Rebecca kicked her year as chair off with The Four Way Test. What a good way to end the week! Don’t we all feel better when a woman is in charge!? Chris Holman was called to the podium to do the reflection. He seemed confused that this was his responsibility. He told us his butt was sore from hiking. Why did we need to know that? I am also not wearing socks today. Chris told a parable that what got us from point A to B will not get us from point B to C. Rebecca has all those qualities to forge a new path for us. He then read The Road Not Travelled by Robert Frost. He could have just gotten up and read the poem without all the fluff beforehand. The patriotic song for the day was God Bless America. Tall Ben was absent so Lisa took over guest duties. Lolo introduced Grace, an intern at CATA who just graduated from Central. She is moving on to Disney as a cast member. Sofia Rishar returned from Edge Partnerships, introduced by her mother. Chris introduced Julie Ross from Maner. We were told to be nice to her. The health of the club is excellent! The membership committee is meeting directly after today’s meeting in the Presidential Dining Room. The DEI Committee is meeting after our meeting in this room. The matching points from the District has ended. Our Rotary Foundation has sponsored a Lansing Symphony Orchestra concert in the Park – more details to come from Cathy. There will also be info about an international service project in Ghana that is upcoming. The chair of the month is Chris Swope. Rebecca is the chair of the day. Rebecca was our speaker for the day, sharing wisdom from her recent trip to the Rotary International conference. She basically  tried telling us we were great, but not as great as everyone she met in Singapore – this was a recurring theme. The opening session was about sharing Belonging in the world. There were 14,000 attendees at this conference. That is only 1% of the Rotarians in the world! Their special music was a bit more elaborate than ours. Attendees received a dragon dance as the opening music to the conference! It was even followed by a parade of flags. The top five countries in the room by attendance were Japan, United States, Taiwan, India and Philippines. It was noted throughout the conference that if you know one Rotary club, you know one Rotary club. Members are being served across the world in how they want to be served. The theme of the conference was The Magic of Rotary. The seven areas of focus for the Rotary Foundation are: • Promoting peace • Fighting disease • Providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene • Saving mothers and children • Supporting education • Growing local economies • Protecting the environment The second day was kicked off with a theme of Sharing Light with the World. Sometimes doing less is doing more. Look for allies and partners to have more impactful and strategic partnerships. Speaking about eradicating polio has long been a mission of Rotary. It is really transformational to look at all the groups that can be brought in from doctors, medical professionals, researchers, Rotarians, fundraisers, etc. There were two very inspirational speakers: - Freddy Almazan. He was shot at a party and in a coma for weeks and has turned in to an inspirational speaker. He has visible scarring and slurred speech. But his message is that you can be broken and still be beautiful. There is something beautiful in the effort in working towards a common goal.
- Nacho Dean. A man who walked around the world in defense of the environment. When he started this trip, he didn’t even know how to swim. He brought international attention to environmental issues.
Day Three was sharing hope with the world and was all about the international foundation. There is nothing that we can’t do when we are people of action. There was someone speaking about a mangrove rehabilitation. They now have people all around the world helping. The World Toilet Association started by saying Lets Talk About Poop. A fifty year old who realized that there are so many health issues around the world because people don’t have toilets that flush. $2.5 billion has been raised for sanitization. There have been 19 world sanitation summits. They have installed 110 million toilets that flush in India. $12 billion invested in Brazil. It was all about breaking the taboo of sanitation. One of the most consequential impacts of these projects was the trickle down impact. While toilets are put in for health reasons, they now feel like they see opportunities and are applying for colleges. Heart2Heart is an organization in Egypt that works with children with congenital heart defects. Look at how one person can have a story and how people all over the world can help. There is a new partnership with the Gates Foundation. We need to fund the last mile. This new partnership will use $30 million to combat malaria, diarrhea and respiratory infections. These are the leading cause of death for kids under age five in sub-Saharan Africa. While we are almost finished with polio, we are now taking on these three diseases. Closing session was the weirdest session of Rotary. It was an interesting celebration of the outgoing President. He wife sang THREE songs from Les Mis. The President Elect is from Pennsylvania – Stephanie Urchick. Her big initiative is peace. Side note - If you want to be a peace fellow in Istanbul next year from February 20-22, let Rebecca know. Registration is open now. The main places now that people need to be vaccinated against polio are Afghanistan and Pakistan. They didn’t have refrigerators. So Rotary bought them. They didn’t have volunteers to go from house to house. Rotary funded people to go house to house. Every single obstacle Rotary has found a solution for. With 1.4 million strong, we can do anything! Rotary lunches were one of Rebecca’s favorite parts of the trip. There were three of them where Rebecca got to meet and interact with Rotarians from clubs all over the world. This is where they got to share what other clubs were doing, what was working and building fellowship with others around the world. Rebecca especially connected with a man from Turkey. This man was from Istanbul. And knew Rebecca’s aunt who was President of a club in Turkey. She also met a young woman from Texas interested in starting her own club. Rotary House of Fellowship shared fellowship groups. These were all different interests that you could connect with and have fellowship with those with the same interest. Many of these clubs meet over Zoom. Fellowship clubs are connecting with other fellowship clubs that they can work on service projects with. There is even a heavy metal fellowship club! Doll lovers! Surfing! Beard and mustache! In Rotary Village you could buy ANYTHING with the Rotary logo on it. They had VR stations where you could literally be with the women in Afghanistan going from house to house immunizing people. What lessons did Rebecca learn? o Grow membership through Action Plan o Show impact of our work to reach new audiences - Be a part of making a difference
- Work with diverse audiences
- Tell our stories in an engaging way
- “We are ending Polio. Want to join us?”
- How can we use videos to engage our communities better?
o Improve club experience - Rebecca is going to prioritize feedback from members
- What professional development do people want?
- What service projects do people want?
- Talking about the IMPACT of our projects, not just press releases saying how much money we have given away
o Don’t be afraid to evolve o Create a sense of purpose for future generations o Tell better stories Rebecca and her husband took a trip to Thailand afterwards. They did a culinary tour and just had the most wonderful time. They also went to Vietnam and did a cooking tour there as well. Rebecca absolutely loved the trip and wanted to thank us all for this opportunity to serve as our President and to go on this trip. Questions were managed by Lisa Smith! Lisa strongly encouraged us to apply for matching dollars to do international service projects. She never sees Lansing apply for district funds. If you have an idea, do it! Kevin Schumacher asked about the size of the clubs in attendance. It varied. But most of the clubs she met had 25-35 members. Kurt Guter talked about when he went to Amsterdam and got to visit other clubs in nearby areas. He asked if she was able to go to clubs in Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. She was unable to do so. Casey Jacobsen asked about average age ranges. Rebecca said most people who went to conference were retired. But the age range really did vary. Bilky Joda-Miller inquired about the ages again of those in attendance. Wondering if younger people could not get off work. Some clubs pay for members to go and others do not. Next week is the state of the club meeting. Email for Ben Rathbun is: Ben@rathbunagency.com |