President Brian Hayes welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Centerville Rotary Club and led the group in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Dick Hoback provided the prayer.

 

President Brian gave the following announcements:

 

 

Ron Hollenbeck reminded all to  pick up your annual Rotary Foundation drive letter. It details how much you need to get your first Paul Harris Fellow or to the next level of Paul Harris Fellow. Remember the club will match your donation dollar for dollar, using points. Ron will mail any letters left after the meeting today.

Ron also mentioned the new Rotary 125 Club. Simply donate $100 to the Annual Fund and $25 to Polio Plus this year, and you will get the 125 Club pin.

 

Frank Perez announced he is working to form the Board for next year and gave thanks to those who have stepped up already. Last position that needs filled is the Treasurer. Please see him after the meeting with questions and let him know if you can help.

 

 

This quarter we are collecting for Blue Star Mothers (of America) – which is a private nonprofit organization in the United States that provides support for mothers who have sons or daughters in active service in the U.S. Armed Forces.

 

 

Happy Bucks today included:

 

 

 

Erich Eggers introduced our speaker, Mike Cordonnier, who is a 1983 grad of Centerville High School. Mike was born and raised here and worked in the theatre program while in high school. Mike has a BS in electric engineering technology from the University of Dayton. Mike’s summer job is to build sets for La Comedia theater. Erich and Mike met through Mike’s brother, and they started Remodeling Designs together. When the Performing Arts Center was being built at CHS, Mike consulted on the design and construction. He teaches the Technical Theater program at CHS now and last year received the Educator of the Year award.

 

Mike said he dressed up today as none of his clothing has paint on it!. He explained the Technical Theater program is part of the Career Education track at CHS. It is a training program for students to be the crew/workers for productions. Mike happened to be on a 3 week bus tour with Terry Riley, which gave him plenty of time to convinced him they needed a FT person in the job as the PAC was preparing to open.

The program is for Juniors/Seniors who must complete an interview process and be selected for the program. They meet for 2 periods/day. Mike also manages the PAC’s use after school. Students who complete the Career Ed program are eligible for a $3,000 scholarship to Sinclair Community College.

 

Theater Technology includes everything backstage: lighting, sound, scenery, costumes, props, makeup, etc. They do their job best when you can’t tell they are there. The program is project based with lots of hands on experiences. Mike doesn’t do power points or textbooks, no desks; it’s a non traditional learning environment.

 

The students learn about theater stuff, but the majority of the program is preparing them for life after high school: project management, project planning, verbal & written communication, creativity, team based work, etc. The theater has hard deadlines - opening night will not change, so deadlines have to be met.

 

Most projects are student led. Everything is done by students - no one else brought in, students do all the work to put on a production.

Students are receiving an introduction to business skills. When you have a job in theater, you’re a freelancer in the industry, so they need to know how to price themselves. Mike teaches those soft skills.

 

The majority of his students don’t go into technical theater after graduation, but want the non-traditional learning environment. He admitted it is a challenge for starving artists to make a living in the theater.

 

Mike teaches work ethic, communications, organization, etc. All Career Ed programs are teaching basically the same thing, they just using a different medium (what interests the student).

 

They do a lot of collaborative projects. For example, they built props for the Optimist Haunted Trail at RecPlex. The students learn about doing work for other people, and how to meet their needs. The program supports everything at PAC, including doing lights/music for the choir and dance programs. Students get paid when the PAC is rented for outside groups. The student technicians learn about working for someone else, gaining real life work experience.

 

For the annual Project Showcase, students spend 6 weeks learning about various things and then invite professionals in to see what they worked on. They gain experience talking to adults, answering questions about their projects, and accepting critique.

 

Erich was then asked to opened a box and describe what he saw. Eric said it was a sconce light, made of wood, routed, metal bracket, candle and light bulb with wire attached. White pine painted gold.

 

Mike noted the play Clue opens tonight and all are welcome to attend! It runs Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 pm and is only $10.

 

The show takes place in a big mansion, and Mike said he loves practical lights for the set and decided he needed 12 of these lights for the show. To buy them would be really expensive, so he tasked the students with the challenge to make 13 sconce lights and also a 4 ft diameter, 2 level chandelier. The students researched the lights and then figured a way to make them with less expensive material, yet still look fancy. Through a project like this, the students developed self-confidence which will take them far in the future. It first seemed to be an impossible problem to overcome, but they were able to accomplish the task.

 

Students do everything in the classroom, but Mike also has a crew of 40 students who are in an after school club.

 

Erich Eggers noted productions at Centerville High School are Broadway quality and everyone should attend!

 

Mike cleared up a common misconception about the theater program - there are currently only 2 boys in the program.

 

 

 

President Brian thanked Mike for sharing about this great program and then said, “Next week your personal guest speaker will be Thomas Turkey who will share with you the importance of avoiding sharp objects and hot places.” :-)

On December 2 when we get together again we will have Julie Mitchell from UD who will share with us about the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

 

President Brian led reciting of the 4 Way Test and wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.