Presiding: Caitlin White
Professor’s Quote: George Gill
Humor: Todd Pearson
Meeting Room setup/takedown and general problem solving: Tom Mangan and Ron Van Ekeren
Introduction of Guests: Dave Krause
Guests: John Bard introduced Aiden Bilardo
Junior Rotarians: Aiden Bilardo and Kit Ng
Foundation Drawing: George Gill won $10 with $935 in the jackpot and 28 cards in the deck.
O’Dwyers Drawing: Becky Maddox won a $20 gift card from O’Dwyer’s.
Announcements:
• Rollin Abernethy announced the next Dine and Discover is on November 1 and he is looking for Rotarians to help set up in the High School Atrium at 4:30 that day.
•President Caitlin announced that applications are being accepted for District Governor; talk to past District Governor John Vandel for more information.
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Special Presentations:
President Caitlin presented Ollie Walter with his Paul Harris Fellow +2 pin.
Rotarians of the Week:
President Caitlin nominated John Freeman for helping to get “Rotary Reads” back into the school system.
Rotarian of the Month:
The board chose Emily Parsons for both sponsoring the Interact Club at the high school, and for her work on the youth exchange committee.
Songs – Jan Lawrence – Vive Le Rotary and This Land is Your Land
Upcoming Programs/Events:
Rotary 4-way Test:
Of the things we think, say, or do
- Is it the Truth?
- Is it Fair?
- Will it build Good Will and Better Friendships?
- Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
Rotary’s Avenues of Service
• Community Service
• Club Service
• Vocational Service
• International Service
• New Generations
Program: Steve Morgan – 911 and the Laramie/Albany County Records and Communications or LARC Division of Laramie Police Deptartment
Introduction of Program: Aimee Binning
9-1-1 calling became available in Alabama in 1967. In the early 1970s enhanced 9-1-1, which gave street locations for every call was a huge advance, but today 90% of 9-1-1 calls come from cell phones.
A little background: The Laramie Police Department consists of four divisions: patrol, investigations, community service/training and LARC. LARC consists of 1) Communications (911, all emergency dispatch, non-emergency, and warrants); 2) Records (transcriptions, tracking arrestees, FOIA requests, background checks); and 3) Administrative Support (HR, payroll, finances and alerts). LARC has a $1.5M budget.
There are 10 dispatchers and 47 law enforcement officers. Dispatchers are also technically law enforcement officers and must undergo thorough background checks, 3 to 4 months on the job training, 2 weeks at the academy, and receive training in incident management. In 2017 LARC handled 88,674 telephone calls (that’s over 240/day!) and 27,108 dispatched calls.
New to Albany county is “Text to 9-1-1” where people can text in emergency calls. Phone calls are always preferred, but sometimes making a phone call might put someone in danger, like in a domestic abuse case or in an active shooter situations. Only four counties in Wyoming have text to 911, and those are Albany, Laramie, Sweetwater, and Teton.
Text to 911 is limited to 160 characters and the number one piece of information one should send is LOCATION, then “what is the problem”, and then answer any follow up questions.
Challenges to LARC include: eternal understaffing, software needs updating, and location accuracy for rural calls. The location issue will hopefully be aided by the software upgrade.
Stay tuned.
Responding for the Club: Murray Schroeder
Response: The Rotary Club of Laramie will make a donation to the public library children’s book fund in the speaker’s name.
NOTE: We Do Not Donate a Book!
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Website: laramierotaryclub.org
Spoke Editor: Tony Hoch, 307-760-9386 or tony.hoch@lrcd.net