President John Griffith called the meeting to order promptly at 12:23, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Al Metz and Dennis Lower were our greeters today and Dr. Metz introduced the members who brought guests:

Gary Pehrson led us in singing It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;

Steve Domonkos announced that Randy Hein got married.

Genevieve Lynch-Hopkins nominated Mike Howe and his staff for helping out at Walmart out in the cold with the toy drive.

Tim Monroe nominated Kevin Murphy for receiving an honor for his work as a financial advisor for having over $431 Million in assets under advisement.

Mike Howe nominated Genevieve for organizing the toy drive for toys for tots out in the cold over the weekend.

Megan Miller nominated Susan Thomas for receiving the honor of being the PRCA Rodeo committee person of the year, she will be honored in Las Vegas at their annual meeting.

Kendra Ziler nominated Megan Miller for all of her hard work on the Christmas parade on Saturday.

President John Griffith announced that our annual Christmas Party will be December 16^th and signup sheets are on the tables.

President John also let us know that the new member orientation will be moved to January 23^rd.

Steve Loftin announced that this week we are needed at the Food Bank for our last chance of the year to volunteer right after the meeting.

Lisa Scroggins let us know that on each table is a list of things that Chloe is interested in doing while here in Casper, so if there is something on that list that you would like to do with her or even if there is something you think she would enjoy that is not on the list please call her and invite her to do things with you and your family.

Jed Shenefelt, sponsored by Phillip Rael was inducted into the club today. Welcome aboard and Congratulations!

Our Student of the month today was Elizabeth Hansen from NCHS, she is in speech and debate and did an awesome job on her speech today.

President-Elect Lisa Scroggins, introduced our speaker today, Jason Nichols, President of Insight Resources International. Jason explained the work that IRI has been doing around the world. He started by introducing the team from IRI, Velma Corson, her husband Al Corson who is the lead trainer, and Leonard who is a Mozambique National who is now taking care of things in Mozambique. They started in Mozambique in mainly the city of Chimoio which is on a main trade artery and has a population of around 100,000 with an additional 100,000 in the surrounding area. They also are working in other towns and cities and villages around the country. He explained how trauma affects people and how the people in Mozambique have been traumatized for centuries through the different things that have happened to them as a people. They are currently operating under two governments, so these people have been traumatized which leads to depression, alcoholism, and suicide to name a few of the consequences. When you have traumatic events occur then you lose your agency, your ability to do things, you can’t do anything about the situation. This is what has occurred in Mozambique. Then stress enters the picture and the more trauma the more stress the worse everything is and you lose your identity. Damage to our identity damages your understanding of the world and everything and through all of this the stress builds up and it becomes harder to think so your thinking process is impaired. This is where the people of Mozambique are. These issues are addressable but they need addressed at the bottom level. Normally when aid is sent in they focus on the top things but seem to forget the base of the issue. With IRI they are focusing on the overall picture by teaching the people how to think not what to think so that they can regain their identities and rebuild from the bottom up. He said that this locking into mental habits that are forced upon you from the stress and trauma is what occurs with PTSD so it is not something that a normal training of how to do something can break through to correct. The needs fall under the heading of therapy and there are no programs set up to do a mass therapy session for countries with these needs. IRI decided to focus on the bottom with the cognition and help them build from the bottom up as they realize they can think and get their identity back. Once they get this base taken care of then the rest follows and they improve their own lives. In Mozambique, this work they have been doing over the past 10 years has had a huge impact in every area of the people’s lives and in the country’s economics and social aspects. Al Corson goes in and works with leaders who then go out and work with other leaders and so on until the number of people the program reaches goes on and grows exponentially. Leonard has set up several businesses that he uses to train and teach the people then he sets them back out to build their own lives and business. The changes are incredible, for example, several of the villages have begun to maintain their own dirt roads around their villages instead of relying on the government to do it, they discovered that they can do it so they are doing it. They have started multiple businesses and they started a foster care system for their orphans, which to date over 10,000 children have gone from being abandoned in the streets and jungles to being in foster homes and being taken care of. In Mozambique orphans are considered non-people so this was a very radical change for them to do this on their own without anyone telling them it needed done, they decided on their own that they needed to take care of the problem and so they did. These are the kind of things that occur when you fix the problem from the ground up. To see how it grows exponentially, they started in 2009 and by 2014 they had about 200 people that had gone through the program. By 2016 it had grown to 30,000, that they can confirm but there are a lot who they haven’t confirmed as well. The last estimate they have today is about 500,000 people. Where this has been implemented starvation is gone, they are growing and storing food and they are selling the excess to earn money to create other businesses and grow more food. IRI did not teach them the specifics on how to do this, they taught them how to learn and understand so that they can teach themselves how to do these things. They have initiated their own systems and programs and they are very sustainable because they created them. Now they are moving on because Mozambique no longer needs them to be there anymore. Leonard wants to raise enough money there to help fund IRI here in the states. They are now looking at where to go next, the tribes in Alaska have invited them up there to see what they can do but it will be a long process to help them. They have also been working with groups in South Africa, Hong Kong, The Philippines, here in Casper and in Texas. Generally, it has been people hearing about them and asking for them to work together. Currently, they are restructuring and reorganizing to decide where to have their main focus over the next few years. He then opened it up for questions. He gave us a short explanation of the process of what they do, through different exercises and concrete examples to get them to start learning but it is different with each group. The main thing is to get them to understand what they are thinking and how to understand what that means and to understand what to do about it. It is not fast work; it takes time to break through the fog to get them to understand but once they do the growth is huge. While here in Casper restructuring, they are also working with some churches and non-profits to help the more impoverished people learn how to better use the resources they have available. They are also looking to help businesses better train their employees.

President John Griffith concluded the meeting at 1:12, PE Lisa Scroggins let us know that next week we will be at the Nic learning about what documents you should have ready for your tax preparer. Then December 16^th will be our Christmas Party which will be the last meeting for 2019.

“Use Rotary to connect your world”