Follow along with John and family on their travels last summer to warmer climates including Portugal, Porto, the Douro River, the Azores, Lisbon and then the Spanish island of Majorca. Oh … if you have questions on the raffle prizes for this year, now’s your chance!
"Take Off is Optional, Landing is Mandatory" - Up & Away Ballooning Pilot Mike Kijak
Our speaker for Thursday, February 1, 2024, was Mike Kijak, a balloon pilot with Up & Away Ballooning. Mike started Up & Away with his wife in 1999 when he was laid off from his “real job.” He sold the business and retired in Oregon in 2015. Mike came back to Sonoma County in 2019 to “unretire.” He started ballooning in 1993 and got his license in 1997. Mike has spent over 3,123 hours in balloons. Mike also enjoys competing in balloon rallies. In fact, in 2022, he beat out 40 competitors and took first place at the Great Reno Balloon Race!
Mike related some interesting facts about ballooning. Hot air ballooning was first recorded in France in 1783 when papermakers, the Montgolfier brothers, sent up some farmyard animals in a balloon powered by smoke (rather than propane, which is currently almost exclusively used in hot air balloons). The first humans ballooned in France in 1784. Ballooning is usually done in the morning because it is typically cooler in the morning with less wind. Did you know that a balloon pilot cannot “steer” a hot air balloon? Balloons are exclusively steered by the wind. The pilot can only control the vertical travel of the balloon. Before flights, balloon operators launch small helium balloons into the air to determine windspeed and direction, and gauge their flights based on what those helium balloons do. Mike’s balloons typically take off from the Sonoma County airport area and fly downwind until they find a good spot for a landing. Mike has a chase crew on the ground looking for good landing spots and speaking with landowners for permission to land on their property. Mike has some interesting stories about landing in fields and negotiating with irate landowners!
Up & Away Ballooning was the first U.S. balloon company to purchase and use a basket with windows for people in wheelchairs and other disabilities. The basket also had a strong plastic fold-down ramp to enable access. People could see the sights through plexiglass windows without being limited by the need to stand up! This basket was a big hit for his business, since it was the only way for many people to have access to hot air ballooning.
Thank you Mike for the interesting and informative presentation. I’ll wave the next time I see you above my house!
On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, submits pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.
Thanks for all the great pictures Warren!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
Take a closer look at a few Sunrise Peacemakers and how they apply this month's theme in Service Above Self.
Absence of violence alone does not describe peace. Rotary International's monthly themes includes the all important conjunction "and!"
Peace AND Conflict Resolution; Clean Water AND Sanitation; Economic AND community Development; Basic Education AND Literacy; Maternal AND Childhood Health.
February's theme is also the billboard for Rotary's Positive Peacebuilders curriculum.
This Rotary Peace Academy integrative online course provides orientation to the history and dynamics of positive peace. Coordinating with the Institute for Economics and Peace IEP, the self-paced modules offer insightful tools for navigating current events, local and national policy strategies with a perspective toward 2050, just a generation ahead.
Engagement in community development efforts draws attention to each of us: What are our how and why in subscribing to Service Above Self?
Ask Stacy Drucker-Andress, Arthur Chaney, Leroy Carlenzoli, Shauna Lorenzen, Willie Billeter, Marina Gachet. How is their time transformed into positive peace equity?
Enter the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Think of the IEP as the credit reporting agency of countries. Their measures of a country's economic and social performance provides a snapshot of national stability, more or less in relation to other countries. The bottom line is an objective profile disclosing metrics ranging from vital health data, literacy rates, domestic violence statistics, terrorism threats and many more. The goal is to improve sustainable standards of living and directing resources for optimal outcomes. The incentive is for favorable access to working capital ~ human and financial. The World Bank is a principal partner.
Is the connection between Sunrise and IEP's agenda clearer? Does a closer look into Positive Peace pique your curiosity? Ask Jack Strange about his St Isabella Interact trip. Ask Steve Amend about Vietnam. Ezbon Jen and Penny Millar about eyes and teeth, AND take a look at Positive Peace:
A friend of mine has two tickets for the 2024 Super Bowl, 50 yard line box seats. He paid $7500 each but did not realize last year when he bought them, he had a conflict. It was his pre-planned wedding day!
If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place...
It is at St. Michael's Church at 3pm. The bride's name is Sherry. She is 5'4" and 120 lbs, great smile and sense of humor. She will be the one in the white dress.
I am enthused and encouraged by your embrace of mental health initiatives throughout the Rotary world. More than 1,000 of you have responded so far to an ongoing survey by the Rotary Action Group on Mental Health Initiatives, offering your feedback on what Rotary can do to improve the personal well-being of members.
The top suggestions are illuminating. Rotary members are asking for more fellowship, camaraderie, conversation, cohesiveness, and connection. They also want more recognition, validation, and integration. They are seeking more service opportunities, and they want more wellness activities, including mental health speakers, awareness efforts, and education.
Our members not only appreciate the greater focus on mental health, but they also believe that making more of the Rotary experience will materially improve their lives. I find it interesting that members are not asking anything dramatically new of their club — rather they want more of what we do best. For example, connection can be improved during meetings simply by assigning seating once each month to encourage people to speak with someone new.
Here are some great ways that we can help achieve these results and make Rotary more appealing to those considering membership. First, we need to acknowledge the importance of increasing belonging in our clubs and to encourage Rotary members to make the most of every opportunity for new and stronger connections. Public health experts worldwide are concerned about increasing levels of loneliness — the U.S. surgeon general has even declared it an epidemic. Mental health experts agree that finding groups and clubs around common hobbies and interests is a strong way to create greater connectedness. This is what Rotary is all about. We need to make sure all of our members are fully engaged and that our communities are better aware of this inherent strength.
Second, if your club has found new ways to build connection, please share your stories with us at mindhealth@rotary.org so we can make them more broadly known within the Rotary world. Your good ideas might inspire others. Post your service project stories on Rotary Showcase.
And finally, I encourage you to share feedback from surveys like this with your club and bring forward your own ideas to improve your club experience and meet your peers’ expectations. The journey we have begun is about more than mental health. It is about taking advantage of the full strength of our wonderful organization and helping all members feel that they are part of a community that cares deeply about their personal well-being.
Everything you do to strengthen connections in Rotary, with each other and the people we serve, also helps improve mental health. And everything we do to improve mental health helps strengthen those connections. Let’s continue this virtuous cycle.
Following the news is challenging these days. Stories of war and violence are deeply discouraging. It breaks my heart when I hear about innocent bystanders, particularly women and children, who are caught in the crossfire of conflict.
Is there anything we can do about it? We certainly can’t turn away from the problem. I think in these times, we need to shift our focus from what we can’t change to what we can do. We can also support what we know works.
February is Rotary’s Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention Month. It is one of our areas of focus because peace is central to everything we do in Rotary. Even though most of us aren’t diplomats at the negotiating table or peacebuilders working on active conflicts, in Rotary’s singular way, what we do works to promote peace and prevent conflict somewhere, every day.
Every Rotary member should remember this during the month of February: When you support any of the areas of focus of The Rotary Foundation, you are contributing to peace. Foundation grants that address fundamental issues — such as a global grant focused on enhancing basic literacy in a community — will cultivate a better understanding of the world and lead to greater economic stability, laying the groundwork for peace.
You can say the same for all the areas of focus, from the environment to economic development. They help stabilize communities, lift families out of poverty, and foster the pursuit of education.
Peace is and always has been interwoven into the fabric of Rotary beyond our projects, too. In 1999, when we established the Rotary Peace Centers through a visionary initiative of our Foundation, we reaffirmed this commitment. This month, we are once again renewing that vision, with Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, our host partner for the newest Rotary Peace Center, as it takes its first steps to prepare for the initial cohort of students arriving in early 2025.
All along the way, as Rotary has evolved into a global force for good, it has championed peace and understanding in countless ways, and our Foundation remains the great driving force behind that vision. It will be part of Rotary’s eternal legacy.
And by supporting our work, you will be able to say that you are a part of that legacy. You can directly support it by visiting rotary.org/donate and selecting peacebuilding and conflict prevention as the area of focus.
So, yes, there is a lot you can do to support peace and prevent conflict. The next step is up to you.
It’s a tale as old as the Rotary International Convention: Two members from different clubs bump into each other, start chatting, and get the spark of an idea for a project.
So don’t be shy about starting a conversation with the stranger standing next to you or someone you meet over a meal at the convention 25-29 May in Singapore. After all, two people who talked at a bus stop at the 2016 convention in Seoul went on to plan a project fair in Africa.
Image credit: Brittany Anne Scott
Members regularly share stories about chance convention encounters that lead to meaningful projects — the kind that fulfill this year’s convention theme: Sharing Hope With the World.
They have met while painting a playground during the 2012 convention in Bangkok, lingering after breakout sessions, and, of course, visiting House of Friendship booths. Members relish the chance to meet new friends from other countries to find global grant project ideas, but they also run into potential project partners from their own state, province, or district.
After making a convention connection, Rotary members from countries across the world have worked with new partners on countless initiatives, including providing ShelterBoxes to refugees, launching a Rotaract multidistrict information organization, and recycling millions of plastic bottle caps to raise money to end polio.
A Georgia club’s article about a global grant with a club in India to build toilet facilities captures the convention’s influence: “This all began at the Atlanta RI Convention in 2017.” What seed of an idea will you find in Singapore this spring?
This story originally appeared in the February 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.
Join us for the Rotary International Convention in Singapore, 25-29 May.
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