"What happened, Who did it,
What do we do now and How do we get home from here?"

John Fichter was our guest speaker this week and he offered a sobering and thought provoking look at the financial and economic turmoil our world has gone through in the last several years. The basic thought John left us with is that we have become too compacent to cause actions to be taken BEFORE we reach the brink of disaster. He challenged us to "Do Something! Participate!"

• Ask your friends, co-workers and family the following:
• Do you have a 529 Plan setup for children or grandchildren?
• Are you taking advantage of your 401(k), 403(b), etc.
• Mortgage payments/total debt payments okay?
• Plenty of money on hand to cover the unexpected?

• Given the explosion of communication devices, we all have the opportunity to monitor what’s going on and say something about it. “Blog” your representatives and let them know we are listening. 

• Say something new.

• Cause / choose something new.

• “That’s great; but I’m going this way.” 

Suggested reading to cause further thought:

• David Wessel, "In Fed We Trust"
• Malcolm Caldwell, "Blink" and "The Tipping Point"
• Steve Zaffron & David Logan, "The Three Laws of Performance"

Guests,Visitors and Other Good News

This week we had our two prospective new members with us - and the club turnout was awesome! we had 100% of the club members in attendance! Way to go people!!!

Terrence Thompson and Ade Stephen were with us this week. After the meeting they attended a Rotary Information Meeting.

Good News was REALLY GOOD this week! Everyone seemed to have something they were happy about and the donation reflected that fact. Archie reported that we had contributions of over $65 just from Happy News donations. Really SWEET people!!!

Wayne Staton, Rotary Foundation Chair, honored Karen Blakeman for another $1,000 contribution to the Rotary Foundation. Karen has made many, many contributions, so she is definitely a multiple Paul Harris Fellow.

Annual Wine Tasting Dinner & Silent Auction

April 17th - Dinner and Silent Auction, 6:30 PM at the Hilton Houston Southwest
This is our big fund raising event for the year and it needs to be successful to enable the club to fulfill many of the service projects planned for the coming months. All members should try to find items for the auction...small, medium or large...just something that people would like to bid on and own. All information on the items for the auction needs to be given to Ken Burgess or Jeff Novy. Click here to download the item info form. Click here to make reservations.

Thus far we have a DVD Player with remote control ($90 value), Pass for four to play golf at Sharpstown Golf Course ($100 to $200 value), a beautiful boxed set of polished wooden puzzles ($50 value) and a rolling TV table stand ($20 value), some incredibly beautiful jewelry from India (values from $100 up), an assortment of pashminas and scarfs from India (values from $10 to $50), a vibrating/massage seat cushion ($100 value), a one-hout flight school test flight and a number of restaurant gift cards. A fuller list of items is posted on the club's website at www.strotary.org.

Get your donations to Jeff Novy or Ken Burgess. And...TUESDAY, APRIL 6TH, IS THE FINAL DATE FOR RESERVATIONS.

Coming Up At Rotary