Apr 18 2017-Rotary Forum

Pres. Greg Baker opened the meeting at 12:37 PM with his usual this day in history: Jimmy Doolittle led an air raid over Tokyo on April 18, 1942; the great earthquake of San Francisco occurred on April 18, 1906; Apollo 13 returns to earth on April 17, 1970; and the Ford Mustang made its debut of the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow, New York on April 17, 1964.

Andrea Lueker passed around a sign-up sheet for volunteers to distribute books during the Youth Literacy program. Steve Curry reported that the first Pismo Beach Preserves’ bench is ready for installation and asked for volunteers to help finish the project, which will cost $6000, $3000 from our club’s contributions to the RI Paul Harris funds and the other $3000 from the District. He also announced that a brief golf meeting will be held right after this meeting. Erik Mund said we have over $15,000 from tee sponsors, but he is looking for more from sponsors from last year. Bonnie Mogan has tickets for the banquet after the golf tournament. Ashlea Boyer requested that we bring in more tournament raffle items such as gift cards, bottles of wine and the like. There is still a need for a few more golfers to fill up the remaining one or two team spots. Jules Cuprys is still looking for a few more bottles of wine for Rotaract’s major fundraiser Flavor of SLO on May 5. She also requested help to assemble 300 bags of essentials for the homeless tonight.

Harlan Silva had the privilege of bestowing Honorary Memberships on John and Martha Murphy. John is one of the founding charter members of this club in March 1984 and served as its Pres., Sgt. at arms and a number of other positions before he left our club. After a hiatus of a number of years and after his retirement, he returned to our club back in 1997. Martha is a past president as well as heading up numerous committees including the four-way essay test.

Sandy Lubin came forward to induct our newest member Jules Cuprys who was awarded her red badge and immediately was then awarded her blue badge as she completed all the necessary steps before today. She then came forward to introduce her fiancée Jennifer who she will be marrying this July. She’s a civil engineer in the Transportation Department.

Ashlea Boyer introduced Dominique who has a bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in communication and is presently in the Communication Department of Cal Poly. She has been a speaker at PETS on this subject. She has found in her studies that Rotarians in general don’t deal with younger members very well. She then proceeded to define each of the generations: the Seniors; the Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964; Generation X: Born 1965 to 1976; Millennials or Gen Y: Born 1977 to 1995; and Gen Z: Born 1996 and later. She had each of us stand when she called out our generation group. She was pleased to note that we have all generations representated except Gen Z. She said one of the biggest misconceptions of seniors is they are unable to change. However they are loyal, ethical and have high standards. They have a hard time taking directions or being led by younger generations. Baby boomers also have high standards and are ethical. Both of the latter generations have low divorce rates. She noted that you need to woo baby boomers. They need to look for connections such as people from the same club or committees. They are slow to adapt and avoid leading millennials. The X generation is independent, entrepreneurial and very hard-working. They came from families where both parents worked and were often children of divorced parents. They lived at a time of increased technology. Their parents experienced downsizing of their workplace.  The y communicate by email. The millennials are self-reliant, very competitive, respond to quick text messages and are multitaskers. She says that one of the biggest challenges for Rotarians is to attract millennials and go beyond their 1.2 million members, which has remained the same for the last 18 years.

“When we strive to do better than we are, everything around us is better too.”