Rotary Bulletin
July 31, 2017
Meeting Minutes
President Ed Presnell rang the bell and brought the meeting to order at 12:15 PM, Monday, 31 July 2017. Tom Clark led the club in the pledge and invocation. Daniel Rhodes introduced visiting Rotarians and member guests. President Ed announced that last week we raised $338.19 for Cart thanks to challenger Charles Stewart. This week the inside challenger is Neita Mulherin and the outside challenger is Jeannette Cummings. Tom Clark gave the Sunshine report.
Announcements:
- President Ed reported that Awards Committee Chair Tim Owings has a called a meeting immediately following today’s meeting.
- He called on Shanda Vaughn who reminded the club that August 17 is Rotary Night at the Greenjackets game. Sign-up sheets and final details will be available next week.
- President Ed reported that he attended the District Assembly in Dublin, Georgia on 7/29/17 along with TR Ready. He discussed our global grant effort to improve vision in India and district grant to help fight human trafficking in our area.
- He also explained the new member process and asked for everyone to look for potential candidates to be considered for membership.
- Football Follies return in a few weeks, everyone is encouraged to start doing your team research and be ready to participate.
- Finally, President Ed reported that he had a Skype conversation with our new GRSP student, Jakob Fahl, who will arrive at the end of next week.
Program:
President Ed called on Stan Sheppard to introduce our speaker, Tom Clark, who is a club member and Executive Director of the CSRA Alliance for Fort Gordon. During his introduction, Stan provided an overview of the Alliance and how it was formed in 2000 by a group of local business professionals with the purpose of protecting Fort Gordon from being considered for closure by the BRAC Commission in 2005.
Tom provided an update of all of the exciting things happening at Fort Gordon in the area of cybersecurity. The vision of the Alliance is to help this area become the Cyber Capital of the World by 2020. For the last 5 years, the Fort has experienced an increase of nearly 1,000 new personnel each year and this growth is expected to continue through 2028. With the combination of NSA, Fort Gordon, Augusta University, SRS, and Plant Vogtle, we have a unique opportunity to become the Silicon Valley of the South. If Fort Gordon was a standalone city, it would be the seventh largest city in Georgia. This city in a city represents a $2.27 billion net economic impact to our area.
The program concluded with questions from the audience and with David Hudson sharing a little known story about Ft. Gordon. In 1962, Fort Gordon was approved to be closed by the BRAC Commission. The newly elected Governor, Carl Sanders, who was from Augusta, reached out to Senator Richard B. Russell, a fellow Georgian and Chair of the Armed Forces Committee. Senator Russell was unable to help, because he had co-sponsored the bill to create the BRAC Commission and in doing so agreed that Congress would not interfere.
Governor Sanders, with the help of fellow Augustan J.B. Fuqua, who was friends with VP Lyndon Johnson, flew to Washington DC to meet with President Kennedy. Several weeks after meeting with the President, Governor Sanders received a call from the President informing him that the Fort would remain open.
Our speaker next week will be Steven Wade, President of Augusta Chronicle, along with Ashlee Duren and Damon Cline who will discuss a new Downtown Augusta focused business magazine.
The meeting was adjourned following the recital of the Four Way Test.
Easy links to pages on our website
Rotary schedule of meeting dates and speakers
Member Proposal Form
Online directory - Find a member or update your information
Bulletins - Weekly bulletins from 2014-current
Save the Date:
Thursday, August 17th. Rotary Family Night at the Green Jackets game. More details coming!
CART
CART buckets
Inside Challenger: Neita Mulherin
Outside Challenger: Jeanette Cummings
Total
$92.76
$92.76
$92.76
$278.28
Guests
Guest
Tom Clark
Colin Comfort
Kathleen Ferguson
Steve Wade
Guest Of
Guest Speaker
Tom Clark
John Whitwell
Ashlee Duren
Richmond Academy Interact Club
Augusta Tech Rotaract Club
Visiting Rotarians
Name
Club
Meeting Makeup
Anna Reeves 7-24-17 East Pittsburgh Rotary Club
Darryl Leech 7-24-17 On Line Make up
The following will receive a make up for attending the Rotary District Assembly on Saturday, July 29, 2017 in Dublin, Georgia
Ed Presnell
TR Reddy
Absentees
Forester Adams
Rob McKenzie
Erin Armstrong
Brad Means
Michael Ash
Brett Montroy
Shell Berry
Anne Catherine Murray
Chris Bird
Robert Osborne
Barclay Bishop
Sheri Osburn
Steven Boler
Susan Parr
Dave Brendza
Jeff Partl
Carl Brown
Jonathan Powell
David Bullington
Jim Price
Gretchen Caughman
Angela Pringle
Patrick Cullinan
TR Reddy
Neal Dickert
Anna Reeves
Steve Farmer
Jerry Rogers
Fran Forehand
Richard Rogers
Jeff Futrelle
John Sebby
Bobby Gagnon
Jeff Simless
George Hall
Steve Smith
Randy Hatcher
Jeff Spears
Steve Hobbs
Kevin Steffes
Janice Jackson
Linda Tucciarone
Susan Jernigan
Phil Wahl
Clay Jolly
Ray Walters
Brooks Keel
George Williams
Russell Keen
Margaret Woodard
Brian Kyzer
Dustin Young
Darryl Leech
Ben McElreath
