The Ken 7/17/2023

President Brandon called the meeting to order at 12:23 p.m. with a Pledge to the Flag. John led us in prayer. He then introduced our speakers and guests. Lisa Davidson and Joe Emminger are today’s speakers and Mr. Davidson and Michelle Lockett are guests.

Announcements: Cam handed out KenToberfest brochures to the club to proof and edit as needed before the final is printed. He has two sponsors so far: Evans Bank for the Kids Corner and HMN Resources for the registration table. He is looking for two more. One for the music and one for the beer. New this year is the ability to reserve a table. For $75, you will receive a reserved table for 6 plus 6 drink tickets. This is a family friendly event. There will be a meeting at the event site on Thursday 7/27 at 5:30 p.m. to plan the layout. He is looking for a few street vendors and possibly a dessert vendor. Steve reminded all about Sunshine Day at Cradle Beach on August 16. It will be an evening event this year, so please plan to arrive around 5 p.m. for dinner and set-up. There is a Kenmore Rotary Night at the Ballpark planned for Friday August 18. Tickets are $13 each and you can RSVP to Steve no later than August 7. He will have the tickets at the August 14 meeting. Bob announced that Mike Austin will be stepping down from the Foundation Board so he will hold an election on July 31 to fill that vacancy. There is a regular board meeting on Friday 7/21 at 8 a.m. at the Ken-Ton Chamber office. I let everyone know what a great party we had at Elmlawn for the 4^th of July celebration. The weather was perfect, there was a great turnout and the fireworks were amazing.

Larry introduced our first speaker of the day, Joe Emminger, Town of Tonawanda Supervisor. Joe started off my thanking our club for decades of service to the community. He welcomed us to contact his office with all community events we have and they will post it on their website. He told us of several big things going on in the town. IMA Pharmaceuticals is working on a $27 million expansion into Colvin Woods that will bring in 200 new jobs. Recreation is a bonus in any town, and due to a grant by the Federal Government, part of it was earmarked as non-discretionary. He approached Duane Paddock about the proposed ice arena and splash pad going in at Brighton Park to see if he’d like to sponsor. Duane agreed to $3 million over a 20-year period and the Paddock name and logo will be center ice. Lincoln Park will have an all-season field house and the Aquatic center got a beautiful face lift and will have 4 pickle ball courts built on their grounds. Two of those courts will be paid for by our club as part of our centennial year projects. Joe is a very informative speaker with a wealth of knowledge and information. There was more information shared, but I was too intrigued and didn’t write it all down. You can visit the town’s website at www.tonawanda.ny.us.

Larry then introduced our second speaker of the day, Lisa Davidson, Instructional Support Specialist in the Science department in the Ken-Ton School District. She believes in creating hands-on science projects for the students. She updated us on the clean up of Aqua Lane Park and the bike path with 75 people in attendance. She was very impressed with that turn out. She has projects in the works for renovations to the waterfront, one of which is installing view finders for bird watching. There are birds in our area who nest here until they fly to the Amazon. She has scheduled a meat raffle for Saturday November 18 at the Knights of Columbus on Kenmore Avenue and is asking for us to “host” it. Lisa said a typical meat raffle can raise between $10,000 and $12,000 and she only needs about $6,000 of that. The rest would go to our club. She would like to ask if anyone has any connections to merchandise for a raffle (i.e. Bills, Sabres, Bandits, etc.) Lisa is a good friend of our club and always a pleasure to have speak.

Donna won the split club of $14 and Ron pulled the 7 of Diamonds.

Dick came up as fine master and asked for confessions. Rick celebrated 30 years at Wells Fargo and he and Joanie celebrated their 55^th wedding anniversary. Congratulations on both, Rick!! Steve’s son made it to the championship game in baseball but sadly they lost. Still a great accomplishment to make it that far! Great job! Dick’s sister had a baby and added to a long list of grandchildren. Larry attended the Hearts for the Homeless Pantry Fundraiser. Dick had no trivia questions for us but did raise quite a bit of money by having people put in a dollar for missing name tags and not volunteering.

Next week’s meeting will feature Larry’s brother and sister-in-law talking about Cardiac Crusade.

Meeting adjourned at 1:29 p.m.