I am not sure who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance this morning because it started before most of us were ready. It was followed by a prayer by Ken Cullen.

Fines were opened; however, this week Stephanie Eastman avoided the weekly “Stephanie Eastman is Late” fine.

Meeting Notes

Dave Crabill gave us the readers digest version of the 4th Quarter District Convention that he and Jack Proffitt attended this past weekend in Kalamazoo. Dave has arranged Cheryl to be our speaker on September 4th. It is very important that as many members as possible attend.

Dr. Jack Medemar gave an accounting of all the money the board gave away at last week’s board meeting.

We will also be voting for optimist of the year at the September 4th meeting.

Kim Renwick, the guest of Stephanie Eastman, won the 50/50 raffle.

Guest Speaker

Jeff Dennings willingly substituted for Walt Widder as Speaker Chair this week. Jeff invited Jeff Giles from Robot Planet Productions to be our guest speaker. Jeff Giles can be reached at (248) 514-8096 to create your Experiential Live Events or for Multimedia Productions. Jeff and some other highly skilled event personnel came together to start a new locally based production company.

Jeff’s resume included some very well known companies. Among the list were New England Sports Network, PASS Sports Detroit, GM, Ford and Harley-Davidson. Jeff is a producer, director and memorable experience maker. He told us that his approach to creating an event that people will remember is to answer the question “why?” not the normal question of “what?”.

Jeff showed us a video of Governor Rick Snyder’s Inauguration. It was very interesting to see all the work that goes into a making a live event successful. He also showed us a video of an opening to a Harley-Davidson event that really grabbed everyone’s attention. He explained that an entertained audience is much easier to teach “get your message across”. Jeff’s new website is http://www.robotplanetproductions.com.

Reminders

Reminders were given as follows:

• Ken Cullen requested that we add a paralyzed foster baby that Ken Cullen II had to our prayers.
• All members are reminded to SELL, SELL, SELL $5,000 Raffle Tickets

Respectfully yours in optimism,
Jeff Dennings