Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build good will and peace in the world.

"Doing good in the World is more than a motto.  It is our goal, our mission, and our reminder.  It expresses in the clearest terms why we have a Foundation, and it challenges us to reach as far as we can to do the most good possible with everything we have.  Our Foundation exisits to support the good that we can do through Rotary.  It expands our reach, increases our strength, and makes our service more powerful and more effective.  Because of our Foundation we can, very simple, do more of our Rotary work."

2004-2005

President Glenn Estess Sr. 

President, Maura Donnelly, opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance followed with a prayer by Ron Hesson.

 ANNOUNCEMENTS

Please bring guests to our meeting. We need two new members to meet Maura's membership goal before her term as president is over.

Guests: Blake Schrumpf (Phil Hardas)

Make-ups: No Make-Ups

Birthdays: None.

Anniversaries: Brian and Sara Knobloch (6/4)

Club Anniversaries: None

Please let these people know that they were missed: David Butler, David Daiber, Len Daiber, Dan Fieker, Mike Gould, Bret Gruender, Robert Hellige, Tom Hill, Katrina Hodous, Lisa Hunsche, George Jones, Angela Kim, Jack Klaus, Mark Latham, Terry Leitschuh, Holli Martin, Glenn Meffert, Henry Metzger, Greg Miranda, Robert Nagel, David Peters, Keith Poss, Jim Rankin, Jr., Mark Reaka, Brad Rench, Adrian Rogier, Bill Schaefer, Steve Schmitt, Ron Schneider, Randy Schorfheide, Art Schutz, Peggy Sebastian, and Michael Sutton.

Reminder that 2011-2012 we will be tracking service hours again to see Rotarian's collective IMPACT.  This year's goal is 7500 hours, to date there are 2162 hours recorded. Last week's hours have not been recorded yet.

Mark has possession of the float and we need a team to start working on it for the Jubilee celebration.

Members can go to the website and log your hours or email them to him directly: swconstruct@agtelco.com

There was $495 in the 50/50 with 39 cards left in the deck. The seven of spades was pulled.

Phil fined anyone who said the pledge with the comma in "One nation under God." 

Happy Bucks:

Brian Knobloch is happy that he sold his house last Thursday.

Angie Fears is happy that she sold her house yesterday.

PROGRAM: Ray Hereford, An Update from Warren Buffett

Ray attends the annual update from Warren Buffett each year. While the meeting is six hours long, he updated us with the highlights from this year's meeting.

Mr. Buffett was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer but is feeling well. The audience asked him a series of questions and this is a sampling of them.

When asked what he would avoid investing in, Mr. Buffett said long and medium term bonds. He never discloses what he is interested in investing in.

He said he doesn't invest in gold because it produces no income.

On the topic of problems in Europe, he said that the banks hold a lot of the government debt and they are weak because of that. In contrast, he said that teh U.S. banks are strong and can withstand more stress.

On energy policy, he said that he believes we should use up everyone else's energy first and preserve ours for future generations.

On the topic of slow economic growth in the U.S., he said that the standard of living has increased quickly and that the economy isn't that bad we just have to give it time to rebound.

Investing fads - Ray gave examples of the dotcom boom and buying second homes as past fads. Right now bonds seem to be the fad. He said that when everyone is buying something, you probably want to be selling it.

On the challenges Wal-mart has been facing in the press, Buffett said that when you have 270,000 employees, there will be some people who will do something wrong. The question is how does management handle it when they find out. He doesn't believe that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the company.

On the topic of business schools, he said that there is one fad after another in finance theory and they are all based on mathematical equations. He said that you want to invest in companies that make money and it's not more complicated than that.

Buffett has been buying small newspapers because small towns have no other source for local news. Small towns with strong sense of community are a good investment. Also, he can buy the papers for cheap.

When asked why he only buys companies with dividends when his company doesn't, he said that his company generates a lot of cash and he can reinvest that money for a better return on investment than by paying a dividend.

On Facebook, he said he wouldn't buy it because he can't value it. But he also said he wouldn't short it.

On Apple and Google, he said both are good companies but he doesn't know what they will look like in five years.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS -  Jennifer Whitten