Thank you for all the great comments about my program last week. I had so much fun with it all and I appreciate your support!
On Monday, I had the pleasure of attending the East Colorado Springs Rotary Club with Carol Bach where she was the program speaker. She talked about youth services and about the district grants program, which she is now leading! It was terrific to visit another club. I haven't done that for a few years and I hope to do that more. It is one of my important goals; working with our local clubs! We did create a pipeline with their club. Becky Kiser, who is behind The Trampled Rose, will be visiting our club on July 23 to make a brief announcement about an event that their club is hosting! Dan May is now their club president so you know they are in good hands!
This next Tuesday evening is our next Rotary Rally at Ivywild! We get started around 4:30 pm over by the fire pit if it's available. It's a great time to invite people (to quote Past President Caryn Adams) "who are Rotarians but they just don't know it yet." I'm so excited that I will be bringing Dr. Heather Beem to join us that evening! So if you would like to have some face-to-face time with her, please join me! On Wednesday evening, I will be taking her to the Indy Expo to meet more of our people! Heather will be our speaker the following Friday. I think that is so awesome that we had a speaker from Ghana on zoom and now 4 months later, she is coming to our club IN PERSON! This connection is all from Martin Cook! He has cultivated this relationship and has been relentlessly seeking funding for her organization, Practical Education Network (PEN) out of Ghana. Many of us have passion for the causes that touch our hearts and this one has certainly stirred mine.
Speaking of our fellow Rotarian Martin Cook, a big huge congratulations is in order! Martin wrote an article that was published in our District's International Service newsletter. I have included his article in this week's newsletter.
I have such gratitude for this club. We are full of people who truly care about and understand Service Above Self. And with this year's theme, Serve To Change Lives, we've got that one checked off many times over!
I know you're dying to know what this week's Random Awesome Deed will be so wait no longer...I am challenging each of us to allow someone to go ahead of us in line. That seems awful (waiting for your turn is hard enough) but it could make a whole lot of difference for someone. And if you're not a line waiter, maybe allow someone to go in front of you at your next construction zone where everyone is down to one lane. (I think every single street in COS is under construction right now so that should be easy.)
Whether you are zooming in or attending in person, I appreciate every one of you joining me this week. Our speaker is going to discuss the science of the brain and how it relates to achieving your goals. He promises lessons that can be useful as we grow our club and raise money for all of our service projects. He will be giving us tools you can take back to your own businesses to achieve the success you want! I'm definitely looking forward to hearing him. I've seen some of his YouTube videos and I think you'll appreciate his perspective.
Thank you again for your encouragement and I do appreciate your feedback! Now let's go forth and be great stewards of Rotary and Catalysts of Caring in our Community!
Please be well, be safe, and be kind. There are a lot of people out there needing just that.
For those who wish to participate, our Club will be hosting another Rotary Rally on Tuesday afternoon (July 20) at 4:30 PM at Ivywild!
If you are planning to attend, be sure to extend the invitation to anyone you know who wants to meet weekly with other amazing people and do good things for our community! The event is FREE to attend but everyone pays their own tab! Ivywild has amazing appetizers and very creative cocktails! (So fancy!)
And also, attending a Rotary Rally event does count as a club member's makeup for missed meetings!
We are on the map now! Martin Cook wrote an outstanding article that was published in the district's international newsletter! Please check it out!
Training science, math & engineering teachers across Ghana
Martin Cook - Colorado Springs Rotary Club
The Downtown Colorado Springs Club has taken a strong interest in an educational NGO in Ghana and is looking for other clubs to join us in sponsoring it and perhaps even seeking a Global Grant. What follows is a description of the NGO and its work. The Founder and director of the NGO will be visiting Colorado Springs during the period of July 20-23, and she will be speaking at our club on Friday the 23rd during our meeting from 12:15-1:30 pm. She would be available to discuss her work with interested individuals and Clubs during that time.
Dr. Heather Beem is the Founder, President, and CEO of The Practical Education Network (PEN)
(www.practicaleducationnetwork.com). Dr. Beem has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. She moved to Ghana and has devoted her work to find ways to train science, math, and engineering teachers across Ghana in innovative, hands-on ways to teach science using only inexpensive and readily available materials. In Ghana, most schools can’t afford even a single piece of science equipment. Our International Committee is interested in applying for grants to support PEN’s work and we may even shoot for a Global Grant.
As a result of COVID, PEN has had to modify its teaching methods from in-person teacher training to various virtual methods. As you might imagine, this is challenging in the extreme in a country like Ghana where the internet structure is unreliable and often not available. But this turns out to have an advantage: PEN is able to reach far more teachers with their training and to think about expanding their work beyond Ghana to other sub-Saharan African countries. It is estimated that, by 2100, one-third of all human beings alive will be in Africa, and the work PEN is doing developing talent in STEM areas will be key to Africa’s flourishing with that many people.
While we hope that we can secure Rotary grants eventually to support PEN’s work, Dr. Beem has recently indicated an urgent need for additional funds to support this expanded work. For the past year, she has been running everything from her living room! She needs funding for some of these
needs much sooner than our grant processes can possibly provide. So Kathleen encouraged me to write up her request in case individual Rotarians might wish to contribute directly.
Judith Casey and my wife and I are already “PEN Pals” (monthly contributors to her efforts), and we plan to contribute additional funds for Dr. Beem’s specific requests: “We have been working from my living room for the last 9 months or so. Although it has been a blessing to avoid paying rent during the period of uncertainty that COVID presented, we have reached the limit of what we can effectively use the space for. Given that we are translating our content online, we are frequently recording audio and video. This requires the persons speaking to be in one corner of the room and everyone else to remain still and silent for stretches of time. A larger space will enable us to record content at a higher frequency and see greater productivity across the entire team. We are looking to rent a 3-room space for 2 years. After that time, we will start looking into options for buying our own space. The rent and furnishing of this office space will cost $35K. We are also going to set up a small showcase room within the office, as part of our new advocacy efforts, which will cost $5K. And finally, we are looking to purchase a newer vehicle ($10K) to effectively move around town to run our errands. All of these core elements of our operation will enable us to work more efficiently. We are rounding off a series of online training in Accra in June. We'll use the summer period to get these key operational elements in place, then plan toward our online training pilot beyond Ghana in the latter half of the year.”
We are looking for volunteers to help with the Flight Artist Drop-off on July 29th & 30th as well as the Flight Install Sept. 1st and Flight Reveal Sept. 3rd. If interested in volunteering for Flight please reach out to Samantha Chapman for more details.
The next International Committee meeting is August 13 at 1:35 pm, directly after the weekly meeting.
If you are interested in participating in our International Committee, please email Jordan Davis at Jordan@sociallyexceptional.biz to be added to the notification list!
Our in-person meetings will be starting again - the 2nd Friday of every month, directly after the weekly meeting and we guarantee it will be less than an hour!
Many exciting things happening all around the world! Don't miss an opportunity to be part of this!
You can find all things FLIGHT 2021 in this column every week! Also, check out WWW.CSFLIGHT.ORG!
FLIGHT 2021 will be virtual but next year we hope to all be seated in a big room with food and butterflies! Thank you to last year's co-chair, Kay Rendleman, we now have a location to live- stream on YouTube for the big event on Sept 25! We will be working under the direction of Steve Weed Media at the Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy!
Raffle tickets should be available SOON so please talk this up in the community! We want to sell out those tickets this year!!
~Sponsorship information:
If you are interested in being a sponsor for FLIGHT 2021 at one of the many sponsorship levels available, please click here for the:
Do you have items you would like to donate to this year's FLIGHT? We would love to feature your item in the silent auction. The auction will take place virtually, Saturday, September 25. Please download this form, https://bit.ly/2TnrpBr Complete the form and send it to Amanda Salmons at amanda@greenivybookkeeping.com. The deadline for donations is Saturday, August 28.
Currently searching for the following items for Silent Auction baskets:
If you have bulletin announcements, please email the EXACT WORDING of your announcement to KSaltmarshVoss@yahoo.com by Wednesday at 5 pm. I don't write your announcements but I do make them nice 'n' fancy!
As you're doing your shopping online, did you know that you can support our Rotary Club with every Amazon purchase? Here’s how:
Go to smile.amazon.com (not amazon.com). Amazon Smile is the same company, same account, same password, but the Amazon Smile program gives one half of one percent of every purchase to charity. No, it’s not a lot, but it’s also not nuthin’ (to be exact: about $150 for the Club so far). So again, go to smile.amazon.com
Sign into your Amazon account as you normally would
On the very top left of the page, next to the AmazonSmile logo, are three horizontal bars. Click there for the drop-down menu.
Scroll ALL the way down to “Your AmazonSmile”; it should be the last option right before “Sign Out”; Click on “Your AmazonSmile”
On the right side of the page, click on the “change charity” box under Your current charity (Note: If you are currently supporting another charity, that’s awesome! These instructions are for those who are not doing so. Also, if you have not previously selected a charity, your default option will be St. Judge Children’s Research Hospital.)
Type in Community Service Fund of the Rotary Club of Colorado Springs; click Select
That’s it. You’re all set. Just remember to go to Smile.Amazon.com when you shop from now on.
We get started around 4:30 pm over by the fire pit if it's available. It's a great time to invite people (to quote Past President Caryn Adams) "who are Rotarians but they just don't know it yet." I'm so excited that I will be bringing Dr. Heather Beem to join us that evening! So if you would like to have some face-to-face time with her, please join me! On Wednesday evening, I will be taking her to the Indy Expo to meet more of our people! Heather will be our speaker the following Friday. I think that is so awesome that we had a speaker from Ghana on zoom and now 4 months later, she is coming to our club IN PERSON! This connection is all from Martin Cook! He has cultivated this relationship and has been relentlessly seeking funding for her organization, Practical Education Network (PEN) out of Ghana. Many of us have passion for the causes that touch our hearts and this one has certainly stirred mine.
For those who wish to participate, our Club will be hosting another Rotary Rally on Tuesday afternoon (July 20) at 4:30 PM at Ivywild!
