June 13, 2022
Reporter:  Gail Lyman


Wednesday’s meeting:
“In-Person Plus”
 
St. Catherine’s Community Center and on Zoom
Join the Zoom meeting


WELCOME & TRADITIONS

Heidi rang the bell to start the meeting.
 
President Mary thanked the entire club for making last week’s Pass the Gavel meeting a “deeply touching” event for her.
 
Heidi Goldstein recited the first question in our Four-Way Test, followed by the next three questions said in unison by all attendees.
 
Ron Provus introduced Lisa Roan who was visiting and interested in joining Rotary.  She just began work this week at Brookdale Senior Living.
 


ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • “In-Person Plus” (with Zoom as the “Plus”) begins this Wednesday, July 20th, 12:15–1:20 PM at St. Catherine’s Community Center, 309 Siena Drive, Ithaca (off Hanshaw Road).  Lunches will be ordered from and delivered by Adam’s Corners Café.  If interested in helping with setup, contact Brad Carruth: abc9@cornell.edu.
  • Kelly Buck reminded us to sign up for the 9th Annual Road Rally to take place on Sunday, July 24th.  All proceeds from registration fees benefit our James L. Gibbs Scholarship.  If you have extra event prizes to donate, please bring them to our July 20th “In-Person Plus” meeting.  Register online.
  • Geoff Dunn, our county’s Community Preparedness Coordinator/Public Information Officer, announced that Tompkins Weekly ran an article in its July 13th issue on SIREN (Safety & Incident Real-Time Emergency Notifications).
  • Frank Towner and Ron Provus, co-chairs of Club Membership, are looking for committee members for the following areas:  recruitment, planning and management, new member orientation, member volunteer coaching, leadership support and training, member well-being and sunshine and interest groups.
  • June Losurdo gave an update on past Rotarian Fred Antil.  To get in touch with him:  13519 Ann’s Choice Way, Warminster, PA 18974; phone: (607) 592-0753; email:  fha1@cornell.edu
President Mary then introduced her leadership team:
  • President Elect: Mary Berens, Geoff Dunn, Dale Flinn, Heidi Goldstein, George Gull, Dale Johnson
  • Vice President:  Angela Sullivan
  • Secretary:  Joanne Lamoureux
  • Secretary Elect:  Juliet Gibbs
  • Assistant Secretary:  Brad Carruth
  • Treasurer:  Katie Torello


THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Our current times, both globally and nationally, remind Richard Kiely of the tumultuous time period (1987–89) when he lived in Madrid, Spain.  On his favorite pub wall there was this aphorism giving him inspiration to fight for what is personally important:
“Tristes tiempos estos en los que luchar por lo que es evidente.” – “Sad times these are in which you have to fight for that which is obvious.” (Friedrich Durrenmatt, Swiss author, philosopher and dramatist, 1921–1990)


LAST WEEK’S PRESENTATION

“Survey Says” — President Mary’s Report to the Club
What did our members say about:
1.  Volunteer interests:
The majority of members answered the question, “How much do you volunteer?” since March 2020 by “Yes, some” and “Very little or none at all.”  When volunteering did occur, the most popular Community Service projects were, in ranking order, Share the Warmth, Rotary Harvest, Highway Cleanup, and Pancake Day.
2.  Meeting interests, concerns and preferences:
Overwhelmingly, club members attended meetings because of social connections, the speakers, club activities/updates, and seeing friends.
The main reasons for not attending were COVID and struggles with time and work conflicts.
3.  Zoom-only meetings were discussed with their advantages and disadvantages.  Zoom has the advantages of offering flexibility for a member’s health constraints and/or conflicts and time limitations with one’s work schedule.  However, overwhelmingly, Zoom’s disadvantages stemmed from the limited personal connections among members due to their reduced quality and quantity of interactions. “In-person Plus” (a replacement for the word “hybrid”) evolved from what we learned from our pandemic Zoom-only meetings.
4.  Suggestions for improving meeting attendance, volunteerism, and new-member training:
To improve meeting attendance, club leadership is recommending that more opportunities for social connections are offered, member engagement is encouraged, and programs are structured to be of interest to a wide range of members. 
To make our new members more productive volunteers, it was recommended to include education and training about our service projects in our new-member training.
To improve member involvement in Community Service projects, suggestions include an on-line calendar including all club activities, family-friendly structured projects, volunteer education and training, opportunities to participate in service projects of other organizations, and projects adapted to the needs of our younger members.
 
Questions for Discussion (in our break-out rooms):
What do you think?  Is this pretty reflective of where we are now?  How do we encourage each of us and others to contribute to projects, ongoing commitments, and the running of the club?  What are the best ways to communicate both within the club and out to the community?
 
President Mary ended our discussion with this thoughtful message:
“Rotary is a vehicle and opportunity to realize (our Rotary) dreams that need more heads, hands and hearts.”
 
Mary stated that we will use the St. Catherine's location for at least this Rotary quarter but assured us that we will receive an update on the acceptance of this “In-Person Plus” location after the end of this quarter.
 
Heidi rang the bell to end the meeting.
 


NEW MEMBER APPLICATION

Name:  Todd Nau
Business:  15 Steps
Position:  Owner
Sponsor:  Ron Provus
Classification:  to be determined
 


THANK YOU ROTARIANS

Newsletter Reporter:  Gail Lyman
Photographer:  Mike Brown
Newsletter Editor:  Loralyn Light
 
Set-up Zoom:  Brett Bossard
Recording Archive:  Paul Martin; click here
Club Service Facilitator:  June Losurdo