The "Manhattan Optimist Club Bulletin": Vol. 2025 #1:10-2-24
VOLUME 2025 OCTOBER 2, 2024 NUMBER 1
President Greg McCune shared some background on himself and his family, then shared his goals for the Club over the next year. He shared a picture of himself with a mustache from 1975 at in front of Anderson Hall at KSU when he was in a photojournalism class.
Greg grew up in western Kansas near Plainville, KS, near Hays, on a farm. He didn’t want to farm, so he went to college and majored in agricultural journalism. After graduation from KSU, he wrote about agriculture in Kansas City and Chicago. Then he traveled the world; he was sent to Australia, then after he and his wife married, they moved to London, Brussels, Belgium, and Toronto, Canada. Then he went to Washington, DC and Chicago. He worked in five different countries in his career as a journalist. He and his wife have been back in Manhattan for five years. They retired here as they loved KSU and Manhattan.
This year the members taking over for Jim and Bruce will learn by shadowing them so that the second year the new team will in place to continue the success of the tree lot.
Funding is needed to maintain Optimist Park in the long term if we don’t have enough volunteer help and need to hire maintenance work done. We set aside $5,000 last year and have budgeted another $5,000 this year. We need to do more.
We have about 100 members and we have maintained that, but we must add about 12 members per year due to members who leave the community, pass away, or don’t renew their membership. So far this year we have added 10 new members but need two more to meet the goal of 12 new members.
While at the convention, Greg became aware of a club that had a model through a social media campaign, for recruiting new members that may be beneficial to our club. The process identified 60 people who showed and interest and recruited 20 new members to their club. One key message they focused on was the question of “Do you want to give back to the community,” rather than would you like to help with “X” fundraiser?”
The above goals were identified as the top goals, below are additional goals suggested by Optimist board members.
Create a working social committee and have more informal gatherings to have fun
Members sit at the same tables, sometimes for years; Greg is not suggesting breaking that up, but it is daunting for new members to comfortably find a place to sit. A greeter could shake new members’ hands and greet them like at church.
Several people suggested ideas for a new fundraiser. We will need to evaluate what we already are doing to see if there is interest in expanding the number of fundraisers. One way to fund the future needs of Optimist Park is to have another stream of revenue to support it.
We would like to get people who don’t come to the meetings to feel a sense of community too. One of the new members stated he really enjoyed working the parking of cars last Saturday and meeting and getting to know other members. We have heard similar stories about working the tree lot. We should try to find other ways to get them involved, such as a social.
This was discussed last year, however, one of the issues is privacy. Some members really don’t want their information out there. Other members, especially new members, don’t know everybody and it might be good to have a directory, while taking into consideration the privacy concerns of members.
We have started to do that with Jim Franke’s use of Signup Genus, which has been good. We are exploring setting up an electronic account to accept payments for dues and meals. We currently have Chili Crawl tickets available with electronic payment, however there is more we can do.
These are Greg’s goals for the coming year and there was a consensus of the group to support his goals.
Ken Lewis is going through a rough time, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
The Manhattan Optimist Club Memorial Scholarship is a $1,000 scholarship granted through Kansas State University. Undergraduate students who are enrolled in any curriculum and are direct descendants of present or deceased members of the Manhattan, KS Optimist Club (to include naturally born children, adopted children and stepchildren) are eligible.
Clyde Scott announced dues are $140.00 and should be paid by October 1st.
President McCune noted we did the parking at Central National Bank last Saturday and raised $1,303. Steve Boeckman, Steve Havenstein, Brady Armstrong, Jerome Miratsky, Kale Terrill, and Jeremy Allen. He noted that the bank has had so many organizations approach them that they may have to a drawing next year to select the organizations.
The Chili Crawl will be on October 19th and signup is nearly complete, additional volunteers would be helpful. Tickets can now be purchased online.
Buy tickets – 2024 Annual Chili Crawl – Johnny Kaw's Yard Bar (tickettailor.com)
Grants were approved by the Optimist board at their meeting on September 5th.
Greg reported that parking for the marathon has been cancelled. Due to the forecast for heat that day, the report time for parking was moved from 5:30 am to 4:30 am and we declined to participate.
Bruce Bidwell reminded the membership we have an AED at Optimist Park. AED stands for Automated External Defibrillator. Our AED is located in the Garage at Optimist Park. For additonal Information follow this link: Optimist Park AED
Brice Bodwell also thanked our PUSH MOWERS EXTRAORDINAIRE! group Steve Boeckman, Brad Horchem, and Steve Springer. For additional Information follow this link: PUSH MOWERS EXTRAORDINAIRE!
SAVE THESE DATES: October 19, Aggieville Chili Crawl.
Adjourned with the Optimist Creed
OCTOBER 9: NOON MEETING: Program: MHS Student of the Month and Mike Dibbini, KSU Women’s Soccer Coach.
OCTOBER 16: MORNING MEETING: Program: Sgt. Jared Hayes, Riley County Police Department Service Dog Supervisor: Topic: "My Career Handling Service Dogs"
OCTOBER 23 – NOON MEETING: Program: Stephanie Pierce, Executive Director, INNOVATE24: Topic: "Regional Startup Activities"
OCTOBER 30 – MORNING MEETING: Program: Greg McCune: Topic: “Business Meeting”
