2017-2018

President Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon served as the 95th President of the Rotary Club of Las Vegas during the 2017-2018 Rotary Year. The International theme was “Making a Difference”. President Michael reinstated the head table and shared interesting tidbits about every member’s life who joined him there every Thursday. There were two specific goals for the year: 1.) To achieve $2 million in our local Foundation, and 2.) To exceed $1 million in expenses for Santa Clothes. As usual, our club members rose to the occasion and both goals were properly celebrated – Santa Clothes at the annual holiday party, and with a champagne toast once the $2 million mark was met.

Thanks to the work of Larry Rouse, President of the Las Vegas Rotary Foundation, and the Board of Directors, the Tiberti Fellowship was created in honor of our late longtime member J.A. Tiberti. The inaugural class of Tiberti Fellows was recognized at the 95th gala which honored those members who had given at least $1,000 to our local foundation.

Other notable and unique accomplishments that occurred during the 2017-18 year include:

  • Hosted journalist Kevin Cook who published a story about our club in the May issue of the Rotarian magazine
  • Paid for three funerals after the 1Oct shooting
    • Excess funds were donated to UNLV The Practice for use in mental health education and training
  • Celebrated our club’s 95th anniversary
    • April 5, 2018, proclaimed as “Las Vegas Rotary Day” by Mayor Carolyn Goodman
  • Awarded honorary membership to longtime member Dr. Bill Stephan
  • Started to Facebook live stream our weekly meetings
    • The first club in D5300 to do this, perhaps the world
      • 47 Videos
      • 29,572 Lifetime Post Total Impressions (Lifetime: The number of impressions of your Page post. (Total Count))
      • 18,770 Lifetime Post Total Reach (Lifetime: The total number of people your Page post was served to. (Unique Users))
      • 8,393 Lifetime Total Video Views
      • Total Minutes viewed: 9,985
  • Started a podcast of our weekly speakers
  • Revised our club bylaws
  • Added 18 new members
  • Added three babies (Squier, Gordon & Lozano) and two grandbabies (Axtell & Avnet)

In an effort to answer the question: “What does Rotary do?” the board summarized all the club activities in the Wheel of June 21, 2018. These include:

Social Events:

  • Shakespeare Festival trip to Cedar City, UT (8/26-27)
  • Tailgate party at UNLV football (9/30)
  • Halloween party at Henderson Distillery (10/27)
  • Holiday party at Treasure Island (12/7)
  • Volunteering at Magical Forest, Opportunity Village (12/14)
  • Family of Rotary – Gordon & Lozano baby shower (1/7)
  • Quarterly Family of Rotary luncheons
  • 25Club socials on 8/23; 1/16 & 2/14
  • Creech AFB tour (5/29)
  • Three New Member Orientations (10/17; 2/6; 5/2)

Fundraising activities:

  • 4 cigar socials (9/8; 12/7; 1/7 & 3/16 – Raised $1,100 for the Foundation
  • Cars for a Cause show (4/15) – Raised $10,752
  • Canned food drive – Raised $7,856.60
    • Beat the Kiwanis clubs for the 10th straight year
  • Two Wine-to-Water events (10/14; 2/24) – Raised $1,314 for One Drop
  • Thomas Family literacy grant – $12,500 for Beckley E.S.
  • Raised $885 for VR Kids for terminally ill children
  • Lefler literacy grant – $1,000 for Bracken E.S.
  • Superbowl board – Raised $2,500 for LVRF
  • Fantasy football – Raised $1,500 for LVRF
  • Putting tournament (5/6) – Raised $4,026 for youth exchange

Monthly 4-Way Test Coin winners:

July 2017 – PP Tom Thomas
August 2017 – PP Tom Axtell & Anna Karabachev
September 2017 – Kirk Holmes
October 2017 – Dave Lester, PP Tom Krob, PE Jim Kohl, PP Tom Thomas, Paul Maffey, Matt Nelson, Lamar Marchese, Kirk Holmes & Toni Kern
November 2017 – Erik Astramecki
December 2017 – PP Randy Campanale
January 2018 – PEE Jackie Thornhill
February 2018 – Kirk Alexander
March 2018 – Arleen Sirois
April 2018 – PE Jim Kohl, Ryan Hamilton, Kirk Holmes & Stu Lipoff
May 2018 – PP Jim Tucker, PP Karen Whisenhunt & Anil Melnick
June 2018 – Marie Walsh, John Ingeme, Toni Kern, Jaime Goldsmith & Janelle Lozano

Local Service Projects:

  • Planted 4 trees during Alpine Picnic at Thomas cabin (7/22)
  • Vegas PBS pledge drive and $5,000 check donation to Described and Captioned Media Center (8/10)
  • Honored service men and women at annual SOAR event (9/18)
  • United Way Day of Caring (9/29) – 14 Rotarians volunteered at Bridger E.S.
  • Donated 10 wheelchairs to Easter Seals
  • Business networking event at PP Randy Donald’s home (3/29)
  • 4 Wetzel award presentations – 9/7; 11/30; 3/8 & 6/7
  • 4 highway cleanups – 10/14; 12/16; 3/24 & 6/9
  • Sponsored 74 Nellis and Creech airmen to the Lights FC game (6/2)

International Service:

  • Superbuild – contributed $6,500 to build two houses (10/7 & 6/2)
  • Sponsored Brooke D’Angelo – outbound student to Taiwan
  • Sponsored Pilar Bianco – the incoming exchange student from Argentina
  • Sponsored Florence Maher as our Peace Scholar student to Tokyo
  • Attended annual Peace Conference at Huntington Library (10/21)
  • Organized female entrepreneurship seminar for Open World delegation from Russia (3/16)
  • Hosted a Group Cultural Exchange team from India (4/13)

The Rotary Foundation Contributions:

  • Total TRF contributions this year: $48,425.25
  • Total PolioPlus contributions this year: $7,208
  • Total lifetime TRF contributions by our club: $1,606,891.66
  • Total Major Donors in LVRC: 10
  • Total Benefactors in LVRC: 5
  • New Paul Harris Fellows (2017-18):
    • Mia Melnick
    • Howie Hopkinson
    • Rod Tucker
    • Toni Kern
    • Brittany Melnick
    • Alyssa Gilbert
    • Mike Mendoza
    • Scott Frost
    • Rob Pistone
    • Kim Nyoni
    • Stu Lipoff
    • Luci Parodi
    • Pili Bianco
    • Phillip Hollon
    • Autumn Spicer
    • Samuel Gordon
    • Steven Frost
  • Paul Harris Fellow level increases (2017-18):
    • Janet Lee
    • Rosalee Hedrick
    • Walt Rulffes (x2)
    • Anil Melnick
    • Melanie Muldowney
    • Toni Kern
    • Kirk Holmes
    • Gwen Hall
    • TJ Thomas
    • Brynn Thomas
    • Lane Thomas
    • Torrie Thomas
    • Jillian Thomas
    • Francesca Gilbert
    • Ted McAdam
    • Jaime Goldsmith
    • Randy Frost
    • John Ingeme (x2)
    • Randy Donald
    • Steve Dixon
    • Bob Potter
    • Diane Carlson
    • Mike Sexton
    • Craig Miller
    • Gary Vause
    • Russ Swain
    • Sharon McNair
    • Janet Linder

Grants Distributed:

  • Reinstituted Tiberti scholarship
    • Awarded $2,500 to Elizabeth Martinez on 4/24/18
  • $5,000 to The Public Education Foundation leadership academy
  • $3,446 sent to Rotary Club of Houston for relief efforts after Hurricane Harvey

Shared grants via Howard & Howard:

  • $1,000 – Coral Academy of Science Las Vegas
  • $1,500 – Children’s Heart Foundation
  • $2,500 – Bishop Gorman high school
  • $4,000 – Toys 4 Smiles
  • $4,500 – Easter Seals
  • $5,000 – So. NV Junior Golf Association
  • $5,000 – Candlelighters Childhood Cancer
  • $5,000 – Chiari & Syringomvelia Foundation
  • $5,000 – Miracle Flight
  • $5,000 – Opera Las Vegas
  • $5,000 – Project 150
  • $5,000 – Spread the Word Nevada
  • $5,000 – Sunrise Children’s Foundation
  • $5,000 – USO Las Vegas
  • $5,500 – Foundation for Independent Tomorrow

Youth:

  • Supported Beckley harvest festival (10/20)
  • Sent 12 students to RYLA (3/16-18)
  • Founded Interact club at Clark H.S.
  • Sent 12 students to TLC (12/1-3)
  • Hosted German soccer team for Mayors Cup soccer tournament
  • Sponsored 4 contestants in the annual Four-Way Speech Contest
  • Sponsored 4 contestants in the annual Dan Stover music contest
  • Attended Hollingsworth E.S. ribbon cutting (4/20)
  • 10 monthly Breakfast with Books events at Beckley
    • 9,201 books distributed to 1,236
  • Honored 52 valedictorians at annual luncheon (4/
  • Honored Michelle Quizon as the NV Centennial Medallion recipient (5/3)

At District Conference onboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, the Club was presented with awards in the following categories (club directors in parentheses) – Silver: International Service (Melanie Muldowney); Gold: Vocational Service (Kirk Alexander), Foundation (PEE Jackie Thornhill), Youth Service (Kirk Alexander), Public Image (Rob Telles), Club Website (Rob Telles), Membership (Rosalee Hedrick & Janet Linder), Club Service (Anil Melnick), Community Service (Dave Lester). As a testament to the hard work of the club members, the club also won the Governor’s Bell and thus qualified for the 2017-18 RI Presidential Citation award. Additionally, Kirk Alexander was recognized as our club’s Rotary Foundation Member of the Year while PP Dave Thorson completed his first term as Group 14 Assistant District Governor.

The debunking party was held at the Bali Hai golf club with a distinctly “Out of Africa” theme. PP Dave Thorson led the committee and sent President Michael and his dad George, to the “lake” for a “cleansing bath”. “Service Above Self” awards were given to Stu Lipoff, Chris Bennett, Ryan Hamilton, Matt Phillips and Randy Kinnamon for their selfless acts during the year. PP Karen Whisenhunt and her husband Tom were recognized for their continued support and advice to President Michael since his first arrival in the U.S. Executive Director Shawn Noorda was appreciated for her endless dedication to the club. Kirk Holmes was presented with the Rotarian of the Year Award for his innovative technology improvements i.e. starting to live stream our weekly meetings on Facebook, starting a podcast with our weekly speakers and weekly updating of our club website, and his continuous commitment to the Las Vegas Rotary Club. For context, during the 2017-18 year we had 11,783 visits to our club website and during those visits, people viewed 23,833 different pages finding out more about our club. We had 9,626 new visitors to our website; 5,486 of them didn’t know our website name and found us through Google. Thus ended the year of the President who ended each meeting with: “Rotary is like tennis – the one who serves best usually wins!”

 

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