If you did not make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed…

This Week – At Forest Grove UCC: This week’s meeting, and all of our meetings during the month of October, will be held at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way (across the street from Pacific University). Join us as Riley Stewart presents on his experience at District 5100 RYLA over the summer.

Changes To Lunches For October: With the change of location to the United Church of Christ, the club’s board has decided to experiment with not providing lunch for meetings during October. Club members are encouraged to bring their own lunches and enjoy fellowship with other members before the meeting. The approach will be reviewed. Please contact any board member with thoughts.

Road Cleanup – Oct. 14: Mark your calendars this Saturday, Oct. 14 for our semi-annual road cleanup service project. The project will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Oregon Department of Forestry offices, 801 Gales Creek Road. The cleanup project involves our adopted road segments as part of Washington County’s Adopt-A-Road Program: Gales Creek Road from Thatcher Road to Forest Gale Drive and Thatcher Road from Gales Creek Road to David Hill Road.

October 14 is also Pacific University homecoming weekend! Rotarians (and friends) who participate in the cleanup will receive a general admission ticket to that day’s football game between Pacific and Lewis & Clark (kickoff at 4 p.m.). For more information or questions about the road cleanup, please contact Andrea Stewart.

Golf Tournament: Thank you to all of our members who braved the rain to participate in our annual golf tournament at the Sunset Grove Golf Course on Sept. 27. At last week’s meeting, Tim Schauermann announced the winners.

First Place Team: Michael Cook, Lucas Welliver and Bryce Baker. Their score was a 20, which meant that the team bought a lot of string (par at Sunset Grove is 36).
Second Place Team: Geoff Faris, Tim Pearson & John Ball
Long Drive: Tim Pearson

The biggest winner was The Rotary Foundation, which made $375 from the sale of string to shorten shots.

Concours d’Elegance Committee: The next meeting for the Concours d’Elegance committee will take place on Wed., Oct. 11 at 7 p.m., via Zoom. Please contact Tom Raabe if you are interested in attending.

If you are interested in getting further involved with the Concours d’Elegance, our annual car show, the steering committee is always looking for volunteers to prepare for the show throughout the year. For more information, contact Tom Raabe at 503-704-1200 or rotarytomr@gmail.com or Geoff Johnston at 503-939-7868 or gamsma@comcast.net.

Forest Grove Football Senior Photos: Once again, our club is making available senior portraits of Forest Grove High School football seniors to display in their place of business. After the season, the portraits will be presented to the seniors and their families at the team’s year-end banquet. The pictures cost $25 each to display. If you are interested in taking part in the program, contact Geoff Faris.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May 2020 (over 100 videos to date) are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Do You Know Of Service Opportunities?: Are you aware of service opportunities in our area that our members might be interested in? We can advertise those here! This space is not limited to club-sponsored activities but to any service opportunity in the community. To promote the service activity, please send a detailed description of the project, the date and time, contact information and a link to register to Rototeller editor Blake Timm, blakertimm@gmail.com.

Friends of the Forest Grove Library Book Sale: Friends of the Forest Grove Library will be holding its semi-annual book sale from Thursday, Oct. 14 to Saturday, Oct. 16. In addition to the sale, which benefits the library, volunteers are needed to man the sale all three days. If you are interested volunteering, please email allnutt@frontier.com.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry continues.  Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials.

The Food Pantry is open Mondays from 4-5:30 p.m. The pantry is located along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center. Click Here for more information on the FGHS Food Pantry and on other resources for those experiencing food insecurity.

For information on the Food Pantry, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Around District 5100
Board Leadership Training: District 5100 is offering a board leadership seminar this fall. This training is geared towards current club officers and board members but is open to any Rotarian who is interested in club or district leadership. The training is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 21, 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m., at the Oregon International Air Show office, 3355 NE Cornell Rd., Hillsboro (inside the Hillsboro Airport terminal). This training will touch on financial stewardship, club goals, action plans, management and much more.

There are currently 15 Rotarians from the Western Region planning to attend, eight of which are from our club. For more information, please contact assistant governor Tom Raabe.

District 5100 Newsletter: Click Here To View The Monthly District 5100 Newsletter

Around Rotary International
Rotary Foundation Receives Highest Rating From Charity Navigator For 15th Consecutive Year: For the 15th consecutive year, The Rotary Foundation has received the highest rating – four stars – from Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of charities in the U.S.

The Foundation earned the recognition for adhering to sector best practices and executing its mission in a financially efficient way, demonstrating both strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency.

“We are delighted to provide the Rotary Foundation with third-party accreditation that validates their operational excellence,” said Michael Thatcher, President and CEO of Charity Navigator. “The Four-Star Rating is the highest possible rating an organization can achieve. We are eager to see the good work that Rotary is able to accomplish in the years ahead.”

Charity Navigator assesses nonprofit performance based on four key indicators, including the impact of the charity’s program relative to cost; the organization’s governance and financial health including its transparency, efficiency, and sustainability; a charity’s leadership capacity, strategic development, and ability to adapt to internal and external changes; and its overall culture and connectedness to its constituents and the communities they serve.

This story first appeared on the Rotary website, rotary.org.

Last Week’s Program: Chris Regilski, U.S. Department of Reclamation, Scoggins Dam Safety Project

Click Here To Watch Last Week’s Program

Last week we were joined by Chris Regilski, the dam safety program manager for the U.S. Department of Reclamation’s Columbia/Pacific Northwest Region. Chris was in the area to present to a number of organizations about safety enhancements that are being planned for Scoggins Dam, located south of Forest Grove (the dam holds back Hagg Lake).

Regilski provided an overview of the bureau’s overall dam safety program and its specific relation to Scoggins Dam. The program was created in 1978 after the catastrophic failure of the Teton Dam, near Rexburg, Idaho, in 1976, to ensure that the bureau’s dams do not present an unreasonable risk to people, property and the environment. The project has identified 361 high-hazard dams, 57 of which are in this region, that pose high risks should they fail. The program inspects and evaluates dams and works to mitigate risk if that risk is deemed too high.

Regilski said that every dam under the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s system is evaluated at least once every eight years. With the increasing studies into the Cascade Subduction Zone and the risk of a large earthquake, there is work to make sure that Scoggins Dam is safer in the event of a seismic event.

In the early 2000s, Scoggins Dam was identified as a dam that could be at risk of failing in a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. After the bureau’s dam safety office initiated engineering studies, seismic-related deficiencies of both the dam and the spillway were identified in 2009 and confirmed several times since. Seismic concerns include embankment erosion, overtopping and failure of the spillway walls.

A safety project is in the works that will involve stabilizing the embankment of the dam and building stability berm sections extending as much as 300 feet out from the current dam. It would also construct a new spillway and outstream channel. There would be no need to draw down the dam for the work and should not affect recreational activities.

The main purposes of Scoggins Dam are irrigation, water supply and flood risk management. Hagg Lake also provides recreation, fish and wildlife habitat and contributes to water quality as secondary purposes. The dam is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation and is operated by the Tualatin Valley Irrigation District. The park around the dam is operated by Washington County. The dam irrigates 17,000 acres of land and provides 14,000 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water (one acre-foot contains 326,000 gallons of water).

A question was raised about the proposals to either raise Scoggins Dam or build a second dam downstream to impound more water. Regilski explained that those proposals, which had been put proposed and developed by Clean Water Services, are no longer on the table. It was deemed that the cost-benefit of the project was not economical. The safety project, which is unrelated to the proposal to increase capacity at Hagg Lake, will not change the footprint of the lake.

Click Here to read more about the project.

Club Calendar
Wed., Oct. 11: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Riley Stewart, RYLA

Wed., Oct. 11: Concours Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom. Contact Tom Raabe for details.

Thurs., Oct. 12: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Oct. 18: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Club Assembly/Youth Citizens of the Month

Thurs., Oct. 19: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Sat., Oct. 21: Rotary District 5100 Board Leadership Development, 8-12:30 p.m.
Oregon International Air Show Offices, 3355 NE Cornell Rd., Hillsboro

Wed., Oct. 25: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Blue Barbour-Weiss, Rotary Youth Exchange Year In Ecuador