Attendance: Bill Babineau, Ron Bedell, Bruce Bergeron, Phil Bush, Dean Cashman, Bill Chabot, Dave Clarenbach, Hank Clarke, Jim Damren, Nick Gaffney, Steve Grant, Tyler Hagan, Andy Jones, Carol Keeffe, Bill Koppenheffer, Ron Michaud, Dan Nash, Angela Nelson, Ernst Oidtmann, Bruce Pacht, Phil Rentz, Bill Secord, Rich Wallace, Cal Wolfe, and John Yacavone.
Visiting Rotarian: John Stalvey
Guest: Dustin Lester over Webex
Webex attendees: Emmah and Alloys Nyakundi
Chuck from Saguaro Tech helped Dave Clarenbach and Angela set up Webex. Although they were able to allow guests to attend virtually, they were unable to activate the speaker system to allow Emmah and Alloys Nyakundi to present their program.
[Left] Cal Wolfe and Angela Nelson attempt to obtain sound for guest speaker Emmah, attending from Kenya.
Meeting Called to Order:
PE (President-elect) Jim Damren rang the ball and PE Bruce Bergeron began the meeting at 12:03 p.m.
Recitation of the 4-Way test was led by Ernst Oidtmann, starting in Dutch, but then taking pity on us and returning to English.
Ernst then led us in music: “The Rotary Welcome Song” and then “Now to the Banquet We Press,” a Gilbert & Sullivan song from their show The Sorcerer. PE Bruce gave us a “9” on the difficulty scale for our singing efforts
President-elect’s Thought of the Day: RI and the Olympics share a longstanding relationship focused on promoting international goodwill, peace, and community service dating back to the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. The relationship leverages the Olympic spirit of competition and unity to advance Rotary’s goal of fostering international understanding. According to the Olympic charter, the Olympic movement’s goal is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. Sound familiar? One of the objects of Rotary is to “encourage and foster the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship. We share the values of international understanding, goodwill, and peace.
WEEKLY STATISTICS:
- Birthdays: Carol Keeffe—February 25
PROGRAM: Emmah's Garden in Kenya
Although Emmah and Alloys both attended over Webex, our tech support was unable to get the sound system to work to enable them to speak to us. We will try to reschedule the report from Kenya for March, by which time we hope to have Webex fully functioning for interactive communication.
Cal Wolfe took the podium, from where he gave a brief report on “Emmah’s Garden’s Planning for an Education Center.”
Emmah is a young woman from the village of Nyandoche Ibere in Kenya whose pluck and perseverance inspired the formation of “Emmah’s Garden,” a US not-for-profit organization that has been working with Emmah and her brother, Alloys, to improve lives of the village in which Emmah lives.)
Alloys has written an essay on what it is like to solve the national problems of Kenya on the village level. He will provide us a link to the article.
Emmah’s Garden’s top goal is not to take away from the good things that are happening in the village, but rather to support village residents to shape their future intentionally as they desire.
Cal shared handouts of “Emmah’s Garden’s Planning for an Education Center” on each table. Here are the six goals:
Goal 1: Preserving the best of village life, families helping each other, happy childhoods, and mutual lifetime support.
Goal 2: Promoting villagewide cooperation to meet needs like free lunch for school children, clean water, and improved health.
Goal 3: Improving productivity of the village economy, especially farming.
Goal 4: Diversifying the village’s economy using currently unrecognized resources.
Goal 5: Training villagers in job search and career development.
Goal 6: Helping villages envision a future of educated persons who contribute to the well-being of all in the village.
Alloys recently was given a piece of land on which to build an education center.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS:
- John Yacavone: Population?
Village population is around 2,500, some of whom are extremely poor and malnourished. One project is to start a free lunch program.
- Ron Michaud made the following comment regarding Cal: “You are our visionary. You’re also very smart and interested in improving village culture and reinforcing what exists there instead of promoting emigration. I’m going to donate $1,000 toward the village and hope others will be willing to do the same. When I went to Ghana, I told a village head that he had something really very special. His objective had been to emigrate to the US or England. I wanted the man to understand that his sense of community was very strong and useful in his local village.” Ron said he feels that Cal is doing a terrific job.
Cal responded that he has been inspired by his mother who was a teacher in their small town of about 5,000 residents. Each year, she visited the families of each of her 7th grade students to show her support for their student and family.
- Q: Ernst asked how the village is dealing with floods and drought.
Cal said that one of the five recent villagers who’ve graduated college is interested in climate studies. Three years ago, the village’s new water tank/clean water apparatus was washed out, along with the village school. Now the village is thinking about flood channels for the next big storm and getting more focused on water harvesting and flood control.
Q: Carol Keeffe asked what the other college-educated students in the village had majored in. Cal gave us the following information:
- Emmah—She nearly dropped out of elementary school until a teacher inspired her. She is currently enrolled in a master’s program in farming technology.
- Alloys—He studied at Loyola University in New Orleans.
- Civil engineering
- Climate change and environmental protection
- Teaching
- Cal couldn’t remember the fields of the two other graduates.
SPEAKER’S GIFT BOOK: We don’t provide books for Lebanon Rotarian speakers.
SERVICE AND OTHER ACTIVITIES—PE Bruce updated those present about the following upcoming events:
- Social Gathering at Salt hill on February 16th at 5:30 p.m. (Ahmad Hadari)
- International will meet a week from tomorrow, Friday 2/20.
- Brew Fest committee will meet Monday, 2/23 at noon at Service Credit Union.
- Membership committee just had a meeting.
- Golf committee will start this month.
- Community service will meet this month also. The Five-College Book Sale is returning this year. Staging will be inside the old Right-Aid location next to Shaws in West Lebanon. Lebanon Rotarians can help setting up tables on March 4 starting at 9:00 a.m. The event itself takes place April 21-26 at Lebanon High School; help will be needed for set up and takedown there as well.
- Charities’ February meeting will be held via Zoom at noon on February 25, a special change this month from the usual third Thursday schedule.
- Styrofoam collection is coming; Steve Grant said it will be on April 11.
HAPPY DOLLARS—Sgt-at-Arms Dave Clarenbach
- Ron Bedell: Marilyn didn’t make it to the Olympics but had successful surgery last Wednesday. PT appointment yesterday went well. She took off the last bandage from surgery this morning, and the hospital says everything looks good.
- Phil Bush—His stepson, Will Masters, is an agro-economist at the Tufts School of Nutrition. He’s been working on a project for over a decade measuring the cost of a healthy diet in various countries and discovering what portion of the people in that country could actually afford to purchase such a diet. Some countries have made progress in this area as a result of the studies, such as raising their minimum wage. In December, Will was notified that Sweden’s Royal institute of Agriculture and Forestry wanted him to appear in white tie and tails to accept an award from the country’s king. The event occurred last week!
- Cal—Thanked Ron Michaud for his kind words.
- John Stalvey—Yesterday was the 6th birthday of his youngest grandchild.
- Hank—1) Hank and Carol enjoyed the Jimmy Buffet tribute at LOH; 2) They recently saw “The Wiz,” which Hank believes has aged well, though it cost more to make than was raised in ticket sales.
CARD AND CAR WASH RAFFLE
- Andy drew #506 which was held by John Stalvey, who drew something other than the Queen of Hearts.
- Phil Rentz’s ticket was drawn for the free car wash at Jake’s Enfield car wash location.
Bruce Bergeron congratulated everyone for the fact that our meeting was fully concluded by 1:00 p.m. despite our having given a live mic to both Cal and Ron!
PE Jim Damren rang the bell, and we closed with our Rotary motto:
"One Profits Most Who Serves Best"
Future Meeting Programs
- February 19—Round 2 of Speech Contest.
- February 26—Phil Bush, Lebanon Rotary Troubadour and Internet Sensation.
- March 5—Emmah's Garden.
- March 12—Listen Center, Kristi Lenart-Rikert.
- March 19—Club Assembly Reports from Board of Directors, Charities, Committees.
- March 26—Open
