Opening: President Del VandeKerk opened the meeting at 12:33pm by greeting and welcoming everyone. Don (Fingers) Anderson followed with America the Beautiful.
Announcements:
Tattler Sponsors
The Club is looking for 1 additional Website Sponsors for 1 year at a cost of $250.00. Go to the website at bellinghamrotary.org and check out the rotating current ads. They are all linked to your business website. Current sponsors have had over 1,800 views of their websites.. Contact Sandee if you are interested.
Golf Fun
President Del invited everyone to participate in fun golf event. This year’s event will be held August 12th at Hazelmere Golf Club (in Surrey, B.C.). The cost is $110 (including dinner and lots of prizes) for a scramble format, with dinner following the golf. If you’d like to participate, let John or Nathan Twining know. Go to the District website to find the event and register at: http://www.planmygolfevent.com/28597-RotaryDistrict50502016GolFUN/index.html
We have a 1PM Tee Time and will leave Bellingham at 11AM (hopefully in a carpool and should take about 45 minutes to get there depending on and arrive back in Bellingham around 8 PM
We already have 3 players signed up so we have room for lots more. It's a great event and you get a chance to play a course across the border and meet Rotarians that you otherwise would not.
Our club won the mixed division last year, so we're a powerhouse in the District and need to defend our title.
President VandeKerk reminded everyone that August is membership month, and generously offered a presidential pardon (from fines) for anyone who invited a guest to a meeting. He also mentioned that one thing we’ve learned from this year’s election process is that young people want to get involved and give back. Whether it’s reaching out to someone in our social groups, church, etc., or if we’re retired and have more time, we all know someone.He encouraged everyone to invite someone we know to a meeting.
Dominque Zervas also spoke about the importance of membership month. She stated that we, as Rotarians, are the heart of rotary and that we hold the power to share that heart by inviting guests in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, special events, lunches (the 1st lunch is “on” rotary), wearing a rotary pin everyday as a way to initiate a conversation to explain what rotary is about, if asked, and so forth. She also offered a short example of an elevator speech.
Fashion show: While Dominique was at the podium, a dance troupe (of a sort) comprised of past and present Board of Directors and committee members—each wearing customized, RCOB embroidered polo shirts—engaged in a fashion show to the tune of “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred.Shirts are $35.00 each.Men and women styles are available.
Catherine Riordan, of the social committee, invited members and their families/friends to attend a Bellingham Bells baseball game tonight at 7:05. She will be saving seats in the Grandstand. Tickets can be secured ahead of time online or at the door. She also mentioned that Happy Hour convening is a week from tonight.
Cathy Buckley announced that there is a ski trip at the Silver Star Mountain Resort on February 6-10-2017. More details will be forthcoming soon.
Visiting Rotarians:
Bellingham Bay Rotary - Karen Burke and Patrick Drum
Kim McGowan - Victoria Rotary Club
Presentations: One of the visiting Rotarians, Kim McGowan, of Victoria, BC, exchanged Rotary flags with Pres. VandeKerk.
Programs:
Program: WWU Professor Jackie Caplan-Auerback: “Earthquakes and the Big One that could hit our community.”
Dr. Caplan-Auerback began her talk about earthquakes by highlighting the attention-getting article published last year called, “The Really Big One” by Kathryn Schulz, New Yorker, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and how this has contributed to the assertion (or concern) that when an earthquakes hits our region, everything west of I-5 will be toast.She described some of the general history of earthquakes in the PNW and their impacts such as the Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28, 2011, which resulted in fairly significant damage to buildings, cars, streets, etc., but no loss of life.
Using maps, she also discussed the general characteristics of the Cascadia seismic zone (Subduction zones) and explained the general differences between deep, crustal and subduction earthquakes and locations.She mentioned, for example, a crustal earthquake has a magnitude of 7, while a larger one, called a “megathrust”, has a magnitude of 9, which releases a 1,000 times more energy than a 7.
She noted that scientists all of the world (Japan, for example, was noted given their expertise of tsunamis) are exploring the history of earthquake activity—even stories as orally told by Native communities, called the battle of Thunderbird and Whale—to better understand when and how earthquakes occur to better predict if/when (and where) the next large earthquake may take place.
So, the bottom line is, are we overdue for a big one?Dr. Caplan-Auerback stated that seismologists don’t use terms such as “overdue” since it is overly simplistic and otherwise does not consider other key factors.The key point she wanted to emphasize is that people don’t get shaken to death by earthquakes.People die by falling buildings and other harmful objects. Preparing ourselves, then, by reinforcing buildings and homes (retrofitting, for example), should be the immediate point of concern in the event that an earthquake occurs.
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