Good morning Rotarians!

As we continue to endure the cold temps and grow weary of the season, keep in mind that the marina opens in 60 days!  Remember ~ “Everything is temporary if you give it enough time” - Jewel

I am looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow morning, if your considering not attending - change your mind!  We have new members to rally around and show them what the Rotary journey is all about and why MTSR is the best helm to navigate that journey from. 

It’s going to be a beautiful sunrise at the Concordia campus, so come early, stop and enjoy it for a few minutes before our meeting. 

We also have a birthday celebration for tomorrow, so be there!!!

Upcoming Events: 

• March - BBBS Bowling for Kids - contact Tom M. for details
• MTSR 25th Anniversary Celebration - Date TBA
• Changing of the Guard - Date TBA

This week at MTSR:

This week we will be holding Club Assembly. It’s been quite some time since we last met in our Avenues, so there is much to do. Bring your thinking caps and lets make this a productive meeting, we have lots of exciting speakers lined up in the next months, so it may be awhile before we get this opportunity again.

I’ll bring copies of the years goals that each Avenue submitted so we can look at our progress as we are half way through the Rotary Year. 

For new members, our Club Assembly is when we meet in the five avenues of service groups and plan how we can best serve through that avenue. New members will begin in the Club Service Committee where you will discover how we plan and organize events for our Club including our 25th anniversary celebration coming up later this year. The chairperson for Club Service is Tom Martin and he and the rest of the committee will brief you more when we begin. Also, within the Club Service group is the membership committee, led by Chuck Zamora and Bobby Fisher. This is a great opportunity to give direct feedback and input about you recent application &induction into Rotary. Pleas think about and share your feedback and input for improvements. 

• Greeter, TOD, Rotary minute as schedule, see schedule here:

Thank you, have a great day!

By Rotary Heritage Communications staff

In My Road to Rotary, Paul Harris recalled how his longing for friendship like that he had known in Vermont was one of his inspirations for founding Rotary in 1905. But in 1935, in This Rotarian Age, he wrote of the need for Rotary, from a wider perspective:

“It is conceivable that Rotary might have been born under sunnier skies, in a climate more equable, and in a city of mental composure; but many will contend that there could have been no more favorable birthplace for Rotary than paradoxical Chicago, where the battle for civic righteousness was being so fiercely waged.”

Harris moved to Chicago in 1896, and found it a stark contrast to what he had experienced in his youth in Vermont. In This Rotarian Age, he recalls Chicago as a city with poor sanitation, harsh working conditions, corrupt politicians, and economic hardships—“business was in a bad way” and “community spirit was at a low ebb.” Yet amidst the corruption and pollution, there were “hundreds of good deeds, unheralded and unknown.” Harris includes the recovery from the great Chicago fire of 1871, the creation of Hull House in 1889, and the founding of many universities and museums, as examples of the enthusiasm and determination of community leaders to do good in Chicago.

Today, Rotarians remain committed to doing good in their own cities and around the world.

Sean Ryan (Reporter - Milwaukee Business Journal)

Construction of tall apartment buildings in the Mequon Town Center was well underway outside the windows of the American Legion Post as developer Cindy Shaffer sat describing how people thought the project could never happen.

The skepticism was warranted. Mequon hadn't seen a multifamily housing building go up in two decades, and city funding for private projects is rare, as are three-and-a-half story buildings. But Shaffer, in partnership with Milwaukee-based WiRED Properties, made all of those things happen while also building a new home for the local American Legion Post in the development.

"It's a lot of hard work and it's persistence," Shaffer said. "I don't take 'no' for an answer. There's many different ways to skin a cat."

Mequon Town Center, with 28 apartments and significant retail space at Mequon and Cedarburg roads, is set for completion this summer. Shaffer, owner of Shaffer Development LLC, is on to her next challenge, a $17 million redevelopment of a contaminated site called the "lumberyard" in Grafton. The first phase of that project with 59 apartments will begin later this year. Read More ...