"Hi Rotarians,
I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. Thank you for your participation in our Club and for your continued support for our Zoom meetings and the many activities that we have going on with our Club.
Following last week’s event, I would like to especially like to thank Co-President Linda Spear and Rotarian Josh Staller for a helping us through the “Happy Hour” and Cinco de Mayo celebration.
I know we all very much enjoyed seeing and getting to know other Rotarians in our Club, with a nice margarita or beverage of choice! I am looking forward to another similar event at the end of May. Thanks so much to all for making this a great evening.
For the month of May, we have some excellent speakers who will be at our meetings on Zoom. Just as a reminder, all of our meetings will start with the Pledge of Allegiance at a few minutes past 1:00. Following the Pledge, we will recite the Rotary Four-Way Test and ask for “moments of inspiration.”
Then, following a brief introduction, we will enjoy a few Rotarian "Happy Bucks” and a few general comments. At this point, I will introduce the speaker and will be asking all participants (members) to “mute” their PCs or telephones to listen to our speaker, until we have questions and answers. Following the Q and A, we will then discuss projects or other Rotary issues, followed by adjournment.
The “line up" of programs and speakers for May is as follows:
Starting on May 6, a District-sponsored speaker, Mendhi Audlin, will speak to our Club about “Embracing Change When Old Ways Don’t Work.” Mendhi has been listed by the District as part of the District’s work in promoting speakers who can discuss the impacts of the coronavirus to all of our Rotarians throughout the District.
Mendhi will provide some “up to date” information about ways to work through this terrible pandemic and then respond to questions about the pandemic.
On May 13, Patty Burnett will be our speaker, and she talk to us about a new grant which was just approved by Rotary International for $20,000. This grant was given to support the District’s initiatives on mental health, especially during this critical time period. I know you will enjoy learning about the many ways Rotary Clubs have helped in supporting mental health initiatives and finding ways to continue to assist our populations with severe mental health issues.
On May 20th, Wendy Rubin, Englewood Schools Superintendent and Englewood Rotary member, has confirmed that she will be speaking to our Club (and possibly with a Powerpoint presentation), to review the District’s work in completing so many new school facilities in Englewood, to talk to us about current school issues, and to discuss the current problems and issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wendy has a very important and difficult job in working through all of the issues affecting our youth, teachers and academic environment, and I am especially pleased that she has agreed to tell us about our Englewood Schools at this upcoming meeting.
I’m sure you will enjoy listening to her presentation and to those of our other May meeting speakers. Following Wendy’s discussion and Q and A, we will have our monthly Board meeting.
A few final comments: We haven’t considered our May “end of month” event on Zoom, so please let the Board know about any thoughts or ideas you may have for this end of month “event.” Also, I am pleased that our Zoom meetings have been so well attended and enjoyable to all of our members. Because we have such a great line-up of speakers for May, please think about inviting others to attend our meetings, but if you do, please make sure that you let Josh Staller (our Zoom host) know, so we can send them a link.
From a membership viewpoint, like other Clubs in our District, we are always looking for adding good members to our Club who can become part of our Rotary family. If you know someone who may be interested in what we do for the Englewood community, please invite them to one of our upcoming meetings in May!!
Finally, I am looking for speakers and classification talks by member for June. Please let me know if you know of someone you know who would be good speaker for one of our June meetings; or if you are interested in giving a brief “classification” talk to our Club about your work or activities you are involved in, please let me know and we can schedule you for one of the meetings. We would enjoy knowing more about you as a Rotarian!!
I wish you the best and look forward to seeing you at our upcoming meetings in May.
Gary