President Courtney called today’s meeting to order at LCC’s Michigan Room with a full house attending on a chilly winter day.
Rotarians recited the 4-Way Test and Paula Cunningham shared a beautiful reflection which focused on love, history and service. Thanks to Hari Kern for providing our piano music today and leading us in singing America the Beautiful.
Parker Sessa moved the microphone around to introduce our visiting Rotarians and Guests. Great news that most of our guests today have their membership applications underway and will be joining the Club soon!
President Courtney introduced Chris Holman as the January Birthday Chair and Chris, as Chair of the Birthdays for the year, has a goal of 100% participation for donations this year which started out well with 100% giving to the Foundation in January!! Chris shared the Birthday Question as “who would you want to be if you went back in time?” Nancy Eyde would have wanted to be Benjamin Franklin for all the accomplishments including the diplomacy in bringing France into the Revolutionary War. Chris Holman also chose Benjamin Franklin as they share the same birthday! Rich Schaberg would like to have been Houdini as he was an “out of the box” thinker. 😊 Happy Birthday Rotarians!
President Courtney announced there will be a New Member Orientation on Thursday, February 23 at Lansing Brewing Co. at 3:30 pm. Also, the Signature Grant Application from the Rotary Club of Lansing Foundation is now open and the link is on the website with the deadline being February 28.
Kurt Guter introduced John from the Haslett/Okemos Club to give an update on the international grants given to the Agweng Clinc in Uganda. John updated the Lansing Rotary Foundation has provided three grants to the Agweng Clinic. In 2018 the funds went to a CBC Machine; in 2020 funds were given to purchase a portable dental unit, chair, and generator providing 4 clinical days a month for dental care. And, in 2021, funds were provided for an ultrasound machine. John shared the Clinic completed 450 procedures in 2022 and have truly made a difference for the people visiting this clinic.
President Courtney introduced Chad Badgero as the founder of Peppermint Creek Theatre which has been a part of the community since 1995. Chad highlighted the show opening on February 9 and being performed at the event space within the Bestsellers Book Shop in Mason called Daddy Long Legs. The two-person cast shared two songs from the show which will be performed February 9-12 & 16-19. All the details and tickets can be found at this site https://peppermintcreek.org/
Thanks to Michelle Reynaert for serving as Chair of the Month and to Cathy Zell serving as Chair of the Day! Cathy introduced our speaker Wendy Hamilton who is the President and CEO of TechSmith, a company founded by her father. Wendy completed the building process of their new company headquarters in East Lansing and she recently served as the Board Chair for the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Peckham Board and the Impression 5 Science Center Board.
Wendy started out her presentation titled “Workforce of the Future” with an electronic poll and of what we think the future workforce will look like. A lot of responses related to robots, technology, AI, and even the word “yikes”!
Wendy shared a key difference for the future of workforce is that 80% of those polled by Future Forum want flexibility in where they work and 94% want flexibility in when they work. Productivity is shown to improve by 4% for those choosing where they work but grows to 29% for those choosing when they work.
Research by Gallup shows that 4 in 10 employees want to be in the office 2-3 days per week to create camaraderie, relationship building and a more social component with their colleagues. The research for employers shows more focus on productivity, outcomes and collaboration. Wendy highlighted that employers have to determine the difference between “heads up” vs. “heads down” aspects as to the purpose of being in the office.
The workforce has also been changed by the gig economy with 23 million new participants joining the pool of this workforce sector. In fact, 75% began freelancing to achieve financial stability during the pandemic and now many have become digital nomads.
Wendy finished the talk with a demonstration of AI’s ChatGPT which creates content based on given parameters such as the highlights of Wendy’s presentation.
Thanks to Wendy for this thought provoking presentation and a donation will be made in her name to our foundation to do good works in the community!
President Courtney announced our next meeting will be next Friday with David Andrews from WILX as our featured speaker.
See you then!
Julie Pingston's email is: jpingston@lansing.org