On June 10, 2020, we had another Club meeting via Zoom. Our Past-President, Kat, talked about her greatest challenge being doing some renovations to the club to patch things up as the club was getting older. Some club members moved out of town and we lost some members. Her greatest accomplishment was that the Club took a step into the spotlight. We were one of the youngest club of the district and we had an astronaut come and talk to the club.
Past-President, Jeanne Tunnicliffe, joined us from her new hometown. According to her, her biggest challenge was the growth of the club and changing locations. Her greatest accomplishment during her Presidency was all the individual things that were done to get the presidential citations such as birthday bags and packing meals.
Our guest speaker was attorney, David Bynum. His dad is a Rotarian. He is transitioning from being a lawyer to the family business. He spoke about the landlord and tenant relationships. He is currently a CEO of a company that rents space. So, he has both landlord and tenant perspectives. According to David, not much has changed in the commercial real estate world. Retail has been effective and so have residential rental market. All commercial renters have tried to use the current circumstances to not pay rent. Starbucks has even used this situation to renegotiate their leases. They have sent letters to all their landlords saying that they want to permanently renegotiate their leases even though their lease agreements give them protection to get out of their lease, if their revenue at that site falls below a certain level. They were not that successful because they were still doing good business with pickups and drive through. Chain restaurants that were not doing well before COVID-19 are now using the current crisis to file for bankruptcy protection or renegotiate their contracts.
