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Club Bulletin from 09/01/2015 Meeting
Members:
David Andrews
Joann Burak
Kristy Hebert
CJ Jumonville
Karl Koppy
Penny Menge
Dean Powery
Meredith Robinson
Randy Spitler
Jason Sanchez
Anna Simpson
Chuck Simpson
Yoko Toda
Bob Vaughn
Dan Willeman
Guests:
Max Hill (Rotaract Tulane)
Victoria King (Rotaract at Tulane)
MaryJo Devlin (prospective member)
Andreas Hoffman (Green Light New Orleans)
Katrina10 Day of Service Results:
We had 9 people join us for our work with Green Light NOLA. We built 5 community gardens and also did a lot of weeding and clearing for Central City residents. It was a very beautiful day, for a very difficult remembrance.
District 6840 Foundation, PR, Marketing Seminar:
We had five Riverbend members and our Tulane Rotaract Club to attend the District 6840 Seminar in Poplarville on Saturday, August 29th. At the seminar, CJ Jumonville was awarded the Visionary Leader Award for her work as our president during the 2014-2015 year. In addition, the club received the following awards:
-Star Club Award
-Presidential Citation
-Highest per capita giving for 2014-2015 in District 6840
In addition, CJ presented at the seminar on membership, and Bob presented about the “Foundation Minute”.
News from Kisumu:
Brian has been working to corral Rotary in Kisumu for the last month. Learned a lot of interesting things and insights about members and clubs there, and in the last week or so after a number of recommendations several Rotary members have come forward as really strong committee members and super interested in the project. The newest update as of today is that Brian ended up sitting down with the District Governor who happens to be the wife of the Member of Parliament for the entire region (functionally like a congress member).
All of these people will be meeting with Brian and our project manager (Erick Aluru) tomorrow to tour the water project sites and talk about future growth, sustainability plans, and the global grant.
Rotary Club of East New Orleans / Rotaract Update:
Jason attended the East New Orleans meeting today. The Club is essentially down to 4 members; lost virtually all materials/records during Katrina. President Corey is very overwhelmed. She is very interested in starting a Rotaract Club and also thinking of starting an Interact Club. We should think about if we find members who would be suitable for this club, helping them recruit. Anabel will probably join them for some meetings. The provisional Rotaract Club will meet Wednesdays 2-3pm in the Business School. I will contact Jim Hooper, District Interact Chair, to see if he has any more knowledge of Interact students who went to UNO to try and drum up more recruits.
In other Rotaract news, the Rotaract Club of Tulane University-Madison campus (north of Jackson, MS) received its charter today. The campus has 100 students, and 18 of them will be involved in Rotaract. The president is a 68-year-old undergraduate student!
We will be collaborating with Mark Dispenza (6840) and Steve Jackson (6820) to hopefully connect an Interact-Rotaract Conference this year, as well as have a larger presence at this year’s District Conference.
Rotaract at Tulane Report:
School is back in session at Tulane. The club is gearing up for the club expo and their networking and social event this coming Saturday.
Rotaract Events:
Saturday, September 5, 2015 at 5 p.m. – Rotaract Social, Tulane LBC.
Little Free Library Build
This weekend, Rotaract will be working with Bart Shank of the Rotary Club of Carrollton to build little free libraries. Saturday, 12-4; Monday, 12-4.
Guest Speaker – Andreas Hoffman with Green Light NOLA
Swiss native Andreas Hoffmann founded Green Light New Orleans in 2006 to assist in the sustainable rebuilding of New Orleans and at the same time offset the pollution of his touring band. What began as one man’s “light bulb moment,” Green Light New Orleans now operates one of the largest energy efficiency programs in New Orleans. Green Light’s free CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) and installation program is arguably the most successful large-scale energy efficient light bulb distribution program in the country. Since 2006, they have installed light bulbs in 26,000 homes with the help of 13,000 volunteers.
Green Light has recently expanded its energy efficiency work to include a stronger community health focus and address the fresh food access gap by building free backyard vegetable gardens. Like energy efficient CFLs, backyard vegetable gardens serve as a tool by which residents can save money on reoccurring costs and reduce their own carbon footprint. Gardens have the added benefit of increasing a family’s access to fresh, affordable produce. Green Light has developed a simple, raised-bed garden system that can be easily reconstructed by volunteers in backyards throughout the city.
They currently have a community/teaching garden at 2420 Cambronne Street. On a periodic basis, Green Light will post that they have an abundance of crops available for free from 8-8:30am. Check out nextdoor.com for posts.
We need SPEAKERS:
We still have a LOT of holes in our schedule, including this week, which is why tonight we went over our upcoming service projects. Jason will be assigning each member to come up with a guest speaker in the coming weeks. If you have someone who might make a good speaker, please let me, Meredith Robinson, or Anna Simpson know.
Upcoming Speakers:
Sept 8, 2015: Cassie Schwartzmann “Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of New Orleans”
Sept 15, 2015: Florence Andre "Nola4Women"
Oct 06, 2015: Morgan Sasser "Arts Council of New Orleans"
Oct 13, 2015: Tim Paulin "Business Network International"
*We are looking for speakers for September and October dates