcomed visitors and guests. She collected Happy $$.

 

Speaker:

This morning's program was about Outside Foundation.

Mike Overton provided a history of how the Outside Foundation came about. He had great stories and anecdotes about his experience and adventures.  After meeting and contacting many people to help him get going, he met Charles Fraser who gave him advice that stuck. He said if you want to be successful here it is "all about tides".  He set him up in South Beach and the business took off.

The Outside Foundation is dedicated to getting kids outside and protecting our local environment.

 

Jean Fruh talked about the various aspects of the Outside Foundation.  She spoke about "kids in kayaks" which is their signature project.  It is a program that teaches kids in the seventh grade about the local waterways and salt marshes during a regular school day. The students and their teachers spend half the day kayaking and half participating dockside on hands on environmental science curriculum based activities.   It started in 2014 and has grown tremendously. Last year over 900 seventh graders participated.  Another project is "learn to paddle" which teaches pre teens. Other things are: Charter fishing trips, clean up the waterways, and beach and park clean ups.  They have observed that there has been a considerable reduction of plastic bag trash in the recent years.  Oyster shell recycling and bed restoration is also part of their efforts. She explained about the need  to rebuild the beds and how the local restaurants participate in oyster shell recycling.

There is a unique fundraiser which is being held on March 1st. It is an Oyster Roast on Page Island and benefits the scholarship fund for Kids in Kayaks.  It a champagne cruise to Page, oyster roast and lowcountry boil, cocktails, beer, wine, music, etc. Tickets are on sale at OutsideFoundation.org.