Membership: Active
Members: 59 Rule of 85 Members:
8 Honorary Members: 9
Attendance This
Week:
Present:
31
Absent: 28
Attendance Percentage: 52.5
Guests:
Bob Schumacher,
Princeton Rotary
Candy Stanley,
guest of Carol McClaugherty
Make-ups:
Charlie Carter,
District meeting
Jim Ferguson,
District meeting
Steve Hopta,
Vandalia
Announcements:
● Three
items regarding meetings:
-
Community
Service, Rule of 85, and Honorary members who pay only for lunches
when they attend a meeting are reminded to please remember to pay $8
at the door, since trying to keep track of those who attend but
don't pay is a bookkeeping problem. There will be a $2.00 surcharge
if you have to be billed for a meal.
-
Second, Carol
McClaugherty notified members that beginning in January there will
be a quarter fine for not wearing your Rotary pin to the meeting.
-
Please
remember to wear your name tag at meetings as a courtesy to our
newer members and guests.
● We are
pleased that Laura Gooch is out of the hospital and back at work. We
hope Laura will be back at Rotary next week.
● The effort
to revitalize the Peterstown Rotary Club continues and the Nov. 5
date for a planning meeting has been confirmed.
● The
election of officers and board members to take office next year will be
held December 15. Nominating Committee is taking suggestions for
officers and board of directors. See President Charlie.
● Larry
Douglas announced that he is now accepting volunteers for the Salvation
Army Bell Ringing on December 5 and 12.
● Gene
Hancock announced that the Little Jimmy program is looking for donations
of children's books. If you have some books, see Genie.
● Claude
Morgan reported that the Adopt-a-Highway clean-up crew did such a good
job last Wednesday that the Saturday session was not needed. Thanks to
all those who helped out.
● This
month's Basket Money goes to the Little Jimmy
● Rotto: The new
Rotto contest started off with $24, which was not won by the Table,
thanks to Charlie Carter, who drew for them, and didn't draw a Joker.
The Program: Tim Roberts, Bluefield High School's "High School
of Business"
In
her introduction of our speaker, Tim Roberts, Carol McClaugherty explained
that Mercer County Schools has been concentrating on the business program in
high schools. As an aid to the business curriculum, Mercer County has allied
itself with a program of the MBA Research & Curriculum Center's accelerated
business administration program called High School of Business. Mercer is
the fourth county in the state to utilize this curriculum, and most of the
funding is provided by the state Department of Education. It is currently
offered at Bluefield and Princeton high schools, and class enrollment is
good, she said.
Tim is one of the
county's four teachers who are trained in the High School of Business
curriculum, two teach at Bluefield and two at Princeton. He echoed a comment
that Carol made that many students are looking at other careers during their
high school years, but for a variety of reasons wind up in the business
world as adults. This program is designed much like a college business
administration course, and offers classes such as Principles of Business,
Business Economics, Principles of Marketing, Principles of Finance,
Principles of Management, Business Strategies, Wealth Management, and
Principles of Leadership, classes that make business real to kids, Tim said.
And, students can earn up to 18 hours of college credit by taking a High
School of Business test after completing business classes.
The approach is not a
read-a-chapter-and-take-a-test curriculum, but is a more hands-on approach
that includes service learning projects and other business related
activities. At BHS this Saturday is a charity basketball tournament that has
been organized and will be run by the students, including advertising,
stocking and operating the concession stand, and finding and signing up
teams to compete. This exercise means students must use time management,
speaking, organizational and cooperative skills to successfully organize and
run the tournament.
"The goal of this high
school business program is to make it real for our kids," he said, "so that
they see the business skills that they are learning in action." Learning by
doing; organizing and completing a project gives them practical experience
that is a great benefit.
Tim told us about the
County's support team for the High School of Business program, meets monthly
to coordinate and improve the program. He said that next spring students
will be involved in a project to investigate businesses to learn what they
do and how they work, and also for the students to connect with the business
community. They also have sister schools in other parts of the country with
which they will interact and share information through conference calls and
video conferences.
Another goal of the
program is to give students not only a feel for how businesses operate, but
also what business people contribute to their community through
organizations like Rotary, to show them that businesses have a broader
purpose than just making money. It can also to give students who may pursue
a different a non-business career path the skills they may need to start
their own engineering firm or law office, or other small business.
The High School of
Business curriculum offers students an excellent introduction to the world
of business that will give them a perspective much different from the common
misperception of business as greedy, money-hungry entities. Capitalism is
not a dirty word, but students frequently do not learn that. This program
gives students the opportunity to learn about business the right way, and
that is a great thing.
Editor Emeritus: James M.
Godwin, Jr.
The Dinner Horn