MaryAnn Bawden opened the meeting and offered the invocation.
 
President Dana Rebelein announced the upcoming speakers and said she has some suggestions for those looking to fill a speaker slot.
 
We are running the Stockyard Days Bingo Tent again this year.  There will be a sign-up sheet next Tuesday so remember to bring your calendars to the meeting.
 
If you are going to Amy Wakem's reception on August 8th, Mark Lampman could use some help from club members to assemble the pizzas that he is baking at the event.  Call Mark if you can help him out at the event.
 
Paul Fournier announced that we will be having an off-site Rotary meeting on Tuesday, August 11th.  We'll be visiting Paul's former employer, Johnson Screens.  We will enjoy a short movie/presentation about water well design and installation along with a plant tour for whoever is interested and could stay an extra 15 minutes.  The meeting will begin as usual at 12:15 and we will have DD's box lunches, menu to be determined.   Johnson Screen company is located at 1950 Old Highway 8, just across the street from Beisswenger's. The visitor's entry is the North driveway, with parking at the far SW corner. (Paul will hand out a map and provide a sandwich selection sign-up sheet at a future meeting).
 
Todd Kruse introduced his guest, Denny Smith.  Denny is a diversity inclusion trainer.
 
Marv Sorvala of the Roseville Club was also visiting today.
 
MaryAnn introduced our own Cor Wilson, who updated us on recent developments at the North Suburban Communications Commission as well as at CTV North Suburbs.  Cor is the executive director for CTV North Suburbs and for the North Suburban Communications Commission (NSCC).  Cor started by showing a video outlining the wide variety of programming and services provided by CTV North Suburbs.  We are all probably familiar with the community access programming on Channel 15, but CTV North Suburbs also provides classes in video production and editing, internships for students interested in media production or information technology and fee-based video production services for community organizations.  NSCC/CTV15 is funded by the $4.15 PEG fee paid by cable subscribers and fees from the previously mentioned video production services.  Cor said that Comcast's monopoly over our local cable services is being challenged by CenturyLink, which has applied to provide local services alongside Comcast.  Minneapolis has already approved CenturyLink and their service seems to have what it will take to compete with Comcast.   Time will tell if more competition in the cable marketplace leads to lower prices or better product offerings in the future.   Dana and Cor are shown below.