Our club meeting, June 10, was attended by 28 members (3 from the Harbor Club).  President John Held reviewed high points of the last board meeting of this Rotary year: we exceeded our EREY goal; all scholarships have been awarded; a banner will be added to the Rotary website to show our support for racial justice. He thanked outgoing board members, Sherm Marks, Paul Waechtler and John Flanagin for their service.  (John Flanagin is still Foundation Treasurer).  Kent Meyers initiated a round of applause for John Held for his amazing performance as our president for the past two years.

 

District Governor, Suzanne Gibson, presented our club with an award for achieving the Vibrant Club Challenge with distinction. She also recognized two 50-year members, Sherm Marks and Dick Rutledge, and 30-year member Gayle Inbinder (our first female member) . We had a presentation by Jason Turner, head of multi-asset strategies at Great Lakes Advisors, a Wintrust Wealth Management Company (summary below).

Jason Turner is the chief strategist for multi-assets at Great Lakes Advisors, a Wintrust Wealth Management Company. In this role, he has oversight for asset allocation, manager selection, and investment.  He gave us an overview of 2020 in terms of GDP.  70% of economic growth is dependent on personal expenditures, and due to COVID-19, there was a record drop in retail expenditures of over 18%. Unemployment rate seems to have dropped, but inflation is predicted at 2%.

 

Equity markets are down and the path to recovery is different now, as the pandemic is not something that can be fixed with funding.  Reopening businesses has to be slow, due to health-based concerns. Consumer sentiment has plunged, but not as low as it was in 2008. People are saving more now at record levels. Political implications include the highest level of polarization in history. Long-term economic risks include climate change, consumer delinquencies, especially student loans, and the economic impact of income inequality. Mr Turner spoke about Illinois; population outflows have led the nation for the past 6 years, so debt burden per person is high.

We are looking for new ideas and a diversity of members to join the Fundraising Committee.  We have a unique challenge this year since we cannot have our traditional kind of fundraiser.  We will meet virtually on Tuesday, June 23 at noon via Zoom.  Please let Debora Morris (debora@pftl.net) know if you can attend and a Zoom link will be sent to you.

There is an opportunity to take action through a citizen volunteer opportunity called Volunteer Surge. Rotary Clubs across the country are partnering with Volunteer Surge to recruit one million volunteers to participate in a new program, created by the Global Impact Group.

WHAT IS VOLUNTEER SURGE? - Volunteer Surge is a free, online training program that teaches you to help professional healthcare workers from your home or in the field. Through videos and exercises, you will learn rapidly! Much of this material was originally designed for a comprehensive training to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA).  Volunteer Surge worked rapidly to adapt this program to prepare you as efficiently as possible for the immediate crisis, so you will find yourself learning more than you may need to know immediately.

Once trained, you can choose to apply your new skills by providing phone or online support from your home or by assisting healthcare workers in the field. Our software will then assign you to individuals  in need of check-ins, followups,  and other minor health issues. For more information visit  https://theglobalimpactgroup.org/

Links and info about June's district virtual events can be viewed at https://files.constantcontact.com/912c062f001/dff083dd-0da9-4258-9c7a-1a3adee946f3.pdf. Suzanne Gibson suggests we look for this calendar every Monday morning since there won't be reminders sent for each event.  On the calendar, you can copy and paste the event title with the link that contains the Zoom invitation into your electronic calendar.  All members were also sent an email with this schedule.