Last night's social reminded me of how our club is made up of some amazing people with special and amazing stories and life experiences. While we come from different backgrounds, have different views on issues, we all share a passion for service. I hope each of you can take some time to get to know a fellow Rotarian a little better over the next few weeks.
In addition to our meetings, a great time to talk with fellow Rotarians is at our upcoming social/fundraiser for Flight at Goat Patch Brewery on February 7th. It is also a wonderful, relaxing way to introduce your friends and neighbors to Rotary. - So come and bring a friend!
As a reminder, we have a prospective member orientation meeting the first Tuesday morning of every month. You can contact Caryn Adams or Dick Harwood for more information on the meeting. It covers all the basics about Rotary and is another way to engage prospective members.
There is a great update on the Letters to Ukraine project in today's bulletin. Please make sure you check out the heart-warming letter from a child here to a child in Ukraine. So glad our club was able to participate in this special project.
Our service project this month is the warm clothing drive. Please bring your donations to the meeting so Cody can collect them and deliver to the charity. Please see the Community Service section of the bulletin for more details, as well as information on volunteering for the Mock Trials. (A project that just so happens to fall under the category of Vocational Service).
This week our speaker will be Matt Mayberry, Director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. He will be discussing Colorado Springs' history of reinventing itself.
Next week we welcome Deborah Hendrix who will speak on Celebrating Black History and Education. When you hear the phrase “Black History Month” some may say – Why is that needed? Others might say – I don’t know anything about it, while others might just dismiss it totally. Well come and hear why this topic is important for all of us as American citizens and how African Americans “Blacks” have impacted the culture of the United States of America. Education is the civil rights issue of today and we must provide the best education for our most important asset – our children.
Come and bring a friend. Don't forget to RSVP by Monday at 5 pm.
If you can't attend but would like to watch the meeting, let our club administrator, Karen Mooty know and we'll try to Facetime the meeting as we are no longer Zooming the meetings.
Please take time to read the bulletin each week and check out our website that has more information about all our events, activities and upcoming speakers.
When you hear the phrase “Black History Month” some may say – Why is that needed? Others might say – I don’t know anything about it, while others might just dismiss it totally. Well come and hear why this topic is important for all of us as American citizens and how African Americans “Blacks” have impacted the culture of the United States of America. Education is the civil rights issue of today and we must provide the best education for our most important asset – our children.
Bio:
Deborah Hendrix – Is an Advocate for education and is currently the Executive Director for Parents Challenge, an organization that supports parental choice in education. She believes in volunteering and serves on several boards in the community. Deborah served on the Harrison School District 2 Board for 8 years, 6 years as President and is a founding board member of Colorado Early Colleges, a charter school, and served for 12 years as board President.
She serves on the boards of Goodwill of Colorado, Pikes Peak United Way, Colorado Springs Community Cultural Collective at City Auditorium, The Legacy Institute and the Youth Transformation Center, a restoration justice organization, and an advisory member of The Colorado Springs Conservatory.
Deborah has her own training and consulting business, is a certified Dale Carnegie instructor and most importantly a mom to 2 beautiful daughters – Catherine, graduate of Colorado Early Colleges (28) and Danielle, graduate of Harrison High School (24). She has been married to Charles for 31 years and her most favorite pastime is putting together puzzles.
Deborah is the Past President of the Colorado Springs (CO) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated and the treasurer of the Colorado Springs Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
I wanted to reach out this morning with some good news on our Ukraine letter writing project; after some delays in getting to Poland, the latest batch of letters have finally arrived and are ready to be distributed to refugee children and mothers this weekend and next week! Attached are pictures you can download and share, including one of the full boxes of over 1000 letters, and a great example letter of an American child to a Ukrainian child. And with additional funding from the CSF, this project has already grown to triple the expected outcome initially thought last year, with 30+ states and a school in France having sent letters through the program!
I'll have more pictures to update as they come in next week but I just love the sentiment in the letter below and I thought it would be a great message to share with our club! Thank you all for making this program possible and I look forward to see where it can go from here!
ShelterBox HERO Clubs are foundational to our ability to respond when disaster strikes. To show our gratitude for your generous support, we are hosting an exclusive online Rotary Club HERO event on:
We hope you can join this event in hopes this informative session will inspire you to renew your HERO club status before the end of our current Rotary year.
ShelterBox is proud to be Rotary International's official project partner in disaster relief. Together, we are putting the partnership into action.
This exclusive event is open to every club member. ShelterBox USA President Kerri Murray and other executives from ShelterBox will deliver reports on our current response work, the impact we make in the lives of those we reach, and how Rotarians make this work possible. There will also be an opportunity for you to submit questions.
Thank you for being a Shelterbox HERO, I hope to see you on February 11.
In January, we will be having a warm clothing drive. Cody Burket will be collecting all items during our Friday luncheon meetings and sort them to go out to their respective charity, but you can also drop off your own items to either The Place or Springs Rescue Mission during their allotted times, to be found on their respective websites here: https://theplacecos.org/ & https://www.springsrescuemission.org/. Don’t forget to mention that the donation is on behalf of our Rotary Club, and please let Cody know if you do donate items yourself for tracking purposes of the club. Please see needed items below:
It is time once again for the High School Mock Trial Competition.
The Southern Colorado trials will be conducted on Friday, February 3rd, Saturday, February 4th and Tuesday, and the finals on Tuesday February 7th, 2023, with volunteers needed all three days. Steve Bailey and Jason Downie will be heading up the competition again this year. General questions or concerns can be directed to Jason or his paralegal, Sunde King, at (719) 579-6500 or by e-mail to jdownie@smmclaw.com and sjking@smmclaw.com, respectively. You may also reach out to Charlie Brown, charlie.brown@wesellmore.net, who is the Rotarian chairing this volunteer opportunity for us.
For the first time since COVID, the Mock Trials will be held in person at the El Paso County Court House, 20 S. Vermijo. Volunteers will be subject to security screening so please allow a few extra minutes for this process. There is parking in the Pikes Peak Center garage located one block to the west of the courthouse at 255 S. Sawatch St.
We need Presiding Judges and Scoring Panelists for the Friday and Saturday trials. This will be a commitment of about three hours on Friday afternoon and/or Saturday morning and/or Saturday afternoon. Please sign up to volunteer at the respective Club-runner sign-up form and your information will be passed along to Jason and Sunde.
This is a great opportunity to watch some of the brightest students in Southern Colorado demonstrate very impressive trial skills. This program gives our legal profession an opportunity to have a positive influence on several high school students, their teachers, friends, and families. However, it will not happen without your three hours of participation. They need your support more than ever!
Please mark the dates on your calendar now and plan to participate.
Thank you all for your continuing commitment to putting Service Above Self!
Our District Governor sent out this information about Vocational Service.
JANUARY IS VOCATIONAL SERVICE MONTH Even though we don’t emphasize Vocational classifications as we once did, it is an important reminder of:
- The recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations - The importance of high ethical standards in business and professions - The dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation and an opportunity to serve society.
This is what the early leaders in Rotary had in mind when they established the mottos of SERVICE ABOVE SELF and HE WHO PROFITS MOST, SERVES BEST. Let’s also continue to diversify and improve the effectiveness of our clubs by recruiting from all categories of professions and vocations in our community.
4-WAY TEST AND VOCATIONAL SERVICE Paul Harris had integrity in mind when he started Rotary with that small club in Chicago 118 years ago. Let’s live up to the Rotary core value of INTEGRITY by using the 4-way test in our interactions with colleagues, employees, clients, and customers, in our workplaces. The 4-way test also applies to those of us who are retired but still engaged with our clubs, families, and communities.
Truth, fairness, goodwill, and beneficial relationships for all are essential for our happiness, a just and civil society, and the furtherance of good in the world.
Greetings from Guatemala. I am here with 34 Rotarians from 8 California clubs doing an H2OpenDoors expedition. 3 large water purification systems at a hospital and 2 villages. Big impact!
Tonight I was on a Zoom call with our club's Community Service Fund. I have good news to report. The board approved the following:
$5000 for PEN (Ghana)
$2500 for a science lab for Maasai High School in Kenya
$3000 for HKMU in Tanzania
So wonderful things happening throughout the world as we kick off 2023!
Warmly,
Jon Kaufman
P.S. If you are interested in participating in our International Committee, please email Jon Kaufman jk595@aol.com to be added to the notification list!
We've had no new wild polio cases reported for the last 15 weeks, yeah!
Meanwhile, the state of New York is still surveilling polio in wastewater and urging all residents to get vaccinated against Polio. Remember, polio anywhere in the world can be transmitted to anyone in the world.
Poliovirus Weekly Update 28 December, 2022, World Health Organization
The number of wild polio cases for 2022 as of December 28 is 30 (2 in Afghanistan, 20 in Pakistan and 8 in Mozambique).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2021 were 6 (1 in Pakistan, 1 in Malawi and 4 in Afghanistan).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2020 were 140 (84 in Pakistan and 56 in Afghanistan).
The total number of wild polio cases in 2019 were 176 (147 in Pakistan and 29 in Afghanistan).
If you have bulletin announcements, please email the EXACT WORDING of your announcement to kay.rendleman@comcast.net by Wednesday at 5 pm. I don't write your announcements, but I do make them nice 'n' fancy!
