Posted by Jeff Benson on Feb 19, 2019

Ed James’ fiancée, Rachael, was visiting from London.  She will join us for our 40th Anniversary party this Saturday.

 

Speaking of the Anniversary Party; 74 RSVP’s have been received for the Event which will be held at the New Brighton Community Center, Saturday, February 23rd from 5:30-9:30PM.

 

Our Gold Plate Dinner is set for Friday, April 12th.  Mark Beisswenger outlined the intricacies of ticket sales as follows:

·    Each Rotarian will be billed for one ticket to the event. 

·    The ticket sales team captains will provide each of their team members an envelope with one or more additional tickets to sell.  Please start trying to sell the tickets   immediately.  For each ticket you sell, return the check and a completely filled out ticket stub to you team captain.  Any tickets that you know you will be unable to sell should be returned to you team captain ASAP so someone else on your team can sell it.

·       From February 12th – April 2nd, Rotarians who sold a ticket during the previous week will receive one entry for a $75 grand prize drawing at the conclusion of the ticket sales competition.  The members of the team with the most combined ticket sales for the previous week will each receive one entry for the $75 grand prize.  The individual who sold the most tickets during the previous week will receive one entry to the grand prize drawing plus their choice of a bottle of wine, a six pack of craft beer or a $10 gift card.  The Rotarian who sells the most tickets overall will receive $75 cash.  To qualify for the sales competition each ticket sale must be confirmed by the buyer and reported to your team captains. Also make sure to report the meal choice information for each ticket.  Now get out there and sell tickets!

 

The Board meets on Tuesday, February 26, 11:00AM at the Exchange.  The noon meeting will feature Kara VanderKamp with an update on Remember Niger.  Kara will also attend the 4:01 meeting on Thursday, Feb 28th.

 

President Elect Dennis Connolly presented an opportunity to sort medical supplies at Mano-a-Mano.  These donated medical supplies will go to Bolivia. Sorting times are Tuesday from 5-8PM and Friday from 3-5PM.  There was significant interest in both days.  Stay tuned for details.

 

Dave Hoel reminded us to mark our calendars for the Easter Egg stuffing on April 14th, 11 AM and the Egg Hunt itself on April 20th, 10AM.  Nicole Ulrich encouraged us to attend the Sunday, February 24th, 6:30PM performance of “This Is Living”, a youth musical at Christ the King Lutheran Church.  The musical will feature our exchange student, Maria Klakegg.  Don’t miss it!

 

Ed James passed the hat to gather seed money for our Feed My Starving Children food packing event in May.  Details are forthcoming.

 

Happy Bucks Highlights

·         Paul Fournier was happy to have finally sold his airplane.

·         John and Tina Risdall are celebrating their 30th anniversary.

·         Nils Friberg bought Peg an Instapot for her 72nd birthday.  He said it was complicated, but he finally got it working.  He claims he didn’t inhale.

·         Nicole Ulrich is happy to be moving and even happier to be expecting in September.

·         Dana Rebelein was finally able to offer a happy buck for Gopher athletics after a few frustrating weeks.

·         John Ordway was happy to have avoided much of the snow and cold by vacationing in Arizona.

 

Ed James introduced Thompson Aderinkomi, Founder and CEO of NICE HEALTHCARE.  Thompson is a 1998 Irondale graduate and got his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Minnesota.  Thompson currently resides in North East Minneapolis.

 

Thompson began his presentation with the assertion that the traditional health care model in this country is badly broken because of high costs and poor access.  Nice Healthcare addresses both of these issues with a unique approach to basic healthcare.  The Nice approach revolves around an app that allows you to schedule a “video visit” with a Nurse Practitioner who can spend as much time as necessary to diagnose your symptoms.  If a prescription is indicated, most common drugs can be delivered to your home at no charge for the drug or the delivery.  For less commonly prescribed drugs, a regular prescription can be written to be filled at a local pharmacy.  If further tests are needed, a health care professional will come to your home to complete the tests and even x-rays.  The home visit service is currently available only in the metro area but the video visits are available anywhere you have cell phone service.

 

The service is primarily marketed to businesses that are looking for a way to minimize the frustration of high costs of and difficult access to routine health care.  The subscription costs $25-35/month/employee and the employee’s family is included in the service. The service doesn’t eliminate the need for catastrophic health care coverage, nor does it coordinate with traditional health insurance.  In fact, the low cost is made possible because the service is completely separate from your health insurance plan.  If an employer doesn’t offer the service, it is available for individuals at $89/month and families at $150/month.   Nice currently has 8,000 people covered in the metro area is aggressively seeking more subscribers.  Cindy, Thompson and Ed are shown below.