The Rotary Club of Catonsville - Sunrise, Maryland

Club Meeting December 2

Catonsville Sunrise Rotary
Meeting minutes- 12/2/09
Evening meeting

Joe and Cindy planned a great event complete with a pasta buffet and cash bar at Rolling Road Golf Club. There were approximately 60-70 people present for the meeting.

Cal thanked everyone for coming and guest Rick Powell from Christian Temple gave the blessing. We were then treated to a very funny Bill Clinton impersonator and everyone enjoyed it - except for maybe Susan who at one point looked like she might pull out some pepper spray. Cal then held a brief trivia contest that started with the following questions, “ If you smell cologne…”. Susan recovered from the trauma inflicted and was one of two winners of the contest.

Mary Toth then gave a nice talk about strategic planning and sprinkled in quite a few references to the club. She talked about why strategic planning is important and the 3 C’s of the planning process-concept, capacity, and credibility. She also spoke about a 360 degree perspective meaning that it is important to engage people inside and outside of the organization, stakeholders and the community at large.

Joe then spoke about the 20 reasons to join Rotary and in particular, reason number 5- Citizenship in the community.

He then introduced Tonja who in turn introduced Sandra Kurtinitis, President of CCBC. Dr. Kurtinitis mentioned that she was a Rotarian in Massachusetts and summarized Rotarians as “people who care enough about where they live to do things that matter”. She then spoke about President Obama’s vision to have 5 million more community college degrees by 2020 and how this vision will involve significant funding to community colleges from the federal level.

The fall enrollment at CCBC increased by 20% and CCBC has 70,000 students at their three campuses. She then spoke about the Catonsville campus in particular and detailed some of the revitalization plans for it. 26% of the Catonsville campus students are full-time students, 72% are from Baltimore County, and 71% are over age 20. She talked about the new library, which should open August 2010. The Catonsville campus houses the STEM program (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and also houses the FAA controller program, one of only 13 in the entire country. 50% of the Catonsville students transfer to 4-year colleges and 50% get jobs. Dr. Kurtinitis also told us that 100% of the 447 classrooms are “smart classrooms” and that only a handful of all colleges can make the same claim. She was also very proud of the fact that the automotive technology students took a regular pickup truck and modified it so that disabled veterans can drive it.

Thanks again to Joe and Cindy and everyone else who helped to plan the event.