District Governor Tom Boylan on the Environment, Membership, and Mental Health
Our speaker for September 7, 2023 was District 5130 District Governor Tom Boylan. Tom joined Rotary in 1998 in the Santa Rosa West club, moved to the Windsor club in 2006, and has been in leadership positions for 14 years; 8 of those years in marketing and web development with the Zone. Tom was introduced by Assistant Governor Marilyn Lira (pictured below).
Tom’s DG visit focused on 3 specific areas: the environment, membership, and mental health. Tom included the environment as an issue because he wanted to continue the great work of last year’s DG, Jennifer Strong. Tom believes that the strong effort put toward environmental issues last year should be expanded upon and made part of his own year of service as DG. There are so many environmental issues confronting us that we are truly in the ‘eye of the storm.’ Hurricanes, fires, floods, and extraordinary and unprecedented heat are now commonplace. There is no greater threat to humanity than climate change, and as people of action we Rotarians can and must do something about it. Tom pointed out some amazing speakers from District 5130, including Barbara McChesney (Windsor), who speaks about the pervasiveness of plastic nanoparticles in the oceans and Salvador Rico (Ukiah), who speaks about river clean ups and efforts to reconfigure reefs. The District is going to continue giving awards to clubs who show strong environmental efforts. Clubs will now have 4 environmental goals and the award will be $600.
On membership, Tom told us how he first got introduced to Rotary. Like most of us, he got started with an invitation from a friend or business acquaintance to lunch or breakfast. Tom was first invited to lunch at Santa Rosa West in the old Los Robles lodge. At that first meeting they passed around a hat for donations to Chilean earthquake survivors. At another meeting a Rotarian asked them all to bring in shoes to be distributed to kids in our community who could not afford them. Tom was hooked by this level of community involvement. But the reason Tom has stayed so long in Rotary is simple; it’s about friendships with other like-minded people. Tom issued a challenge to all Rotarians in the District: Invite someone to a meal, event, or a project, not to a Rotary meeting. It works!
Rotary International’s President, Gordon McInally, has made mental health a focus of his presidency as a key part of his message of creating hope in the world. He wants Rotary to work to improve access to mental health services throughout the world. Gordon knows how important mental health is; his own brother committed suicide. District 5130 now has its own mental health website at https://mentalhealth5130.org. Tom reminded us that “Mental health is a health issue.”
Thank you, Tom, for the inspiring presentation. Your long history in Rotary and Rotary leadership, and your obvious love of Rotary causes, is going to help make District 5130 even better!
Click HERE for a limited time recording of Governor Tom's presentation.
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!
Surrounding the books housed in Elsie Allen High School Library are the hundreds of attentive eyes of Sonoma County Farm Workers. Between 2005 and 2012 local artists collaborated, creating this stunning tribute to the hands, heads and hearts tending Sonoma County's agricultural bounty.
Seven years in the making, the images create an indelible reminder of commitment
to mutual needs and advocacy for diversity, equity and inclusion.
This most expansive mural is just one of two within the library, and several more displayed outdoors on exterior walls. All created in collaborative partnership with students as artists and mentees of technical or marketing mentors. ArtStart has been a key partner in these ventures.
President Debra adjourned the meeting with this message:
This month in Rotary is dedicated to National Education & Literacy.
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't know.
Peyton Manning, after living a full life, died. When he got to heaven, God was showing him around. They came to a modest little house with a faded Colts flag in the window. “This house is yours for eternity, Peyton,” said God. “This is very special; not everyone gets a house up here.”
Peyton felt special, indeed, and walked up to his house. On his way up the sidewalk, he noticed another house just around the corner. It was a 3-story mansion with a blue and red sidewalk, a 50 foot tall flagpole with an enormous Patriots logo flag, and in every window hung a red Patriots towel.
Peyton looked at God and said “God, I’m not trying to be ungrateful, but I have a question. I was an all-pro QB, I hold many NFL records, and I even went to the Hall of Fame.”
“So what’s your point Peyton?”, God asked.
“Well, why does Tom Brady get a better house than me?”
God chuckled, and replied “Peyton, that’s not Tom’s house, it’s mine.”
The International Day of Peace takes place 21 September. The United Nations General Assembly declared this a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.
It is not enough, as People of Action, to simply avoid making war. If we are to Create Hope in the World, we must aggressively wage peace.
Where can we begin? There are countless armed conflicts around the world, and the global population of displaced people is higher than ever. The opportunities are nearly limitless, but the cycles of violence and hardship seem endless.
My advice is to start small but think big. I look to Rotary members in Pakistan and India for inspiration.
In March 2020, about 50 Rotary members from Pakistan met about 50 Rotary members from India at Kartarpur Sahib, a shrine in Pakistan. The sanctuary honors Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, a religion practiced in both countries. Tensions between the two countries barred many religious pilgrims from India from visiting the shrine. That is, until Pakistan opened a visa-free pathway to them in 2019.
Earlier this year, Rotary members from opposite sides of the border again met at the shrine, this time with about twice as many participants.
Any work toward building peace needs to be brave and bold. What these Rotary members have done is just that. The Pakistani government took an important step toward peace when it admitted Indian pilgrims to the Kartarpur Sahib shrine, but Pakistani Rotary members took the next step when they welcomed Rotary members from India as friends and family. That is Positive Peace at work.
These peacebuilders did not stop there. Club representatives at this year’s meeting signed twin club certificates to recognize their long-term commitment to continue to learn from each other and to work together on more peacebuilding efforts, and they have held joint meetings via video chat.
The importance of communicating with and learning from another culture cannot be overstated, and Rotary is making it even easier to do so. One way of engaging in cross-cultural dialogue and building relationships across borders is through virtual international exchanges that build on our current programs and make them more accessible.
A virtual exchange uses online platforms to connect people from different parts of the world so they can share their traditions, priorities, values, and more. Virtual exchanges can serve as a window to another part of the world through activities such as teaching a digital cooking class, learning a new language, or even designing service projects with a global impact.
These online chats have the potential to inspire new connections and more respect between societies. Taking that knowledge and using it to better the lives of our fellow human beings is the next step.
When was your Rotary moment? It’s when you realize that being part of Rotary means more than just showing up for a meeting, when you discover you are part of something that changes the lives of others as it changes yours.
I will never forget the moment when I learned about Daniel, a Haitian child. Rotary Foundation Trustee Greg Podd, who at the time was serving with me on an RI committee, had been trying to get Daniel on a plane for urgent heart surgery through the Gift of Life program. But Daniel couldn’t get the visa to travel, and doctors had given him only months to live.
When Greg told me this, I remembered that Gift of Life was operating in Haiti and we could do the surgery there. This was on a Wednesday. Greg helped get ahold of Daniel’s medical records. The Gift of Life surgeon I knew — who visited only once or twice every month — happened to be in Haiti. By Thursday, the surgeon had looked over the medical charts and told us that he could repair Daniel’s heart but said he was traveling soon. We had to get Daniel to a medical facility by Friday morning.
Daniel and his parents rode 90 minutes on a scooter through the bumpy roads of rural Haiti to get to the facility, and the surgeon successfully performed the procedure. Thankful, Greg and I moved on to other projects.
A few months later, I got an email with a picture of Daniel. I will never forget his smiling face, despite the foot-long scar running down his chest, and what he wrote: “I know you helped me. You saved my life. Thank you.”
On behalf of Daniel and countless others, I am passing along that gratitude to all Rotary members who have helped or will help this year.
The beauty of Rotary, especially with The Rotary Foundation, is that we can create these Rotary moments anytime. Just reach out to others in Rotary and discuss our work. Our caring network, our dedicated volunteers, and available resources will take care of the rest.
If two people can make such a difference, imagine what we can accomplish by working together in larger groups through The Rotary Foundation. Picture the impact of clubs within a district joining forces for a Foundation district grant to boost literacy, or two districts from different parts of the world transforming a community through a water, sanitation, and hygiene global grant.
If you haven’t discovered your Rotary moment yet, keep searching. Serving Rotary through our Foundation is a great place to find it, and it will change your life.
The pandemic’s toll on older people struck especially close to home for the Rotary Club of Cornwall Sunrise in southeastern Ontario. “Until COVID, our club met at a seniors residence, and the need for the residents to be able to get out was made clear to us,” says club member Elizabeth “Bette” Miller, a past governor of District 7040. To ease the isolation of the town’s older population, the Cornwall Sunrise club teamed up with the Rotary Club of Cornwall and their city government to introduce Seniors on Wheels tours on three-wheeled cycle rickshaws. Volunteers pedal seniors around on seasonal tours along the St. Lawrence River. “The trishaw is used primarily by local seniors who would otherwise be unable to enjoy the beautiful scenery,” says Miller, whose club contributed an initial CA$3,000 (US$2,500) for the project. “The routes for the trishaws follow the bike paths with stops at points of interest, many of which are projects Rotary has partnered on with the city.” Volunteers and their passengers covered a cumulative 300 miles last year.
India
In Visakhapatnam, along the Bay of Bengal, Rotary members launched an innovative plastics recycling and youth employment project. Participants from the nonprofit India Youth for Society collect plastic bottles from drop-off locations and beaches and process the plastics into small chips that are sold to recyclers. The nonprofit’s goal is to make the operation self-supporting. About eight young people were working on-site as the processing plant scaled up production in June, and as many as 25 people eventually could work at the facility. The roughly $120,000 project is supported in part by a global grant sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Lake District Moinabad, India, and Naperville Sunrise, Illinois, with contributions from other Rotary clubs in the United States and India. Among its accolades is an award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists. “I wanted to get the academy’s feedback and make [the project] more robust using their suggestions,” says Prakasam “Prakash” Tata, a retired environmental engineer and a member of the Rotary Club of Naperville, Illinois. “But lo and behold, I heard, ‘You won the grand prize.’”
Rotary projects make a difference in communities around the world.
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The pandemic’s toll on older people struck especially close to home for the Rotary Club of Cornwall Sunrise in southeastern Ontario. “Until COVID, our club met at a seniors residence, and the need for the residents to be able to get out was made clear to us,” says club member Elizabeth “Bette” Miller, a past governor of District 7040. To ease the isolation of the town’s older population, the Cornwall Sunrise club teamed up with the Rotary Club of Cornwall and their city government to introduce Seniors on Wheels tours on three-wheeled cycle rickshaws. Volunteers pedal seniors around on seasonal tours along the St. Lawrence River. “The trishaw is used primarily by local seniors who would otherwise be unable to enjoy the beautiful scenery,” says Miller, whose club contributed an initial CA$3,000 (US$2,500) for the project. “The routes for the trishaws follow the bike paths with stops at points of interest, many of which are projects Rotary has partnered on with the city.” Volunteers and their passengers covered a cumulative 300 miles last year.
In Visakhapatnam, along the Bay of Bengal, Rotary members launched an innovative plastics recycling and youth employment project. Participants from the nonprofit India Youth for Society collect plastic bottles from drop-off locations and beaches and process the plastics into small chips that are sold to recyclers. The nonprofit’s goal is to make the operation self-supporting. About eight young people were working on-site as the processing plant scaled up production in June, and as many as 25 people eventually could work at the facility. The roughly $120,000 project is supported in part by a global grant sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Lake District Moinabad, India, and Naperville Sunrise, Illinois, with contributions from other Rotary clubs in the United States and India. Among its accolades is an award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists. “I wanted to get the academy’s feedback and make [the project] more robust using their suggestions,” says Prakasam “Prakash” Tata, a retired environmental engineer and a member of the Rotary Club of Naperville, Illinois. “But lo and behold, I heard, ‘You won the grand prize.’”