Mountain View Rotary Club
Meeting Agenda - November 14, 2017
Notes by Bill
President’s Greeting:
Good afternoon! I’d like to welcome you to the Rotary Club of Mtn. My name is Scott Johnson, your President for 2017-2018
Our Rotary International theme for this year is “Rotary: Making a Difference.” Our District Governor Orrin Mahoney’s theme is “Developing Lifelong Friendships, While Making a Difference.” Our Mountain View Rotary Club is “Having Fun Making a Difference.”
Pledge of Allegiance – By
Monique
Thought for the Day: – Rotarian Bill Maston shared his thoughts on our current President. His hopes are that regardless of what each person thinks of the President’s actions, it will inspire more of us to be more involved in our government.
Song of the Day: – Songmaster
Phil led us in the classical
“la cucaracha” in honor of our fellow Rotarian
Frank. The song proved to be a tongue twister for sure
Meet & Greet - After a few minutes of socializing, visiting Rotarians and guests were introduced. Fellow Rotarian Thomas Ditler was not present but his sister and mother from Germany came in his place. We could all see the family resemblance. Thomas’ sister is also a Rotarian in Germany. Also in attendance was a couple from North Carolina who had come for a visit as part of a trip to the Intuit campus in Mountain View.
Introduction of Visiting Rotarians & Guests: Scott
Announcements:
- Thanks to Bill for being the “4’fer” today!
- Vocational Service Minute: Dick
- Auction. – Tori who is offering her vacation home in Santa Fe as an auction item provided us with beautiful photographs of her lovely remodeled home. It is over 4,000 sq. ft. 4 bedrooms and 4 baths with two master suites. This home is located in the Santa Fe city center only a block away from the downtown city plaza. This unique home is graciously being offered by Tori, please get your checkbooks ready for this once in a lifetime offer. The auction will take place in two weeks and our auctioneer will be the world famous fellow Rotarian Alan. See link below.
- FaceBook Promo. – Fellow Rotarian Anita gave us a brief demonstration about how to get to the Mountain View Rotary Facebook page in hopes that we will visit their page and click both “like” and “follow”. Of course, doing so will increase our visibility in the community.
- Community Service Announcements? -- Dave and Jim
- Bell Ringing, Salvation Army, Sat, Dec 9th … Jim
- Cops & Goblers, Sun, Nov 19th … Bruce
- Club Service Announcements? - Friendly reminders, Anita is hosting our next social starting at 5:30pm on November 28th at her home. Mark the date, the address is to follow. Also, don’t forget our December Holiday Party on Saturday December 16th. A no-host cocktail hour starts at 6:00pm with dinner to follow and will take place at Don Giovanni’s, 235 Castro Street, Mountain View.
- President’s Club: Thanks to all! We are presently up to 21 members for a total of $3,150.
- Next Board Mtg: Thursday, November 16th. 4 p.m. due to Julie Rose’s retirement party.
- Members to Remember? - Bert unfortunately had a minor eye injury. He’s assured us that he will be ok but cannot drive at the moment. It would be great if we could reach out to him.
Personal Sharing/Announcements:
- November Bdays: 16th – Ernie Hawks; 16th – Bert Raphael; 22nd – Hal Taylor
- November Anniversaries:
- Other things to share? - Keeping with tradition in anticipation of “the big game” between Stanford and Berkeley, Fred and Ken placed their $50 bet on the game. Fred generously provided Ken a 16-point spread on the game. Can’t wait to see the outcome.
Speaker: - Our guest speaker was Marsha Deslauriers is Executive Director of Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC). She has taken over the helm from our own fellow Rotarian Monique Kane. After a brief introduction, Marsha focused on the changing trends and needs of the clients making use of the resources at CHAC. The CHAC programs help more than 3,500 kids and young adults in our immediate community each year. The majority of those services are provided by CHAC interns who volunteer their time. Each intern on average has more than ten years of training experience. The focus of the classes they teach to individuals is based upon understanding social and behavioral skills which hopefully leads to prevention.
Marsha firmly believes that the 44-year history of CHAC has had a long term, positive ripple effect on our community. Marsha’s observation is that most all of their new clients are dealing with major anxiety and stress which is emphasized by the pressure cooker of Silicon Valley. These stress and anxiety issues are unfortunately visibly apparent in young children as young as 8 or 9 as well as young adults and older family members. Unfortunately, the problem has become so bad that the overall suicide rate has gone up more than 50% in the last 8 years. A matter of fact, suicides in young people is now the #2 cause of death in the United States for their age group. Youth depression has also increased as young children feel as they have no control over their time. Parents are also stressed for the same reason due to conflicts in balancing work with home life and children. This has unfortunately created a situation where many time kids are raising kids.
Another major influence on the increase of anxiety, stress and depression has been social media. Marsha pointed out that when we were kids if we did something bad very few people knew about it and it was forgotten about within days or weeks. However, with social media regardless of what you do, everybody in the whole world instantly knows about it. This unfortunately has many negative effects. Kids are bullied, they have a loss of self-esteem, it increases their anxiety and stress, and adds to depression, the feeling of hopelessness, suicide and death. While in many ways the talk by Marsha was a little overwhelming, it emphasizes the importance of CHAC and the services they provide to the community. However, as with many non-profit organizations, CHAC’s resources are being stretched. Fewer volunteers are able to volunteer, client cases are more complex and take more resources, and the number of clients in the community has continued to increase. Marsha is optimistic about the community and future of CHAC. We were happy to hear Marsha’s updates about CHAC’s roll in the community.
Future Schedule:
November 21st - Leslie Carmichael Hopes Corner 4’fer: Roger Kao
November 28th - Dark, Social at Anita’s house
And remember…“Make Difference and have Fun!”
