The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

— James Madison

Our Speaker--Ryan Stenstrup New Mequon Restaurant with a 40 year history

Ryan Stenstrup was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, above Steny’s MKE—the same year his family opened the Stenys Milwaukee. The hospitality industry has been part of his life from the beginning, from working as a busser and barback in his younger years to now owning and operating restaurants.

Ryan attended Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, where he played hockey, and later earned degrees in communication and business from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. After college, he joined his father at Steny’s Milwaukee, beginning the next chapter of the family business. Today, Ryan and his family proudly own three thriving Steny’s locations.

Outside of work and family time, Ryan enjoys playing hockey. That passion made the Mequon project especially meaningful: owning a Steny’s connected to a hockey rink was a lifelong dream.

Ryan is married to his wife, Brittney, and they have two children, Marleigh and Jayden. The family recently moved to Colgate to be centrally located between the Pewaukee and Mequon locations.

Rotary Membership Minute--October 2026

Membership Minute

October 2026

Ideas for strengthening membership

Strategies for understanding and growing membership

Having a robust membership base empowers Rotary and Rotaract clubs to make meaningful changes in their communities and beyond. With a diverse group of engaged members, you can amplify your efforts, grow your membership, and Create Lasting Impact.

Discover powerful strategies for sustainable growth in The State of Membership. This engaging slide presentation offers a snapshot of Rotary and Rotaract club membership as of 1 July, highlights important trends, and can easily be customized to fit your needs.

To deepen your understanding, watch the recording of the State of Membership webinar. This in-depth session covers effective strategies for attracting and retaining members, as well as establishing new clubs. It’s an essential resource for anyone who’s committed to enhancing membership.

Nominating members for the Service Above Self Award

Rotary’s Service Above Self Award honors Rotarians and Rotaractors who help others by volunteering their time and talents. Only district governors can nominate candidates for this prestigious award, and a maximum of 150 recipients are selected each year. If you know someone who has demonstrated exemplary service, encourage their governor to nominate them for the Service Above Self Award, Rotary International’s highest honor, between 1 and 31 October.

Update your club details in My Rotary

As the end of the calendar year approaches, it’s a great time to review your club’s information in My Rotary. Is it accurate and complete? Be sure your club meeting time and location (and any details on alternate meeting times and locations) are up to date. Use the Notes field to include any information that would be helpful for prospective members or visiting members. Don’t forget to check to make sure that all current club officers are reported.

Using insights from research to improve your membership experience

Understanding what your club’s members and prospective members want is critical to offering a great club experience. Ask new and prospective members to take the member interest survey, and use the member satisfaction survey to gain insights into what your current members value, enjoy, or would like to change. You can also get comprehensive research findings on the Rotary Research page of My Rotary. Peruse reports from our annual surveys of current, former, and prospective members, all aimed at strengthening Rotary.

Convention breakout sessions

Do you have insights, knowledge, or skills that could help your fellow Rotary members? Breakout sessions give attendees practical tools, new ideas, and strategies they can use in their clubs, districts, and communities. Topics may include strengthening and growing membership, projects, fundraising, innovation, leadership development, and more. Help build a breakout program that reflects and celebrates Rotary’s diversity! Submit your proposal online by 19 October. If you have any questions, write to conventionbreakouts@rotary.org.

A Rotary invitation becomes a turning point

A simple invitation marked a turning point in the life of a young widow. After she participated in a Rotary club service project, she realized that she had valuable contributions to make. Learn how Rita-Stella Nwojiji found healing and purpose in serving others.

A story that answers the question, “What is Rotary?”

Two Rotary club members who had never met and were more than a thousand miles apart were united by a common principle: Service Above Self. Discover how Rotary brought them together in a time of urgent need.

Membership Minute is a bimonthly newsletter that provides the latest membership trends, strategies, best practices, and resources to help strengthen membership in your clubs. The newsletter is sent to Rotary membership coordinators, assistant Rotary membership coordinators, district governors, assistant governors, district membership chairs, district membership attraction subcommittee chairs, district membership engagement subcommittee chairs, district new club development subcommittee chairs, district Rotary public image chairs, Rotary club public image chairs, Rotary club membership chairs, Rotary club presidents, Rotary club presidents-elect, Rotaract club presidents, district Rotaract Chairs, district Rotaract representatives, and subscribers. Please forward this to anyone who may be interested.

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Rotary on the Road

Join us on Tuesday, October 27th, at Port Washington State Bank in Thiensville for Rotary on The Road! This is a Joint Meeting with all of the North Shore based clubs. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet fellow Rotarians around the region.

Please RSVP by October 20th if you can attend, so that we can plan for numbers.

Gear Up for the Polio Walk!

Rotary Walk for Polio

October 24, 2026

10:00--10:35AM

Mequon City Hall

Rotary Wheels in Motion Progress Report

“WHEELS IN MOTION” – Quarter Progress Report:

Hi everyone!

As promised, this is my quarterly progress report — I'm calling this series "Wheels in Motion." Our 2026/27 board word of the year is "prepared," and I'm continually amazed by the energy, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas coming down the pipeline. I'm excited to break into committees for our first official business meeting (also known as Rotary in Action) on Sept 29^th. These rebranded business meetings will be packed with activities, thoughtful networking opportunities, and brainstorming with your committee as you work toward your goals throughout the year.

I also want to thank the Rotarians who stepped in during Family Fun Night — I was unexpectedly out because of my dad’s medical emergency. It was supposed to be a fun splash-and-luau themed night with bubbles, crafts, island music, yard games, a tropical photo booth, specialty tiki drinks, and so much more. While it didn't go exactly as planned, I'm so grateful to everyone who stepped in to make it happen anyway. That's what I love about Rotary — it doesn't matter what's needed, we're there for each other, ready to roll up our sleeves. Honestly, that spirit is something I saw in my dad growing up, and it's a big part of why I wanted to join Rotary— to find more people like him, who show up for others without being asked twice. Seeing that same teamwork and camaraderie in our club is something truly special.

One thing I've come to appreciate more and more is how different everyone's "why" is. For some of you, it's expanding your professional network. For others, it's finding a mentor or becoming one. Some of you joined to build deeper roots in this community, and others simply because Rotary gave you a place to put your energy toward something bigger than yourself. Whatever brought you here, it matters — and it's part of what makes this club so FANTASTIC. I'd encourage you to hold onto your "why" this year, because it'll be the thing that keeps you showing up when life gets busy.

This year, we're focusing heavily on membership. I've put together a "grocery list" of prospective members that I plan to work down throughout the year, and my goal is for each member to reach out to three friends in Ozaukee County to tell them about Rotary and invite them to a meeting. We'll really hyper-focus on this at our Membership Olympics on February 23rd. Stay tuned — you won't want to miss it!

Goals Achieved
✓ Created business cards & TM Rotary swag store
✓ Rebranded business meetings as "Rotary in Action"
✓ Activated Instagram + other socials (thanks Bruce!)
✓ Created President's Playbook (hoping to expand to all board positions)

In Progress

Update website — add member testimonials (thanks Vertz Marketing!)
Membership Olympics
Rotary on the Road (Joint Meeting + 2 others) (thanks Heather!)
Board accountability — goal setting and benchmarks (we'll discuss at our next meeting on Sept 29th)

Lastly, as we prepare for the changing of the seasons, I want to close with some exciting news: December 15th is our Holiday Party at the River Club. We are bringing in a lovely violin duet — it's going to be elegant and truly festive!

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." — Helen Keller

Thanks again for all that you do,
Angelica Niemann
TM Rotary President

Rotary Swag Store

Rotary Swag Store

In need of more gear to show that you are a true Thiensville--Mequon Rotarian? Look no further than our newly updated Swag Store! Click on the link below to get your quality hats, shirts and pullovers, for both men and women, in a variety of sizes and colors!

https://mequonrotary.itemorder.com/shop/home/

Did You Know--October 13, 2026

The History of Calendars, in 7 Facts

The humble calendar of one of civilization’s oldest staples. The earliest means of measuring days and weeks dates back 10,000 years, and timekeeping techniques adopted by the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Romans slowly evolved into the calendar we use today. Yet the emphasis here is on “slowly.” The evolution from charting moon phases to separating seasons to measuring fiscal years was one of controversy and chaos across centuries. Still, humans never stopped working to perfect how we mark the passage of time. Here’s a brief look at the fascinating history of calendars.

The First Known Calendar Is From Prehistoric Scotland

In 2013, British archaeologists discovered what they consider the world’s oldest calendar, dating back to around 8000 BCE. The prehistoric calendar, located at Warren Field in Scotland, consists of 12 pits believed to have contained wooden posts representing months of the year. Positioned to chart lunar phrases, the pits are aligned with the southeast horizon and were likely used by hunter-gatherer societies to track seasons. The site precedes Stonehenge by several thousand years.

Stonehenge Used Celestial Bodies to Track Time

Though the exact purpose of Stonehenge remains a mystery, archaeologists believe that in addition to a burial site, the prehistoric monument may have been a solar calendar. Keeping track of months and years in ancient societies relied on charting the stars, sun, and lunar patterns (and the subsequent weather they’d bring). Stonehenge, built around 3000 BCE, consists of stones and archways arranged in a circular pattern, and experts believe time was measured by the way the sun, moon, and stars lined up with these markers. Archaeological evidence suggests lunar and solar eclipses were also observed, as were the winter and summer solstices.

The Babylonian Calendar Had a 12-Month Year and Seven-Day Week

The Babylonians, a civilization that began in the Fertile Crescent of ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) around 4000 BCE, used lunar patterns to determine the length of the year. They divided the calendar into 12 months based on the cycle of the moon, starting with the first sighting of the crescent moon. This put the year at 354 days, slightly shorter than a solar year. (The moon cycle is actually 29.5 days long, so there are 13 lunar phases each year.) To sync the lunar and solar calendars, the Babylonians adopted a system known as intercalation, which allowed them to add an extra month when necessary. They also divided each month into seven-day weeks, based on (and named for) the seven celestial bodies they were able to observe: the sun, the moon, and the five nearest planets.

The Ancient Egyptians Had Three Seasons

Like many ancient agricultural societies, the ancient Egyptians measured time according to the planting and harvest seasons. The Nile river flooded each year between the months of what is now May and August, and this annual flooding was crucial to Egyptian society, as it determined the success of that year’s crops. As a result, the Egyptians divided the year into three seasons, each related to the river’s status and the agricultural phases associated with it: Akhet (translated as Flood or Inundation), Peret (Emergence or Going Forth), and Shemu (Low Water, Deficiency, or Harvest).

Our Modern Calendar Was (Partially) Created by Julius Caesar

In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar as a means of reforming the existing and flawed Roman timekeeping system. The Roman Republic’s calendar (which referred to the first day of each month as kalends, the origin of the word “calendar”) not only miscalculated the length of a solar year, but also could be manipulated to control political power, which created further inaccuracies. Caesar’s response was a new system based on calculations by the Greek astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, who determined each year consisted of 365.25 days. To account for that .25, the Julian calendar added an extra day every fourth February: leap year. Though the calendar was still imperfect, much of what Caesar put in place remains in use today — including, of course, the name of the seventh month, July.

The Gregorian Calendar Fixed Caesar’s Math

For all its improvements, the Julian calendar still miscalculated the length of a solar year by 11 minutes. That may not seem like much, but the discrepancy added up over time, and by 1582 CE, the months of the calendar and the seasons were misaligned. This concerned Pope Gregory XIII, who noticed that Easter was becoming increasingly out of sync with the spring equinox — a problem for the Catholic Church. In response, the pope launched the Gregorian calendar on October 4, 1582, which set the following day as October 15, jumping the calendar ahead 10 days. Chaos ensued: Catholic countries adopted the reformed calendar, but many Protestant nations waited more than a century to get on board. The British Empire, including its colonies in America, waited until 1752 to switch to the Gregorian calendar, and Russia didn’t adopt the new calendar until as late as 1918, after the Russian Revolution.