Michael-Jon Pease – our District Governor with inspiring words about where the District and Rotary International is going – and some challenges for our local club.
Tom Murray – Shoreview author shared about his book “Sons & the Holy Ghost” and gave an interesting talk about writing a book and challenged us to ‘write our stories’.
Vince Darling – Our member/financial planner spoke Retirement and Tax implications of all those acronyms we try to remember. I think everyone came away with something to think about.
We ended the month strong with a 5th Tuesday Happy Hour at The Green Mill on the 29th and an Amazing Amazon tour on Wednesday the 30th.
Club members volunteered on the 12th and 26th at Floral Park in Arden Hills.
In the past month (or so) we have had members travel to Alaska, Argentina, and Brazil to visit Rotary clubs and experience other cultures.
Yes, we have a LOT going on. I’m looking forward to another active month in October and to hear stories about faraway lands...make to as many meetings as possible – hope to see you there in person or on zoom!
Leonard, our exchange student two years ago from Austria, is visited by one of his host families meeting his family in Salzburg Austria. A big benefit of the International Rotary Exchange is for host families visiting their exchange students in their home country.
Today's speaker was Shoreview resident Tom Murray. Tom has retired from his teaching career of 44 years and has recently self-published two novels: "The Empty Set" and "Fathers, Sons and the Holy Ghosts of Baseball"."
Today's speaker was Shoreview resident Tom Murray. Tom worked as a teacher in the Minneapolis School District for over 40 years. He is now retired and has been focusing on getting the word out about two novels he has self-published, both of which are available on Amazon: "The Empty Set" and "Fathers, Sons and the Holy Ghosts of Baseball". He began working on the former book very early in his teaching career but only returned to it after the successful release of the latter which is based in a small Iowa town, reminiscent of his actual hometown of Bancroft, Iowa. It is all about the love of baseball and a town coming together to strive for a state high school title. "The Empty Set" is a coming-of-age story about a 15 year old boy who has suffered great loss as a result of a tornado. He manages to work through his grief while navigating the rough halls of his Northeast Minneapolis high school.
Today's speaker was our very own Vince Darling, who is a Certified Financial Planner with The Stonebridge Group, based in Forest Lake. Vince's comments today focused specifically on financial planning in retirement, which is primarily about strategies to reduce taxes on withdrawals and future inheritances. As with anything tax related, this stuff is complicated! But Vince gave a good overview of the different types of investment accounts (Taxable Brokerage Accounts, Pretax Accounts such as IRAs and Roth accounts). He also covered the rules around RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions), QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions) and how Social Security payments are taxed. Thank you Vince!
.jpg?_=639274503192612254)
