In review

The July 28, 2016 meeting was assisted by the following Rotarians:

Front Desk—Scott Neal and Barbara Born; Front Desk Administration—Deirdre Kvale; Greeters—Bob Harvey, Brandon Azbill and Ian Colville; Invocation/Pledge of Allegiance/Four-Way Test—Jody Kern; Guest Introductions—Ann Platt; The Barker writer—Tim Fargo; Speaker Introduction—Joe Arends; Thank the Speaker—Sandra Schley.

 

The meeting was designated as Prospective Member Day and thus there were many guests. Guests included: Heidi Stinson (Sam Thompson), Jamie Nelson (Jennifer Bennerotte), Frank Foti (Mike Sitek), Jim Hazlett (Kevin Strandberg),  Chuck Cooley and J. Raab (Jim Perkins), Bob Sandilla (Tom Ries), Lisa Byrne (Jody Kern), Roger Pust (Keith Benson), Betsy Bisanz (Kaylin Eidsness), Sasha Colville (Ian Colville), Ryan Flynn (San Asato), Mike Johnson (Doug Johnson), David Holtz (Barbara Born),  Lindsay Pritzl (Tim Fargo),  Kristopher Williamson (Andrea Thompson Miller). The following visiting Rotarians were in attendance: Kyle Schrieffer (South Metro Minneapolis Evenings Rotary Club), Paul Mork (Golden Valley) and Mark Williams (Lake Minnetonka/Excelsior).

 

The meeting began with a ceremony to honor those Rotarians with perfect attendance for the 2015–2016 Rotary year. There were too many to name in limited space, but suffice it to say that there were 59 Rotarians who satisfied the requirements to have “perfect attendance” per Rotary International’s standards. Jon Barnett topped the list with either 25 or 26 years of perfect attendance.

 

Shelly Loberg gave her classification talk. Shelly is the director of Explore Edina, which is affiliated with the Visitors Bureau for the City of Edina. Shelly was born in Owatonna, attended the University of Minnesota–Duluth, where she majored in Communication and French. She studied abroad in France and now has two sons, Dane and Evan, who are the lights of her life. She loves fishing, yoga, outdoor activities, food and wine. She concluded by saying that she loves serving on the International Committee for Rotary.

 

Our speaker was Patrick Hunt, the founder and CEO of Hunt Adkins, a full-service brand communications and digitally focused advertising agency. Mr. Hunt was with us to share his experience as the current chairman of the 2016 Ryder Cup Golf tournament, which will be held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska Sept. 27 through Oct. 2. Mr. Hunt is a 27-year member of Hazeltine, a course which was established with the express purpose of playing host to national and international golf events.  

 

The Ryder Cup is unique among professional golf tournaments in several important respects. It pits the best U.S. players against the best of Europe. It is the only professional tournament that is actually a team event and the players are not playing for a purse. Rather, the players play for team, for captain and country. The atmosphere is like no other in golf: the patrons are given a license to cheer while watching the event. After the practice rounds there is a three-day format with different events on each day. Each of the first two days includes one four-match session of four-ball and one four-match session of foursomes. The final day is reserved for 12 singles matches. The pairings of all matches are assigned randomly.  

 

Mr. Hunt pointed out that his committee works alongside the PGA of America to put on the tournament and there is local staffing of around 4,000 volunteers. More than 250,000 spectators are expected to attend. It is anticipated that the event will be viewed by over 500 million people in over 160 countries. Per Mr. Hunt, this will be the largest Ryder Cup in history and will bring very significant attention to the Twin Cities, to Chaska and to Hazeltine. The tournament is expected to infuse over $135 million into the local economy. As a tip for those attending, Mr. Hunt suggests that on the first day you should run—don’t walk—to the first tee and then go to the back side where you can watch the action.

 

This year's fundraising for the Edina Rotary Foundation began with a live auction organized by the 2016 Fundraiser & Gala committee. Our own Jon Barnett served as auctioneer as bids came in for two tickets to the Ryder Cup. Bill McReavy was the lucky winner with a $2,500 bid. It was a very interesting meeting and made me want to go to the Ryder Cup. I will be watching it on television this time; the lottery was unkind to me and the scalpers will be worse.