After many years of meeting at the Oak Table Café in Kingston and enjoying great food, friendly surroundings and staff, we’ve had to find a new venue.
The Oak Table Café has moved to a new location in Silverdale. We wish Ross and Niki all the luck in the world, but we definitely will miss them.
In our search for a new place for our breakfast meetings, we managed to make an arrangement with the Ale House Café. Signs were made but, after a couple of weeks, the Ale House’s management decided it wasn’t practical to continue our arrangement because of staffing limitations, so we were on the road again.
Member Rick Eveleth talked to Paul Barrett, owner of Westside Pizza, and, thanks to Paul, we found our new home. Thanks, Paul.
We had some very interesting speakers this month, and past president Pete DeBoer and club members were very busy putting together a fund-raiser in partnership with The Point Casino for a Kiwanis-sponsored comedy show. The comedy show was staged on Aug. 28, and I hope everyone was able to attend this fun event.
We also are busy collecting school supplies and backpacks to make sure that all North Kitsap students have what they need to be successful in school. On Aug. 24, under the guidance of past president Pat Bennett-Forman, we gathered at the Ed Moon Center at Bayside Community Church to load these backpacks with pens, pencils, calculators and spiral notebooks. Doing this gave us the satisfaction of helping our youngsters be prepared.
Shannon Singleton, president of the North Kitsap Schools Foundation, introduced our members to her organization — a great tool for supporting our teachers, schools and, of course, the end product, our kids.
The foundation has 501©(3) status, which allows supporters to donate money and resources to NKSF as a tax-deductible contribution. They rely on grants, fundraisers, golf tournaments and donations to support their efforts.
Shannon presented an incredible array of achievements such as Bookflix, the new, interactive literacy resource that builds a love of reading and learning online. The Pearson Elementary School library utilizes this system to improve student reading skills.
At Gordon Elementary School, NKSF supports a before-school lab to provide reading and math support for students who need it.
Shannon showed a video of Poulsbo Middle School students developing robots in a collaborative effort with service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary; it was really fun to watch these young engineers in action.
Shannon said part of her organization’s mission is to encourage teachers to think outside the box, and they appear to be doing just that. Her organization supports a Rolling Reading program called STAR Tutors; helps students at Wolfle, Poulsbo and Vinland elementary schools; and supplies audio books to Vinland Elementary students who are reading at below grade level.
Our next guest speaker was Shari Storms, a very dynamic speaker and owner of Category 6 Consulting. Her book, “Motherhood is the New MBA,” has been promoted in Redbook and by Martha Stewart.
As chief financial officer of a large credit union, Shari challenged the business model “What gets measured, gets done,” with her own success strategy, “What is fun, gets done.”
She showed us a really interesting video made in Sweden that showed people taking an escalator in a train station rather than walking up the stairs. To encourage change in people’s behavior, piano-key covers that actually produced music when stepped on were installed on the stairs. It didn’t take long for people to “ham it up” and dance their way up the stairs. Quite inspiring.
If you are interested in finding out more about our Kiwanis Club, meet us at Westside Pizza at 7 a.m. every Thursday. Or call President Eric Roth at 297-7502, or me, Bob Lee, at 360-509-9752.
— Contact Bob Lee at GLENCARIN@aol.com
