Scribe: Tom Boylan Editor: Natalie Lim Introduced by: Tom Boylan
- Our Motto for 2021-2022 is “Embrace”.
- Covid cases are up and the delta variant is having some success with breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people though the symptoms tends to be milder with fewer hospitalizations. Sonoma County, along with neighboring counties, are encouraging all people to wear masks inside.
- Maureen Merrill shared her Rotary moment about realizing how simple acts can lead to to enduring change and how its the action that counts more than the act itself.
- Let’s celebrate with Wally Krutz who is (still) Rotarian of the month.
- Board Highlights were reviewed covering topics such as budget, youth, club operations, club culture, service, and communications.
- Party/Social with the District Governor on July 26th @ 5:30pm at Pam and Ken Moulton’s house.
- Megan Lazzarini, one of our recent high school scholarship recipients, expressed her thanks than talked of the challenges faced during her high school years with both the fires in 2017 and 2019 and then the pandemic.
- John LeCave updated us on changes and improvements coming to our website.
- Dr, John Blount, former Rotary International Director, gave an inspiring talk on what we should strive to bring to and get out of our club.
THE MEETING IN DETAIL
First, apologies as a new member and first time scribe and doing this via Zoom its difficult to keep track of common references like associating first names with people and or missing names/info that doesn’t get captured clearly by the microphone. All mistakes are my fault but not intended.
Shout out to my fellow Zoomers at the meeting: Arnone Merrill, Bill Bolster, Brian Ling, Leslie Ivie Lewis, Megan Lazzarini, Doug Williams, Chris Landwehr, Beth Smith, Karen (Ricketts?), and Michael Raasch
Tanya led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. As there is no Tanya in our club (according to DACdb) maybe this was Tanya Bruno, one of our guests?
Maureen Merrill shared her Rotary moment about realizing how simple acts can lead to to enduring change and how its the action that counts more than the act itself. She talked of attending a district meeting shortly after the Windsor club was formed in 1987. First she was impressed by all the club banners hung around the meeting room. They were ordered from date of club inception from the earliest (back in the early 1900s?) to the newest (Windsor in 1987). During the meeting, a member from another club asked her about our club’s projects. Maureen told about one of our first projects providing a scoreboard for a baseball field. The response she received was “anybody can do that but not everybody does”. And that was her Rotary moment.
J.B. Leep led us in a resounding sing-a-along of “You are my Sunshine” after citing that it has been an often recorded song by many different types of singers. You can read the details on its wikipedia page.
Wally Krutz got congratulations for being named Rotarian of the Month. Just call him Mr. DACdb.
We had many visiting guests including John Watson from Sebastopol, Randy a retired publisher for the Press Democrat, Tanya Bruno, Director of Operations at the Healdsburg School, Rodrigo ??? who was apparently younger than all of us, Megan Lazzarini, H.S. Student and Brian and Jamie Williams (Brian is the Windsor H.S. Principal and Jamie is a Windsor H.S. Phy Ed teacher and Athletic Director)
Pam Moulton reviewed some recent Board highlights:
- Budget:
- On the budget, we should have all received an e-mailed invoice for our 2021/22 dues. Time to cough it up! Pam also reminded folks attending in person that the fee is $20 per meeting whether or not you eat breakfast.
- Youth Services:
- Pegi Ball, our Youth Services Chair, is setting up for an International Student Exchange for 2022-23.
- Club Operations:
- Chris Landwehr, our Operations Chair, is organizing a rotation for various weekly meeting assignments including getting more help for running the Zoom portion of these meetings.
- Membership:
- Renee Hyde, our Membership Chair, is organizing a new member program called “Passport to Success” where new members are introduced and get to talk to various members of the club after they join to both mentor them and integrate them more quickly.
- Club Culture:
- Joan Mora who is leading our Club Cultural events cited some upcoming events. There is a Social at Pam and Ken Moulton’s house next Monday the 26th at 5:30pm with the new District Govenor. There is a SCARC on August 26th focusing on Environmental Issues, hosted by Windsor Rotary.
- Service:
- Susan Cole and Sue Nelson, our Service Co-chairs, with Sandie Krutz, our Grants Chair, announced we will be supporting “Truckers against Trafficking” in the upcoming year. They are also preparing a District Grant proposal to educate elementary students on Environmental Issues.
Tom Hassur then introduced Megan Lazzarini our H.S scholarship recipient. She thanked us for the scholarship then talked about her challenges during her high school years and how she is looking forward to attending UC Santa Barbara in the fall. Her biggest message was how grateful she is. All in her H.S class had numerous shared challenges including the Tubbs fire in her Freshman year, the Kincaid fire in her Junior year, and then the pandemic that extended from the end of her Junior year into her Senior year. These contributed to increased stress both from days lost at school as well as the personal anxiety created by each event. All this was on top of the normal craziness of fitting in in High School. Though her path forward in life is still unknown at its root is a career in service of others as she wants to make a difference. Her study interests are eclectic ranging from public health to marine biology and sociology. She is looking forward to exploring these fields at UCSB and finding her path.
John LeCave and J.B. Leep gave a short update on what the Communications committee is up to. Basically we are in the process of making strategic improvements to the way we communicate to the public and internal membership. One pillar of this is a new website as the existing one is obsolete. Work is being done to have a tighter integration with information in DACdb and hence reduce the need for membership to access the database directly. Things like looking up members phone numbers, accessing the calendar at a glance, and seeing club stories is going to be made easy and available via the website.
Leslie Ivie Lewis asked all in the room who had birthdays in June and July to standup. Unfortunately being on Zoom I couldn’t capture and hence honor those here but Happy Birthday to all.
PROGRAM:
The Speaker for the week was Dr. John Blount, from the Sebastopol club which he joined when he was 27. He was Rotary International Director from 2009-2011, Moderator and Vice Chair, Rotary International Assembly in 2015 and Chair,of Rotary International Convention in 2019. He gave a motivation talk about Rotary highlighting its ability to provide powerful connections. After lauding the benefits of in person meetings vs Zoom because it increases our ability to foster interpersonal relationships he talked about how one of the club’s great value comes from these personal connections. He related how in 2011 Rotary hired a branding firm to rebrand the organization and though organizations can usually be distilled to a single value, surveys of membership yielded 2 distinct values: About 50% of membership mainly joined Rotary for Service either local or global while the other 50% mainly joined for Connections both personal and professional. This led to the brand of “Rotary is Connecting for Good”. This duality in the club was reconfirmed with a subsequent survey in 2020.
The issue facin Rotary is membership retention. In the past 10 years for every 1.3 members that join 1.8 members leave. How do we keep members once they have joined? Those leaving most often cited that opportunities they wanted didn’t meet expectations. This was true for both those who joined for service and those joining for relationship/socialization. We seem to be missing having a value statement and executing on it. We need the clubs to answer the question for potential members of what is in it for them and how we can provide it.
The meeting closed with this inspiration from Dale Carnegie “You can make more friends in two months by being interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you”
COVID UPDATE
NEWS FLASH!!!! 44 people currently being treated in our county hospitals with COVID! We are seeing an increase in new cases and in deaths this past week. The majority of both have been in the unvaccinated…………… this is cause for concern and caution. With the County now fully open and people socializing, not wearing masks and traveling, there is a very big risk for our unvaccinated population. Hopefully the request by the vaccine manufacturers to the FDA to fully approve the vaccines rather than the current emergency designation, may sway some of those unvaccinated who are in the “wait and see” mode
Total Cases:
- 31,763 (last week 31,435)
Recovered:
- 30,530 (last week 30,300)
Active Cases:
- 926 (last week 812 – 114 (91 last week) more cases than previous week)
New Cases:
- New cases continue to increase at an alarming rate in the unvaccinated but we are seeing it in the vaccinated, especially those with young children who cannot get vaccinated. Spread is more prevalent as we have relaxed our policies and recommendations and people are going without masks. The largest group continues to be the 25-44 age ….
Deaths:
- 327 (last week 323)
Hospitalized:
- 44 confirmed and 0 suspected (last week 41 confirmed and 0 suspected) Very alarming increase in hospitalizations we are seeing and in the ages of 25-44 – also being reported that the largest percentage of hospitalizations and new cases is in the unvaccinated.
Vaccination information…. As of July 19th, 613,003 residents in Sonoma County have received the vaccine (last week 605,057). 69% of our populations 16 and older are fully vaccinated and approximately 77% have received at least 1 dose. However, we are now seeing real hold out among groups and parts of our County that will not consider vaccinations. It is these people that efforts to identify them, try and educate them and appeal to them on the importance of vaccinations that are being done. Many of the young group coming down with COVID who have refused to become vaccinated also are those who shun masks and are traveling. This virus replicates and changes and grows more virulent. We have seen this with the Delta variant.
Please continue to be cautious while you are enjoying our new freedoms of getting out, socializing and feeling like we can live again. Remember not all people are vaccinated and unless you know the people you are with have been vaccinated, wear your mask to protect others that may not be. Help others to see the value of vaccinations so that we increase our numbers. We want to see this over but still need to be cautious and very careful. Consider going back to wearing masks indoors especially in stores where you have no idea if the rest of those there have been vaccinated.
Thanks
