August 10, 2022 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Braden introduced Dawn, a former member and board member, who stopped by to see Tony’s talk.  She is now gardening more and she and her husband are doing “work camping” during the winter the last two years, living in their Airstream in Southern California while working and enjoying the area on their days off.

 

The 50/50 was won by Nancy, who donated it back to the club. Beth won the chance to draw the ace of spades but did not, so the game continues for another week.

 

Our speaker was Tony Fitzherbert, who spoke about his trip to Alaska this May. Trip planning was facilitated by AAA. He started by showing a photo of Dolly’s House in Ketchikan, which was once a house of ill repute and is now a museum of prostitution. He then showed us a picture of the Alaska state house, which is one of only two in the nation (the other being North Dakota) that lack a dome.

 

He then showed us a beautiful series of pictures of a 30 mile boat ride up Tracy Arm, a 1000 foot deep fiord that leads to the North Slayer glacier. The water was full of icebergs and he could hear the cracking sounds as they calved. Wildlife was abundant and included harbor seals, sea lions, humpback whales.

 

Next stop was Juneau, site of the world’s smallest cathedral. It will seat just over 100 people. Black bears and mountain goats were seen in the vicinity.

 

They then moved on to Denali National Park, which is named after Mount Denali. Denali is the tallest mountain in the country and was formerly called Mt. McKinley. There is one road through the park and any travel off road must be done by ATV or dogsled. He showed some photos of a dogsled team and noted that the Iditarod is run from Willow Lake, outside of Anchorage, to Nome.

 

Finally he showed us the Alaska Railroad train. This used to be a working train but is now an expensive tourist train. He recommended renting a car instead.

 

Braden announced that the Lincoln-Woodstock club is having a benefit performance of the Mamma Mia Musical in Lincoln this Friday, August 12.

 

The Fisher Cats game was a great success! Beth and Lisa sold the most tickets. The winners of the 50/50 graciously donated their winnings back to the fund, so we netted $3100 from the drawing. We should also get about $6000 as our share of gate receipts from the Fisher Cats.

 

Steve then spoke about district grants that are available for Ukraine. The grants are for $25,000 each and we are applying for one, since we already have a partner club in Poland to spend the money. Steve recommends that we send this money on a weeks’ supply of food for Ukraine. Once we can show we have successfully dispersed this money, we can apply for another grant. A total of 13 million is available.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Lora Miller, secretary