Sartell, Sauk Rapids Rotary clubs to merge

by Dennis Dalman

editor@thenewsleaders.com

Sometimes two Rotary clubs, like two heads, are better than one.

That’s the case with the newly merged Rotary clubs of Sartell and Sauk Rapids. As of July 1, the two combined groups will officially become known as the Great River Rotary (club) of Sauk Rapids and Sartell.”

Its recently elected president is Ann Doyscher-Domres, who is program coordinator for the Sartell-St. Stephen Community Education program. She has been a long-time member of Sartell Rotary. The new club’s president-elect (vice president) is Eric Reisinger, vice president of commercial banking for US Bank and a member of the Sauk Rapids Rotary.

Dwindling memberships in both clubs is what spurred the merger, said Doyscher-Domres. As happens in many service organizations, members move on to other cities; some retire; some die; new members come, others go for one reason or another.

The Sartell club was down to 14 members, the Sauk Rapids club down to 18. Technically, there were more members on the rosters, but many had become inactive or had moved. The struggle to maintain memberships is common among Rotary clubs (and other service clubs) internationally. There are currently about 1.2-million Rotary members worldwide, and that number has not changed appreciably in the past 10 years, Doyscher-Domres noted.

The Sartell Rotary was formed in 2005; the Sauk Rapids one, known as Great River Rotary, was started in the late 1970s.

The merger idea came up during a chat between two past presidents: Anita Smoley of St. Stephen, member of the Sartell club; and Dan Iburg, member of the Sauk Rapids club.

One day they got to talking about the clubs’ shrinking membership.

“What if we merged?” one of them asked.

They shared that possibility with other club members and a consensus was reached: a good idea!

One of their first joint ventures was when the Sauk Rapids club needed help with the sale of roast turkey legs at the Benton County Fair. Eight Sartell club volunteers rolled up their sleeves, stepped up and helped out.

“We had a ball,” Doyscher-Domres recalled.

That success was proof positive a joint club would work well.

Now there are 30 members.

Certain accommodations for differences had to be made. For example, the Sartell club was always a breakfast-meeting group; the Sauk Rapids club always met during noon luncheons. Now the merged club meets once a week: the first and third Mondays of the month at 7 p.m. breakfasts at Jimmy’ Pour House in Sauk Rapids; the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 12:15 p.m., also at Jimmy’s Pour House. They will also schedule nightly meetings, as both clubs have done before the merger – meetings known as “Rotary After Hours.”

Unlike the Sartell club’s tradition, the new club doesn’t have any group singing at its meetings.

“We don’t sing – that’s a benefit,” said Doyscher-Domres, laughing, noting she and some other Rotarians just cannot carry a tune, even though she is an excellent musician.

At their meeings, Rotarians develop project strategies and hear a wide variety of guest speakers while developing and strengthening official fellowship and informal camaraderie.

In their many years of civic-minded activism, both clubs have done scores of good works for a wide variety of causes: donations to groups, supporting medical missions to other countries, local park developments, improvements to city facilities, ditch cleaning, caroling at nursing homes, fundraising to buy school supplies for children, the county-fair turkey-leg sales to raise money to give turkey dinners for senior citizens at high schools, scholarships for high-school students and much more.

One of the Sartell clubs’ more visible achievements was the creation, with city help, of the Rotary Park and Fishing Pier several years ago on the river just south of the Sartell Family Dollar store.

Some of the projects now under consideration as a merged club are the following:

• A food booth, joint effort with the St. Cloud Granite Rotary Club, at the Summertime By George concerts at Eastman Park (by Lake George) in St. Cloud.
• Upgrades and bike fix-it stations at Bob Cross Park in Sauk Rapids.

Anyone interested in joining the Great River Rotary Club of Sauk Rapids and Sartell should just show up at one of its four monthly meetings.