NEXT MEETING: October 16, 2020

Steven Pignataro, Vitalant

Vitalant (“Vye-TAL-ent”) is the nation’s second largest community blood service provider, supplying comprehensive transfusion medicine services for nearly 1,000 hospitals and health care partners for patients in need across 40 states. Vitalant’s network of blood centers work in tandem, moving lifesaving donations throughout the system to help ensure blood is available when and where it is needed most. In the Bay Area, we support over 45 hospitals.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Dave Brown announced that we exceeded our goal on the Peres Elementary School project and will roll the over funding to next year. Erle Brown was thrilled to complete this campaign and deliver the checks in time for the teacher’s virtual school meeting. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
• Dave Brown noted that Mac Lingo made a generous donation to the Buy a Kid a Bike project. Thanks to his generosity, we have achieved our club matching amount and over 30 bikes can be purchased. Pam Jones thanked Nick Despota for putting the button on the website. Click here to make a donation.
• Mariana Moore from the Coalition to End Poverty made a presentation about Measure X
• If you haven’t paid your Rotary dues yet, please do so now! Visit our website and use the PayPal button in the lower right hand column. Thanks!

RECOGNITIONS AND HAPPY/SAD DOLLARS

Pam Jones noted that the club is not keeping up with our foundation donations since we are meeting online. She requested that we take the opportunity to donate online since we are not meeting for lunch at Richmond Country Club.

All members are encouraged to use the Donate button on the website to make a Foundation Donation.

LAST WEEK’S PROGRAM

PREVIOUS PROGRAM

October 9th Program – District Governor 5160 Mark Roberts

President Stacey Street-Spight introduced our speaker, Mark Roberts

Mark started with a warm welcome to the Richmond club and thankful for the opportunity to join our virtual club meeting. He gave kudos to Jan Brown, for handling the club transition from in person meetings to Zoom meetings online during her presidency. Our district includes 75 clubs from Shasta to the South Bay, so he noted that it is difficult for him to attend club meetings in person.

Mark shared that his District Governor orientation included 530 new District Governors and that some of the spoken languages included Mandarin, Japanese, and Portuguese. At the orientation, the top goals identified were to focus on our membership, acknowledge our contributions and the difference we are making in our community.

Mark shared that our district has experienced a decrease in membership, down to 3,200 members. To address this, he encouraged a focus on our improving our contacts with young people, using established channels like Interact, and Camp Royal/Camp Venture, and encouraging college based clubs and community based clubs. In addition, the outreach goals are to specifically increase diversity and include community members who were historically not members of the local Rotary clubs. The objective is to change the image of Rotary as a social lunch club and instead showcase our service projects, starting with the incoming International President, changing the face of Rotary.

Mark encouraged each member to tell their Rotary story, consider the reasons why you keep coming back and participating in events and share your story far and wide. Ask friends and colleagues to join the club and increase our ability to build friendship and fellowship. Mark invited all club members to attend the 2021 conference in Sacramento.

During Q&A, Herb Cole shared asked about the status of the international conference in June in Taipei, Taiwan. Mark confirmed that 40 members from our district are registered and ready for travel. Stoney asked if Rotary had a mechanism or plans to share public health advice and information. Mark noted that there are no plans to make announcements.

Pierre asked if Mark had any updates on the status of the annual resolutions submitted for addition the ballot. Mark advised that he would check in with Candy Pierce, our rep to the council on resolutions, and follow up.

President Stacey asked if Mark had an update on the creation of a Diversity and Inclusion committee. Mark shared that a task force had been created with the intention of creating new clubs to add to the 73 existing clubs.

Stoney asked about the status of the Rotary project, the eradication of Polio. Mark was pleased to share that the continent of Africa has been cleared of the wild Polio virus, but work is still ongoing in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

President Stacey thanked Mark for meeting with our club and sharing his vision as the incoming District Governor and showcasing the impact of our Service projects on our local community.