At 12:20 pm on June 29^th at the Intercontinental Hotel, President Todd Nicholson opened the meeting. Bob Cardinal provided the inspirational minute about the fall harvest prayer and the 4-way test. Rita Dibble introduced Greg Mergens, who attended the meeting and will speak to the club in two weeks. Carolyn Will and Jason Bradshaw were greeters and Linda Mulhern, the scribe. Todd wanted to thank our tech team for their help with the hybrid meeting format.

 

John Andrews introduced two “new” Rotarians that were previously St Paul Rotarians, Shelly Rucks and Beth Naughton who will be helping to line up speakers for the club meetings and the 5:01 meetings.

 

Bryan Donaldson introduced Elizabeth Emerson, Vice President of Goff Public. The company started in the 1960s doing work in advertising, but now focuses on public relations and public opinions. Its clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as non-profits, in particular with crisis communications in areas of diversity, and community engagement. Currently, customers are looking for help with government relations relative to activists or people interested in a topic, advocates or people willing to send an email or speak to the legislature or lobbyists another word for “a hired-gun”. Customers need help to think through advocacy with help of engaging employees or interested people. Election year 2022 will be important since Tim Walz will be running again, with Republicans criticizing him as a “pandemic” governor that needs to walk the line while including the big umbrella of the Democratic Party. A number of Republicans will be running for governor, which has created new openings in the legislature. They will talk about issues including Minneapolis public safety decisions, and why they should be the governor versus Walz. Redistricting will also be needed due to the recent census and most likely a decision will not be made by January 2022 due to a split legislature and will have to go the courts for a decision. Most likely with the redistricting, Democrats will be running against a fellow Democrat or Republicans against a fellow Republican for a newly created district. Money will be coming from the federal governor due to the pandemic, but may create a slow down in the economy once the money slows down from Washington DC. Likewise, important decisions will most likely be pushed further down the road due to the discourse in the government. The biggest obstacle for making any big decisions is the lack of respect for conflicting opinions and therefore no one is sharing any ideas to resolve the big issues.

 

President Todd presented a certificate to Elizabeth for her presentation and a donation will be made in her name to “Cherish All Children”.

 

Kathy Bjerke asked for additional volunteers for the Water tent at the Jazz Festival this weekend, one more volunteer will be needed for the Saturday 5:30-7:30 pm shift and three more volunteers for the 7:30-9:30 pm shift.

 

There were a number of happy dollars contributed including Doug Hartford for one of his pictures to be displayed in Minneapolis, Beth will be having a legacy lunch with the Minnesota Historical Society when the Split Rock light master will speak about his time working at the lighthouse, Bill Collins's brother, Michael wrote a new book, called the “All Bleeding Stops”, Ken Crabb spoke about the Rotary zone institute for the Midwest and Texas, of which next year’s Rotary zone institute will be in Bloomington next year from 9/15-9/18/22, Brianna Vujovich will be traveling to Nashville next week and Rita Dibble connecting with our new Rotary members about major grant fundraising.

 

President Todd adjourned the meeting at 1:10 pm.