President Lynn King called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone who attend in person and zoom. Our hybrid meeting continues with both options available for members and guests.
The prayer was offered by Kevin Courtney and he led the pledge to the flag
Announcements:
Sign up to participate in ROCS - Rotarians Offering Community Service - which will take place on Saturday March 6. Our fun project, oyster shell bagging, has been added to the ROCS schedule. All slots had been full for this event but more have been added. If you tried to sign up before and it was full try again - quickly. The link is: https://signup.com/go/vymddcq There are many other worthwhile projects as well.
Ray Warco made the club aware that the Beaufort County Supervisors are embarking on a new program which is looking for volunteers who are interested in spending time in the classroom working with students. Call to apply to volunteer (sorry, don't have the number - contact Ray)
New member induction
photo credit Barry Davis
Bruce Yeager (right) inducts new member Lauren Hollis as membership chair, Jonathan Eggert (left) looks on. Lauren is sponsored by Kristin Keller. She works at Fidelity Investments as a Private Wealth Planning Consultant. Make sure to meet Lauren and welcome her to the club. Welcome, Lauren!
Suzi Oliver, Sergeant at Arms, Collected Happy $$.
Speaker:
Suzi introduced our speaker, Chris Kehrer. Chris is a Naturalist and Education Coordinator at the Port Royal Sound Foundation. He was raised in Savannah, obtained a BA in Biology from USCB and volunteered with SC DNR. The Port Royal Sound Foundation became a non profit in 2011 and the Maritime Center opened in 2014. Its mission is "to preserve Port Royal Sound for the environmental, cultural and economic well-being of our area".
photo credit - Barry Davis
South Carolina has 400,000 acres of Salt March and half of that, 200,000 resides in Beaufort County.
The Port Royal Sound is an inland sea. Its rivers and creeks are the salt fingers of the Atlantic Ocean. It extends 20 miles inland. The "rivers" like Broad, Colleton, and May are not really rivers, they are tidal inlets, saltwater "fingers" extending inland whose flow is fed from the ocean via the tides. The PRS is the deepest natural harbor of 30 to 60 feet with high salinity and is unique in many things, including it is the only inshore breeding area in the world for many marine animals. Another unique feature is the tidal range of 8 feet and can exceed 11 feet. Most areas of SC the tide range is 1 foot, NC it is 2 1/2 feet, but because of where the PRS is located, it is 8 1/2 feet. The Maritime Center which opened in November of 2014 has had 92,622 visitors to date. In the past 6 years 11,024 students have visited. The Center is open Tuesday through Friday 10 am to 5 pm and Saturday 10 am to 4 pm. Admission to the Center is free. There are programs for which there are charges, like : field trips, activities like nature hikes, squid dissections, bag oysters, animal classification, recycling, fish printing, build a buoy; ZooZooms which are virtual field trips. There is also a Talk Lecture Series webinars.. There are many other activities and programs. The PRSF is able to do this through grants and donations and the fact that they have over 80 active volunteers. Visit their website for more information: portroyalsoundfoundation.org