Back to Home page NEWSLETTER Cedar Rapids Downtown Kiwanis Club Wednesday, March 19, 2008 The meeting was called to order by President Kelly Moore. 24 Members in attendance. Guests: Brook Miller (Joe Nolte’s guest) Birthdays: None Anniversaries: Jim Doyne, 3/20 Announcements: 1. Kelly Moore passed around a note from a child who received eye glasses.
2. Families Helping Families Gala event is April 19, 2008. A sign up sheet was passed around again today. 8-10 had already signed up.
3. Dan Breitbach reported that the Club raised over $11,700 with the pancake breakfast. A few checks were still coming in but the forecast is that we will come very close to netting $10,000.
4. John Locher reported that the Club will assist the McCauley Center with painting as part of Kiwanis One Day on April 5. The time is 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. A signup sheet will be passed around today and at upcoming meetings.
5. An interclub event was being held at noon today with the Marion Kiwanis Club, so a few members were absent from ours.
6. Mary Corkery announced that Dennis Jordan will be next week’s speaker. Happy Bucks: John Anderson was happy to hear via the WMT radio show’s mentioning of the Quarton gift to Coe that there would be no need for further fundraising attempts on his wallet. Dan Breitbach, as usual, ponied up a buck to correct his misgivings. John Schweitzer – happy for Ron Sundermann’s son’s new position at St. Luke’s, putting him as director of the ER; Mary Corkery – happy to hear Duane Kurrelmeyer doing an ad for Cottage Grove Place; Ron Sundermann happy for his son’s recent position announcement at St. Luke’s; and Joe Nolte – happy to hear his wife’s lovely voice on the Aegon commercial being aired. Speaker: First, Chuck Wehage inducted our two newest members: Laurie Worden, sponsored by Ron Sundermann and Hemie Collier, sponsored by Joe Nolte.
Laurie works for Kirkwood CC as the coordinator for internships in the Workplace Learning Connection program.
Hemie is the youth coordinator for the African American Museum and he works hard trying to keep Joe Nolte in line.
Today’s program was Marty Stinson with Clipper Windpower. Marty gave a very informative talk on one of CR’s newest companies. Clipper was founded by Jim Nielsen in early 2000. The corporate office is located in Carpinteria, CA. The CR plant was opened in September 2005. It now has over 300 employees with plans to expand over the next two years. The Cedar Rapids plant is located on Bowling Street in the old Goss Printing building. The primary function is assembling the turbine portion. In ’07, the plant produced 137 turbines; the goal is 350 in 2008 and 500 in 2009. The 2.5 megawatt turbine can power 700-800 homes at maximum capacity. The power generation starts when the wind is 9 mph. Maximum wind for the turbine is 27 mph. 50 mph will cause the turbine to lock out. Sticker price for one of the turbines is $2.5 million. Europe is far ahead of the U.S. China is on the move. There is tremendous potential for wind energy in our country. We have the land, the wind and technology to provide more than double what our country needs.
Thanks Marty. Word for the day: Don Grimm was not here today so our minds were spared. Submitted: Dan Breitbach | 