Meeting Notes
August 18, 2020
Here’s our news for this week:
Rotary News
President Paul welcomed everyone to today’s Mountain View Rotary Meeting. The Rotary International theme for this year is “Rotary Opens Opportunities.” Our Club theme is “We Open Opportunities For Everyone in the Community.”
Paul recently forwarded an email from our Foundation Chair, Monique Kane, describing the Club’s efforts to have 100% participation in this year’s contributions to the Foundation. Please write your checks to The Rotary Foundation and send them to Monique Kane, 663 Wildwood Lane, Palo Alto, California 94303.
Paul also mentioned that we already have a member of the President’s Club this year and he thanked Tori for her contribution. The President’s Club is $150 with $100 going to the Club Endowment and $50 going to the Club Account. For those who would like to join, please make your checks out to the Mountain View Rotary Club and send them to Mountain View Rotary President’s Club, PO Box 390280, Mountain View, California 94041.
From Heather: If you have speaker ideas for the upcoming year, please sign up for a week(s) or month via this spreadsheet or contact me by email (hsten@me.com) or phone: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yWN7DTtzVo5i8Zk8lAeZFM8f6fZ0D5-b/view?usp=sharing.
If anyone knows of any of our members in distress or that need anything, please let President Paul or one of the Board Members know. We want to make sure everyone knows that we are here to take care of each other.
Speaker
Heather introduced our four panelists from the Club speaking about Changing Times Due to Pandemic.
Cathy spoke about how COVID has affected the retail world, particularly some of the smaller shops in the area. She works part time at Brighton Collectibles in Palo Alto. The store was forced to shut down on March 16th when shelter in place was ordered in Santa Clara County. They were able to open again on a limited basis on July 2nd with a number of restrictions in place. There are only two salespersons in the store and no more than four customers at any one time. The salespersons must wear facemasks at all times and keep a safe distance from the customers. They provide hand sanitizer and facemasks for the customers. With her face mostly covered, Cathy has learned to communicate a lot more using her eyes. They are slowly finding a new normal operation for the store, but sales are down approximately 50% from this time last year.
Ken spoke about the operations of medical offices. The goal of his office is to protect both staff and patients and see everyone that needs to be seen. Although they are deemed an essential service, they don’t see everyone requesting service. If they have an urgent issue such as eye pain, reduced vision or prolonged redness, they may be seen virtually and if necessary, they will be given an office appointment. If it is not urgent and can be scheduled at a later time, the office will follow up in the future. Before seeing any patient, a questionnaire is provided asking questions about the person’s current health and any potential exposures to COVID. When they enter the medical building, they must be wearing a facemask without a filter, wash their hands, and their temperature is taken. Plexiglas shields are installed throughout the office and all the staff wears facemasks and face shields.
Tom spoke about volunteering during the pandemic and shared his experience at CSA. They depend heavily on volunteers and COVID has had a huge impact on their operations. Since many more people are needing services, there is a need for more volunteers. Unfortunately, because of the fears of contacting COVID, many of the previous volunteers who were older and at higher risk are no longer volunteering. The hope is that once a solution is found to prevent the transmission of COVID, the former volunteers and hopefully many new ones will be able to assist at CSA once again. Even when a solution to COVID is found, the lingering financial issues are sure to affect this region for some time and CSA will need more volunteers than ever.
Gunther gave us some insight into how the pandemic has been handled in Germany. Because of the pandemic, Gunther has not been able to travel outside of Germany for the last six months. To address the pandemic, German officials enacted a strict shelter in place order and enforced it fairly rigidly. You had to have a good reason to go outside and you were fined if you didn’t. The result was a low number of COVID cases in Germany (.3% of people in Germany infected versus 1.7% of people in US). The economy in Germany was affected in the second quarter of the year but seems to be bouncing back. Unemployment remains very low. Gunther’s business is doing well and they are involved in developing treatment solutions for COVID. His family is doing well although they miss our Club and the Bay Area. They send their regards.
Other Stuff
Here are a few photos Jim Cochran sent:
No retro photos this week, but take the dare and send some my way. Let’s see if our members can guess who it is.
Remember, send me some stuff so we can make this interesting and keep it going. And don’t forget the photos. Send it to bbarsi@msn.com. And take good care of yourselves.
Next Meeting
Tuesday, September 1, 2020, via Zoom. We have social time between 12:00 pm and 12:15 pm and then the meeting from 12:15 pm to 1:00 pm. The topic of this meeting will be announced in a future email and a Zoom link will be provided prior to the meeting.