NEXT MEETING: May 17, 2019

WASH in schools — The Honduras Project

Concord Rotary Club is the sponsor for a Honduras-based project that will upgrade water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems in that country. The project, hosted by the Tocoa Rotary Club in the Colon region of northeastern Honduras, will be underway for next 4 years.

WASH in Schools was just awarded a second global grant to continue the work in additional schools. Five project components include water system upgrades, construction oversight by parent committees, data collection for evaluation, hygiene education for the students, and teacher education on incorporating WASH concepts into the curricula.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Aaron Gobler (Albany Rotarian) – Reminded everyone that the Third Annual RotaCare Bowl-A-Thon is Saturday, June 1st, at Albany Bowl, 540 San Pablo Avenue.  Anyone can play but Captain of Team has to be a Rotarian. Great event for fellowship and fun! We raise $17,000 to $18,000 every year for RotaCare
• Pam  Jones – Bocce Ball Tournament is tomorrow, May 11th, at Martinez Golf Course.  If you want to join us, come play! Alan Baer will be there and bringing donuts!!

MEETING OF May 10, 2019

Welcome

At 12:30 pm, President Jerry Feagley opened the meeting. Bob Dabney led us in the Pledge this week.  Herb Cole did the invocation for peace, freedom and justice on earth.  Sid’s thought for the day, “What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.”

Jerry brought up that he and Jan Brown went to RotaCare this past Tuesday and had a tour of their facility.  They do great work, are very organized, and get the most out of every donation to this great cause.  Be sure to support the RotaCare Bowl-A-Thon.

Hank Covell encouraged all of us to go to the Richmond Art Center and see the “Whale”!!  It’s beautiful and an amazing piece of art to see. Ric Ambrose said a lot of reviews have been done on this exhibit in local papers.  It is based on Moby Dick, in which some scholars have found a critique of capitalism. This 51’ long, 18’ high work certainly fits that description, illustrating the impacts of capitalism over the last century. Last day to see the work is Friday, May 17th, when there will be a closing celebration from 5 to 7 PM. It’s definitely worth a stop at the Richmond Art Center.

Tamara Shiloh informed us that as of June 1st, she will be the sole owner of the Children’s Multi-Cultural Bookstore, in the Shops at Hilltop. Children’s activities will take place in the store every day during the summer, so bring your kids and grandkids She is looking for volunteers to work four hours time slots to help out. This is a great volunteer opportunity for our Rotarians and friends to have fun with kids.

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

Aaron Gobler, Albany Rotary
Bob Connelly, a soon-to-be Richmond Rotarian, to be inducted back into our Club next week

Recognitions and Happy and Sad Dollars

Ric Ambrose had two Recognitions today.

Nick Despota’s 70th birthday was April 29th. He and Nel are heading to Santa Cruz this week. Turning 70 is very different than turning 60. At 60 you look forward to not having to work for money anymore, assisted in that in large part bv Medicare and Social Security. At 70, instead of looking forward you find yourself looking back—because the way you feel now may be like you did when you were 35. At least that what he says.

Mark Howe is celebrating his 63 birthday today. Jon Lawlis brought up the old tradition that if you have your actual birthday on a Rotary meeting day, we can either sing Happy Birthday or you can pay us not to. Mark gave $100 to the Club in the hopes we wouldn’t sing but, of course, we all sang to him!! American Idol here we come!

Happy and Sad Dollars

• Don Lau had happy dollars for just getting back from Hawaii, but sad dollars that he attended his Uncle Bob’s funeral. He was 95, served in the military and ran crap games in Hawaii. He then headed to Las Vegas to continue his gambling and then came back to Hawaii. He had a wild life.
• Jan Brown had happy dollars for the Richmond Art Center – the Whale Exhibit is beautiful. The students from Shimada, Japan went to the Richmond Art Center when they were here and they were amazed at the Whale Exhibit. It’s phenomenal.
• Jon Lawlis – Had happy and sad dollars that this Wednesday we are heading back to St. Anicet, Quebec. See you in September!
• Erle Brown also had happy dollars that two classes from Peres School went to Richmond Art Center this past Tuesday and today to tour. There will be two more groups going next week and Erle plans to be there. This was part of Phyllis Brown’s bequest to the Richmond Rotary Club to be used towards Peres School.
• Doris Mitchell had happy dollars that her son is turning 6 today! He’s listening better. She kidded looking at a life at 70 doesn’t sound bad to her!!
• Sid Chauvin had happy dollars that 150 years ago on May 10th, Leland Stanford drove the last spike in Utah that marked the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. It ended up putting all of us on the map, and getting people from the East to the West.

PROGRAM

Teen Moms' Care Package Day

Darlene Q gave instructions for our Teen Mom Packages to be put together today. A group of about seven Rotarians will be bringing the packages to the Teen Moms at Richmond High School on Tuesday, May 14th, at 10:45 AM.

The Future of the Flywheel

Nick Despota presented the results of a survey on the Flywheel and our website usage that we participated in last month. (Download it here.)

Among other findings, the survey indicated that the majority of readers valued the Upcoming Program and the Announcements in the Flywheel over the other sections. The summary of the previous week’s program was the third most read part of the Flywheel.

Nick explained that it is difficult to maintain the full schedule of scribes to insure that the Flywheel is published weekly and without interruption. For that reason, he proposed eliminating the Flywheel in its current form—a page on our website—and instead include only the Upcoming Program description and the Announcements in an HTML-formatted email that is sent out each week. This would entail less work since recording notes and rewriting them into finished text takes most scribes at least an hour.

It became clear from the discussion that followed that members were reluctant to accept the proposal of the dramatically reduced Flywheel.

After several minutes, this novel idea developed: At each meeting, members would be asked to pull a ball from a dark bag. The member that draws the uniquely-colored ball becomes the scribe for that meeting. He or she will record the meeting notes, then transcribe them into a Word document template at home (or during the meeting if an internet-connected laptop is available), and finally email the completed template to Nick for creating the Flywheel. A summary of that week’s program would not be included in the Flywheel (that being the most time-consuming part of the scribe’s task). Furthermore, if a member chooses to, he or she may pay an undetermined amount of money for another member to be the scribe.

We put both proposals to a vote: either the Upcoming Program and Announcements email, or the randomly-chosen scribe Flywheel, minus the previous week’s program summary. The slimmed-down Flywheel would continue to be posted on this website.

If you weren’t at this lively meeting, have a guess which proposal won.

That’s right.

- Rotating Scribe Darlene Quenville