Janis Lasky Couvreux is an award-winning writer, journalist, Franco-American, lover of languages, travel and adventure addict, sailor, mom, and grandmom. Formerly a newspaper reporter and freelance journalist, Janis has blogged for the Huffington Post, Pryme Magazine, and The Lady Alliance, about living bilingually, crossing oceans, backpacking adventures, and raising kids outside the box. Janis has also written travel and wine-related articles for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vintage Magazine and has been published in Luna Luna Magazine, Longreads, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. She won the first place Adult Nonfiction award at the 2017 San Francisco Writers Conference.
Her book, Sail Cowabunga! A Family's Ten Years at Sea, published in October 2017, is her adventure memoir about living and sailing 10 years on a sailboat with her husband and two small boys from France to San Francisco. Well before she put her story down on paper, both Time and Life magazines featured the Couvreux family's adventure, mid-voyage, in the 1980s.
She now lives in Petaluma with her French husband, a dog, a cat, five sheep, and a flock of chickens, but is never far from the next travel adventure.
Randy spoke about Sunrise’s efforts to assist with the District 5130 Fire Relief Fund. The District raised $1,500,000 for fire relief. Sunrise was asked by past DG Bob Rogers to help handle the claims processing effort. Randy volunteered to lead the effort and put together a team of expert Sunrisers. Randy’s team analyzed and investigated 50 applications. The investigations were made by teams of two Sunrisers. Nearly all the applications were made by small businesses that suffered fire damage-related losses. The teams interviewed the applicants, investigated the claims and wrote a report for each application. The reports were submitted to a panel designated by the District. Of the 50 applications, 18 were rejected, for a variety of reasons.
Randy mentioned that he was surprised that there are so many small businesses in our area on the edge of poverty. Most of the applicants are people who operated small businesses out of their homes. Most of these small businesses were uninsured.
Randy and some of the team members, including Merle, Paul, Carolyn, Lizzie and Harry, presented the facts of at least 22 applicants, all of which received at least $2,500. The applicants included a small restaurant with flooding caused by power failure, a vineyard that lost outbuildings, a family living in section 8 housing who could not afford a security deposit on a new apartment, small businesses who kept their equipment and trucks at their homes (including a fish pond cleaner, gardener, theater company, production company, welder, plumbing contractor, and furniture restorer, among others), teachers who owned school materials and kept them at home, and at least one actual fire hero, Bob, who led a caravan of fire victims through an intense wall of fire!
Well done Randy and all of those who pitched in and helped on this project for Sunrise!! We know how hard you worked on the project and how much your work helped people in our community.
On a regular basis, our resident photo pros Warren Smith and Jack Strange submit 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 and Jack!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
Steve Amend discussed the upcoming reception and dinner for Japanese guests. The dinner is scheduled for August 10 at the Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club.
Home schooling, construction, art, pool cleaning, therapy, marketing, fashion, theater: Each of these careers and enterprises are represented in the fabric of Sonoma County’s economy. Business people, renters, homeowners alike who were recipients of recently restructured LARCA, Lake Area Rotary Club Association became person-to-person real to over 60 Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino and Lake County Rotarians during the last nine months.
Randy Seelye coordinated assignment of relief applicants to Sunrise members. Nearly $100K in grants was made to help bridge recovery from loss to new beginnings.
Never before, during my 27 year membership, in four different Clubs, has Rotary’s inherent energy, compassion, patience and leadership been more apparent and mobilized.
“Vegetation Fires” claimed lives, destroyed enormous property. The remarkable accounts of resilience filled survivors ~including 11 Sunrise members~ can also be read as “Fires Inspire Community!”
Continue taking deep breaths: Listen, Talk, Do. YOU INSPIRE.
Club Innovation: After weighing corporate membership models to energize its roster, the club chose an approach pioneered by other clubs in District 6540 and turned to local businesses to sponsor employees as Rotarians. Nine members and counting have signed on under the program, which provides the newcomers flexibility in attendance. Their employers pay club, district, and RI dues.
An expanded community: Located between Chicago and Indianapolis, a few miles off an interstate highway, DeMotte, Indiana, is a bedroom community; many residents commute to nearby jobs in light manufacturing or agriculture. The Rotary Club of DeMotte-Kankakee Valley embraces community initiatives funded with the proceeds of its annual 5K race, the Rotary Ramble, and joins district clubs to construct water tanks in Guanajuato, Mexico. They are tasks that might be typical for a club in a small town of 4,000 people. But appearances can be deceiving: The club is using corporate memberships to reach out to the business community.
Rotary Club of DeMotte-Kankakee Valley, Indiana Chartered: 1979 Original membership:26 Current membership: 49
Deann Patena’s knowledge of Rotary came from her job booking meeting space for a large hotel and entertainment complex that served as the home base of the Rotary Club of Merrillville, Indiana.
“I was familiar with the people – they were always very nice,” Patena says, though she never imagined herself joining. The doing of good deeds at home and abroad, she assumed, might be too costly for a hospitality worker with a young child.
But after the venue shuttered about two years ago, Patena landed a similar job at Fair Oaks Farms, an agricultural tourism attraction that offers eateries, exhibits, and a chance to get up close with barnyard animals. In October 2017, a month after she started her new position, Patena’s supervisor asked if she would be the farm’s representative to the DeMotte Rotary Club. “I did not ever think I would be a Rotarian,” says Patena, but she accepted because she wanted to meet local business leaders. And her company would be covering the fees.
The enlistment of the farm and other corporate sponsors was the work of club member Dan Ryan, 2018-19 governor of District 6540. He credits the Rotary Club of Portage, Indiana, for laying out the options that work for DeMotte: Companies pay the monthly dues for the employee representatives. The attendance rules depend on the number of employees registered: two meetings per month for one company representative, or one meeting monthly for each of two representatives. The newcomers are full-fledged Rotarians. “We wanted every corporate member to be a Rotarian and have every right and privilege of being a Rotarian,” Ryan says.
Ryan recalls his first solicitation, a call on the chief financial officer at the Hamstra Group, a real estate and construction concern. “He said, ‘We were just talking to two of our younger officers and emphasizing the importance of being involved in your local community,’” Ryan says. In short order, two company vice presidents, Eric Van Kley and Bruce Przybylski, were inducted into the club, supported by the firm.
Przybylski, busy as a coach for his children’s sports teams, appreciates the more lenient attendance requirements. “It’s a way to do a little more for the community and for Rotary worldwide,” he says. Patena lauds the club’s drive to involve new members in committees. “I’ve found it very engaging and informative,” she says. “I didn’t realize how much smaller towns value the support of the clubs.”
Ryan believes the infusion of new spirit has paid dividends for his club. “They bring an energy, and they bring more hands to projects,” he says. “We had gotten older as a club, so you’re not able to do the projects like you used to when you were 20 years younger.” And for sponsoring businesses, the benefit is immeasurable. “One advantage is serving the community,” Ryan says, “but also offering your employees leadership training and the opportunity to network and to be mentored by older businesspeople in the community.”
A well-known saying goes, "If you want to change the world, go home and love your family." That doesn't mean people should ignore the needs outside their own homes; instead, they should pay attention to the needs within.
It can be tempting, when our priority is service, to focus only on the things that look like service: the projects, the planning, the work that yields a visible benefit to those who need it. But to do that work effectively, we need to keep our own house in order. In Rotary, that means conducting ourselves in accordance with the principles of Rotary, treating others with respect, and following The Four-Way Test. It means maximizing our impact by planning carefully and stewarding our resources wisely. And it means looking after the long-term health of our organization by ensuring that our membership is strong, engaged, and healthy.
Our membership has hovered around the same 1.2 million mark for 20 years. We aren't growing, and our membership is getting older. We have too many clubs that don't have the knowledge or motivation to have an impact: clubs that don't know what we're doing on a global level, clubs that don't know about our programs or our Foundation, that don't even know how to get involved. And with a membership that is still mostly male, we clearly aren't doing enough to become the organization of choice for women who are seeking to serve.
We are a membership organization first. If we want to achieve the goals we've set for ourselves, we need to put membership first. All of us have a responsibility to take membership seriously, not only by inviting prospective members, but also by making sure new members are welcomed into clubs that offer them something of value. If you see someone walk into a meeting and hesitate, be sure that person has a place to sit and is part of the conversation. If you're enthusiastic about a Rotary program, make sure your club knows about it and knows how to get involved. If you see a need in your community, talk about it at this week's meeting. If we want to be part of an organization that's strong, that's active, that's having an impact – start at home, and Be the Inspiration in Rotary.
Without The Rotary Foundation's Endowment Fund, our efforts would be for naught. The endowment is the backbone of Rotary's efforts around the world, providing access to the time, talent, and resources needed to make a difference. Our goal of building the Endowment Fund to $2.025 billion by 2025 and this year's fundraising goal of $380 million are surely some of the most important tasks at hand for our organization.
Your financial support has made possible every single thing that Rotary has done over the years. But what's equally essential – and might sometimes be in danger of being overlooked – is your participation.
Without you, Rotary is nothing. The Foundation needs your presence, your input, and your creative mind just as much as it needs your generous financial backing. Your Rotary club needs you to be there at meetings – not to warm a chair, but to engage, to inspire.
I shared last month how my relationship with Rotary changed when I went from being a tepid (at best) seat-warmer to a committee chair who was engaged and focused. You don't need to wait for someone to ask you to chair a committee or be a club officer to begin to transform your Rotary journey. There's a place in Rotary for all of you to step up and become people of action.
Be engaged. Working with your club on service projects that qualify for District Designated Funds is one way to participate and use your voice to make a real difference. If your club has no service projects that interest you, work on getting some new ones underway. Carry out community assessments to find out how we can best use our resources to create positive change.
This month, I invite you to transform the way you think about your involvement with Rotary. Consider every meeting a chance to discover new channels for your energy and to brainstorm with like-minded Rotarians about how you can work together for a better world.
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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