Updates and Announcements
December 6th and December 13th Morning Meetings: Can you make it in person on Dec. 13th? Ann Imse’s presentation on electric vehicles had to be postponed from Dec. 6th to Dec. 13th due to minor surgery on her hand. Ann’s been driving electric for six years. She will give an overview and answer your questions in the meeting, and hopes to have a Tesla Model S, a Chevy Bolt, a VW and a Tesla Model 3 for you to see, after the meeting and possibly before the meeting. For those interested, Ann also will schedule test drives in her Tesla over the course of a number of meeting days. December 6th will now feature Emmy West of Park County Government.
Club Social: Our club's Holiday Social will be on 12/4 4pm at Janine’s house. It will be a Potluck; the theme will be “ugly sweater”.
Wyatt Guernsey: Diana has been doing Interact for many years. One young man, Wyatt Guernsey, has been in since 7th grade. He’s working at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in NYC and is coordinating a $5000 donation to this club because he has been such a part of us for so long and Conifer Rotary and Interact has been such an influence on him.
Evening Meeting Discussion: A meeting to discuss the evening meeting with the help of our past District Governor Bill Downes on December 13th 5-6 PM at Amanda’s house. Bill will be our mediator in helping to figure out how to move forward with our club and ensuring that the evening and morning meetings are part of a single club. R.S.V.P by 12/9 if you are interested in attending.
Sponsoring Families: The Club will be working with the Boys & Girls Club to sponsor three families for the holidays. More details to follow.
Sergeant at Arms: A Sergeant-at-Arms is needed for December and beyond. Contact Diana if you are interested in helping out for a month.
Salvation Army Bell Ringing: The Salvation Army is accepting volunteers for bell ringing starting November 25th - December 24th. If you are interested in signing up to volunteer, you can contact Angela who can provide a link to a sign-up genius.
285 Backpack Project: The 285 Backpack Project helps children who don't have enough food to eat at home by providing them with easy-to-prepare weekend meals and snacks throughout the school year. We are always looking for volunteers to help with this mission. To sign up to volunteer, Click Here or email 285backpackproject@gmail.com.
Upcoming Events & Training:
Below is just a snapshot of upcoming events. All District Events can be found by going to the Rotary District 5450 Website.
Holiday Party: Holiday Party will be on Dec 4th at Janine’s place, details to follow.
Throw-Back Thursday on a Saturday: will be held on January 21 at the Aspen Park Community Center, details to follow.
Home and Garden Show: April 1st and 2nd at Evergreen High School.
2023 District Conference: The 2023 District Conference is scheduled for April 29th.
Rotary Peaches Fundraiser: August 2023
ConiferFest: August 12th
Polio Plus:
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever.
As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year. It costs $3.00 to fully protect a child against polio, including the cost of the vaccine and activities required to deliver the vaccine.
Meeting Program: Guest Speakers - Daniel Knudsen and Dr. Roger Matthews from Park County Search and Rescue
- We had terrific speakers from Park County Search and Rescue, who showed us how a search dog can find people! Daniel Knudsen, president, and Dr. Roger Matthews, dog handler.
- Matthews: Asked if he thinks they are doing more rescues because people are being stupid in the wilderness, he said, “I don’t think people are being stupid. I think it is great people are outside.”
- We use the dogs’ natural hunting ability to find people. It takes awhile to train the dogs. Mixed breed dogs are fine. Most important: They need a drive, for food or something, so we can train that. Train to a human smell. We have dogs who can detect Coronavirus to 1 part per million, or melanoma, or viruses, seizures, hypoglycemia. They get kicked out of service dog training because they will run after the ball rolling by.
- We train in Colorado for scent specificity, to look for one specific person, not the other searchers or hikers. We have hormones, lotions, individual scent from skin cells. We lose 40,000 skin cells a minute. That’s what most of the dust in your house is. Microbes eat the cells and we think they give off gases.
- It takes the dog only a second to get the scent. We use a piece of clothing from the person, preferably organic like cotton. Try to get non-contaminated scent articles, so don’t handle it. Dogs can work off the scent in the air coming off the person, or scent that falls to the ground. Trailing dogs work on a leash. Air scent dogs work off leash. The dogs work on a grid. We try to get downwind of where we think the person is, or start at the person’s car and track from there. We can leapfrog ahead with an air scent dog. Need to find people quickly in the winter.
- Handler and dogs do a yearly physical fitness test. I take my dog to 12,000 feet. About 80 percent of dogs don’t make it. Best ones are hunting and herding dogs. Labs, Golden Retrievers, English shepherds.
- Finn, 10, gets very upset if the person is deceased. I protect him a little bit. Brody, 5, is like, whatever, get up!
- They started by demonstrating a search in the meeting room. It was hard for the dog because the air is not moving, and lots of scents to sort through. Yvonne hid behind the screens in back.
- Finn will remember the scent for hours. He had bells jingling. He is an English shepherd, an old American herding dog. Finn jumped up excitedly when he saw a scent article in a plastic bag. He barked. He has to calibrate, he checked the ground for a scent.
- We are at the mercy of weather. Roger: I got lost when I was a kid and was found by a dog, so I always wanted to work with dogs. His dog’s life is great. He’s already been on a five-mile hike today, dog-walker comes while we are at work, and after work he does some work or training.
- Daniel: 50 calls per year, up to 10 a month in summer. Sometimes in Denver. We are responsible for all of Park County. And 80% of the county is public land, with four fourteeners, Colorado Trail, etc. We saw an increase in winter during Covid crowds. It’s dropping off now. Climbing 14-ers is not as attractive as it was.
- We are a 501c3. Various sources of income, grants, fundraising, not county funded. Some money from hunting licenses etc. One year we had a jump in donations because we rescued a Microsoft executive, who donated. Budget is $40,000 a year, including buildings, snowmobiles, radios, vehicles, training. We don’t charge for rescues, because we don’t want people to not call for fear of the cost. We get old vehicles from Park County sheriff, typically 100,000 miles on them.
- Colorado has more than 3,000 rescues a year. Law gives the responsibility to the county sheriff, but they don’t have enough money.
- If you are lost, you can text us.
- Summit County is far more busy. 80 members.
- Asked for the best tracker, he recommended Garmin Inreach and Spot X, anything that is a satellite
messenger.
Ways that Rotary can help: We could use $15,000 to replace an ATV, $10,000 for an OHV Trailer, $5000 for training, $4,000 for helmets, etc. His email is DKnudsen@pcsar.org