President-Elect Jared Campbell welcomed all to the Club with the Camp for Kids at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. We stood for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by an invocation from the “Seeds of Faith” by Pat Bolin. Mandy Sheldon then introduced and welcomed Chuck Barnett, a visiting Rotarian and past District Governor of District 6760. President Elect Jared thanked the Program Committee for serving as greeters. Ted Higgins announced the “Hit for Haiti” event, a fundraiser for the Higgins Brothers Hospital, taking place on October 5 at Homestead Country Club. If interested, visit the HitForHaiti.com website. Tom Woolwine, donning his French beret, came to the podium to make one last pitch for the dinner at Aixois to benefit the Rotary Regatta. President Elect-Elect, Neil Barnett, then encouraged all Club members to help with attracting new members to Club 13 by inviting them to a meeting, sharing and liking Facebook and LinkedIn posts about Club 13, and using the newly-designed Club 13 notecards to market prospective members.
Nick Pryor informed us of a $115,000 Global Grant in which two districts, including District 6040, and clubs within those districts are participating. The grant’s purpose is to continue the ongoing work to restore the Monarch butterfly habitat and population by planting 60,000 trees and restoring almost 135 acres of land where the Monarchs winter. We then watched a trailer for the new film, “Join or Die,” telling the story of Robert Putnam, the author of “Bowling Alone,” a book about the importance of joining a club and investing in “social capital.” Our Club will join with American Public Square on Thursday, September 19 at Rockhurst University at 5:00 p.m. for the presentation of the film. Perhaps we will get a chance to recruit new members! Other upcoming events include the 4th Thursday at Minsky’s on August 22, the Rotary Regatta on September 13-15, and Rotary Night at the Zoo on September 24.
Tucker Clark then introduced our guest speaker, Gabe Braselton, a principal at the Populous design firm, now famous for designing modern sports and entertainment facilities around the world. While Populous has its roots firmly in Kansas City, it now has two other headquarters in London and Brisbane, Australia. The firm is involved in all aspects of design from architecture to urban planning to interior design and everything in between. While having designed over 3500 iconic structures, many of which which meet “green” LEED and “carbon neutrality” standards, Populous also partners with professional sports organizations such as the Olympic Committee, NHL, MLB, NFL, and NCAA to plan how an event can be held by creating logistical designs. Mr. Braselton gave examples of some of the more notable Populous designs, including Camden Yards, its flagship modern downtown baseball stadium located in Baltimore, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ featuring the roll-in turf field, the renovation of Wembley Stadium in London, the roof over the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club where Wimbledon is played, the Key Arena in Seattle which uses the original roof structure featured in the 1962 World’s Fair, the BMO Centre at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and the futuristic Sphere entertainment arena in Las Vegas. Braselton could have talked forever about the work of Populous, but he left us with this: he knows nothing about Arrowhead and the future plans of the Chiefs!
The quote for the day was “August is like the Sunday of summer.” We said the Four Way Test and the meeting was adjourned by the striking of the Rotary Bell.
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