This was the first meeting at our new location, Shir Hadash. The meeting was called to order by President Nicholas Welzenbach at 12:30. This was also our first hybrid meeting. Thanks to Doug Brent and Gregg Butterfield you can still attend the meetings remotely. Nicholas’ mom joined us from Kansas. Nicholas also thanked Lisa Cheskin for all her work arranging our new meeting place. Please thank the staff members at Shir Hadash if you see them.Guests:
July birthdays introduced by Marlon Smith
- Todd Taylor
- Art Rabitz
- Sarita Johnson
- Eric Beckstrom
- Ron Cassel
- Tom O’Donnell
- William Pope
- Karen Anderson
Announcements:
Member spotlight this week is Haryl Pascal. Haryl said he has really enjoyed his time in Rotary and all the wonderful people he has met.
Thank you to Amy Potts and Rachelle Lopp for all your PR work including the member spotlight.
New Red Badge member is Bobbi Bornstein. Bobbi works with West Valley Community Services. She’s looking forward to working with the club. We look forward to supporting WVCS.
Santa Maria Urban Ministry could use volunteers for various activities. Click here to see the flyer. She will be taking donations on a regular basis. Please drop off your donations at Marty’s office.
Tina Orsi-Hartigan announced the BBQ will be Aug. 24 at Oak Meadow. Cost is $45, this is adults only. NO meeting that day. More information to follow.
Ron Cassel presented an award to Don Kuehn for his 31 years of service. Don was recognized for the way he has represented truth and fairness, goodwill, better friendships and working for the benefit of all mankind. Congratulations Don and thank you.
Lydia Norcia told us our club will have a booth at the LG Chamber Funfest being held every Thursday evening until Aug. 26. We will need help staffing the booth which will be in front of Ed Stahl’s Travel Advisors. Let Lydia know if you would like to sign up.
First Tuesday will be Aug. 3, TBD
No 20 for 20 today.
Today’s program was Dr. Nguyen from the Saratoga HS Robotics team. He explained that he became involved because his son was interested and they needed an advisor. Dr. Nguyen is a cardiologist with no experience in robotics. He explained all you need to help out is a passion and willingness to learn. The students learn so much more than robotics. In addition to programming and building experience they learn leadership, cooperation, professionalism and presentation skills. They use terms like gracious professionalism and coopertition (not sure of the spelling).
It is important to Dr. Nguyen that the students see the world as a fixable place. We can see they have learned this through some of the activities they have undertaken such as mentoring other teams throughout the world during the pandemic. They are also active with an organization that builds limbs for children with limb differences. Several of the students spoke about their work with Go Baby Go which modifies toy cars for children with mobility issues. It was heartwarming to see how much these students enjoy both the competitive aspect of the team, as well as the good work they can do with their skills.
Next week’s meeting Rachelle Lopp and Meghan Burton have arranged for us to sort bulk PPE into individual packets for the organization Sourcewise. This will take place at our next meeting in lieu of a program.