August 12, 2008

Steve Tibbitts (top) and his son Mark, of the Clugston-Tibbitts Funeral Home, discussed different types of funeral pre-arrangements as this weeks guest speakers.
Pre-planning, or Advance Directives, helps to provide information to the funeral home ahead of time so the family doesn't try to gather it during a difficult period.
Steve said that payments can be made to the funeral home in advance so some, or all, of the cost of a funeral will be taken care of when needed. He suggests buying an insurance policy to cover expenses. Since it is irrevocably assigned to the funeral home, it cannot be taken away by the state in case of need for public aid later in life.
Mark has been involved with the business for three years, the home itself has been open for 87 years.

Steve said that, in addition to being counselors, they sometimes find themselves having to referee if there is fighting within the family when emotions are running high.

A relatively new product is customized caskets. "For example, lots of designs are available for just about every sport" Steve said.

President Jeremy Benson presided at this weeks meeting, John Moon led us in singing "On Kiwanis" and the invocation was given by Owen Thompson.

Jeremy presented George Hermann with the Kiwanis International Foundation (KIF) award for his continued support of the KIF Children's Fund.

Jay Carter, John Moon and Debbie Vandemark were presented the Bowl-A-Thon patch for representing our club. Our club has won first place in the annual spastic paralysis Bowl-A-Thon for about 10 years.

President-elect Tim Moss gave a report on this past weekends Illinois-Eastern Iowa District Convention held in Peoria. Jeremy, Tim and Pat Stout represented our club as delegates and Pat was inducted as 2008-2009 Division 19 Lt. Gov. Our club donated $400 to spastic paralysis as part of the Parade of Love during the spastic paralysis luncheon. Total contributions were over $165,000.

• Jay Carter - for seeing former Macomb member Terry Gaul at the convention. Jay says Terry is active in the Springfield Kiwanis Club. Jay and his wife went on a tour as part of the convention.
• Tim Moss - happy to put in $1 that he borrowed from Jeremy and another for a great convention.
• Pat - $3 one for each of the Macomb members who attended the convention.
• Owen - $4 for the four members who helped with the Kiwanis playground repainting project in last Saturday.

Wayne Mounts won the 50/50 Drawing and donated his share back to the club.

Thanks to Jeremy and Sue Dexter for great note taking to help prepare this weeks Builder.