Rotary in Motion
Meeting August 13, 2015
Announcements and Reminders
Rotarian(s) of the week (for heading up the plans for the Governor’s visit) were John Fischer and Jerry Pettibone. The Governor gave them an official Rotary satchel for their Rotary work.
There will be a Project Fair before cabinet meeting on Sept 2nd
Art announced Stan is improving. Art can give you the phone number if you’d like to call or visit.
September 19th, Beach Cleanup will occur. The sign-up sheet will be passed around next week
“Rotary in Motion”
Out District Governor, Susan Valenta, from the Gilroy Club where she has been a member for 20 years, spoke to us today. She is retired after 24 years with the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce and is actively involved on community boards. She has three children (including one daughter in Aptos!) and six grandchildren. She spoke about Rotary District 5170.
“Rotary in Motion”
Out District Governor, Susan Valenta, from the Gilroy Club where she has been a member for 20 years, spoke to us today. She is retired after 24 years with the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce and is actively involved on community boards. She has three children (including one daughter in Aptos!) and six grandchildren. She spoke about Rotary District 5170.
Ms. Valenta gave us some geographical background. Our District encompasses 4 counties (Alameda, San Benito, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz) an area of 3.5 million people. In it there are 53 clubs with 3800 Rotarians and growing. Our District 5170 is part of Zone 26 which runs from Western Canada out to Hawaii. Nationwide there are 1.2 million Rotarians and there are almost 35,000 clubs throughout the world.
We are a high performing district. We gave $738,000 to the Rotary Foundation with total giving of almost a million over the year. We have the largest number of InterActors in the world. We also have fast membership growth, We are active locally and internationally. She encouraged our club to ‘like’ the District 5170 Facebook page and let the whole district know what we are doing.
She made the case for Rotary action for children in the world with water and food insecurity, homeless families, and forced marriages for young girls. She stressed that we have the power to change the course of humanity with our service. 10% of the world is illiterate and 800 million suffer from chronic hunger and more from water borne diseases, but Rotarians are making a difference.
She loved the quote by Malala Yousafza who said ‘if you want to change society, you must step forward.’
She told us a story about a Rotary International Immunization Day in West Africa which resulted in a micro finance loan package that drilled six water wells for 100,000 people. She said it was amazing what we do.
Ms.Valenta then spoke about our own club and what we had accomplished for the last 50 years. She mentioned among other things, the RYLA academy , 2 InterAct clubs, 20 community grants, our foreign exchange student, RotoCare, our classroom supplies donations, our scoreboard, and our international service in various countries, including wheelchair distribution in Mexico, and our 50th anniversary.
She asked us to mark our calendars for the District Conference on April 29th where we’ll meet at Blackhawk Automobile Museum . It will be a phenomenal time and she encouraged us all to come and celebrate ourselves!
The meeting closed with RYLA representatives from Soquel High, Ella and Michelle, who made a moving presentation about their recent RYLA camp experience.
