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The Rotary year ends on the last day of June every year, so our regular meeting last Wednesday was the last meeting of the Rotary 2023/2024 year! At the meeting we covered several club topics. First one was to ask members to sign up to help at this year's Saline County Fair. Every year our club helps out at the Thursday night beer garden and help as lap counters at the figure 8 races that evening. We also distribute 20 recycling containers around the fairgrounds and then come back on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings to separate out the recyclables and deliver them to the recyclers. Then end of the month marks the end of the year-long "Ride to Eradicate Polio" District 5650 fund raising program. Our Karen Drevo has participated in two of the bike ride events and she gave us a review of the race back in early June in Omaha. It was a very successful event and Karen informed the club that Crete Rotary was $50 or so away from raising $3,000 in donations to her personal donation site. She hoped that we would be able to make one last donation and get over the $3,000 amount. With its usual exceptionalism, some members donated nearly $500 to push Karen's total to over $3,500. Way to go Karen and Crete Rotary! Our presenter for the meeting, Sargeant Lincoln Morehouse, spoke to us about his role within the Crete PD and how we can help protect the youth in our lives from online predators. He’s been with the department since 2008 and in 2021 he became the lead investigator for Crete. He’s also on the human trafficking and Internet Crimes against Children task force in Nebraska. He gets to see the dangers of giving children/teens unsupervised access to phones and devices and he’s passionate about raising awareness. Here are some steps adults can take to minimize the risk: - monitor child’s activity—set up passcodes/passwords on the phone
- spot checks—check messages, internet history, and application usage
- prevent unsupervised access—place chargers in parent’s bedrooms, a common area, or be locked down at a certain time
He recommends a Gap phone as a safe option. It doesn’t have access to internet or the ability to download any apps. It strictly is for telephone purposes. If your child already has a smart phone, he recommends using the “Bark” app. It screens the messages and apps and sends the adult an alert to check activity when a setting has been triggered. (inappropriate messages, bullying, app has been downloaded or deleted, etc) For Iphone, there’s family sharing, screen time options to restrict content, monitor activity and help prevent abuse. For Android, there’s family link, and google play parental controls to set limits on usage. The most important thing adults can do, though, is to build relationships with their children. Let them know they can trust us. Be involved in their lives, let them know you love and care about them. Most importantly be their parent, not their friend. Thank you, Sargeant Morehouse for sharing such important insights into how we can help protect youth in our lives. CPD Sergeant Lincoln Morehouse and member Janelle Snodgrass The end of June marks the end of my year as your club president. It has been a wonderful experience for me, especially to have been able to serve you for two years. I have received tremendous help from everyone as we sought to complete our many service projects. I would like to thank those who volunteered to be on our various committees. These committees allowed the club to select and recognize our first and second "Golden Wheel Award" recipients, to organize and promote our Grocery Grab fundraising event, facilitate the application and execution of our district grant project, to assist in lining up interesting program speakers for our meetings and reaching out to prospective new members. I am so excited for the prospects of a very successful coming year. Shay Smith will do a great job as your new president and will bring a new creative energy to our club. I know we will step up to help her in any way we can. The new year has some exciting potential projects for the club! Lastly, I would like to thank the new members that have joined the club in the last two years. You have brought great energy and commitment to the club and at a time when many service organizations like ours are struggling to stay relevant. New members are the lifeblood of any organization and Crete Rotary is lucky to have added such quality people! So, as I finish sending out the last Boomerang of the year, again I say thank you, God bless you and, I'll see you at our next meeting which is on July 10th at 5:30pm at Doane. Past president Jack Thompson receives a plague and gift certificated from the club presented by new president Shay Smith
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