(If you have any comments or questions, please contact the editor)
Program for Tuesday, Jan 19, 2016
There is no speaker for Tuesday, Jan 19, 2016. President Alison will preside at a Club Assembly. Club Presidents are required to have 2 Club Assemblies during their presidency.
Meeting Assignments
Date
Who Am I
Rotary Minute
Jan 19, 2016
Jean Loo-Russo
Peter Shusterman
Jan 26, 2016
Jeanne MacLaren
Jon Shea
The member assigned to Who Am I is also responsible for providing the positive thought at the beginning of the meeting and introducing visiting Rotarians and guests.
The member assigned to Rotary Minute is the assigned Greeter for that day and also is tasked with selling opportunity drawing tickets.
Rotary International President-Elect John Germ announced his theme today at the International Assembly meeting at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. Every year the incoming president of Rotary International addresses the incoming district governors that will be serving their districts during his term as president. These incoming district governors are the first to see the theme for their year in office.
The Rotary International theme for 2016-2017 is: Rotary Serving Humanity and the theme logo is displayed at left.
Our District, Rotary District 5340, is hosting a dinner and beer tasting event at the Stone Brewery at Liberty Station on Tuesday, February 9.
The location is Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Liberty Station; 2816 Historic Decatur Road, San Diego. The event begins with beer tasting at 6:00 PM followed by dinner at 7:00 PM. Music by guitarist John Robinson.
The dinner choices are as follows:
• Braised short ribs, creamy polenta, glazed carrots, Stone Poster jus, and bacon gremolata or
• (vegetarian) Toasted faro risotto, forest mushrooms, English peas, grana padano, and preserved lemon
Reservations can be made by clicking here. When you register, you will need to make your meal choice. The cost is 55.00 per person for the dinner and 2 beer tastings.
Once again, our district is doing something different. Last fall we had wine tasting event. In keeping with the fact that San Diego is also become well known for its craft breweries, the district is sponsoring this beer tasting The number of craft breweries has grown exponentially in San Diego county. One of the most successful breweries is Stone Brewery. Stone Brewery began in San Marcos in 1996 and then moved to their present headquarters in Escondido in 2005. In the past year they have begun construction of breweries in Berlin, Germany and Richmond, Virginia.
Come and enjoy an opportunity to taste the products of our regions most successful brewery at one of their Bistro locations outside Escondido.
Thanks to Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary, Serving Hands International, and the Caster Family Foundation, a Global Grant called “Stitching a Better Future” has been approved by Rotary International, and is now on its way to implementation. DDF refers to District Designated Funds that are distributed to Rotary districts for use in providing to cubs matching grants for funds they raise for local or international projects.
The Global Grant of $40,050 is to purchase sewing machines to equip a sewing workshop in Southeast Juarez, Mexico and teach vocational dressmaking skills to 25 mothers in the area. Funds earned by the mothers are then used to provide scholarships to pay the tuition of children in elementary and middle schools in Juarez. The Areas of Focus of the grant are Economic and Community Development and Basic Education and Literacy. Global grants are matching funds from the Rotary International Foundation for qualifying projects of cooperating clubs who have forwarded grant requests via their districts.
The Primary Host Partner for the project is Rotary Club of Juarez Integra, and the Primary International Club is Rotary Club of Albuquerque Del Norte.
Other partners who contributed to the success of the project are: Rotary Club of Moorpark (District 5240) and Rotary Club of Belen, Rotary Club of El Paso, Camino Real, Rotary Club of Albuquerque Del Sol, Rotary Club of Alamogordo, all of District 5520.
This is just one example of how cooperation and collaboration of Rotary Clubs all over the world can make a difference. This example also demonstrates how otherwise unused club DDF can be used to push worthwhile projects over the top as the clubs work to reach the financial goals. In this case, funds were specifically provided to Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary Foundation by Caster Family Trust with the help of Serving Hands International. Those funds were then matched by District 5340 which pushed the project over the top in its funding goals.
On January 15 - 16, 2016, Rotary International held the first of 5 Presidential Conferences. The conference was held at the Convention Center in Ontario, CA. This is the only conference that will be held in the United States. The theme of this Presidential Conference was Peace and ConflictResolution - one of the areas of focus for the Rotary Foundation. Each day there were three plenary sessions, 9 am, 1 pm and 4 pm. After the first two plenary sessions each day there were breakout session for each of 13 different tracks that represented areas where peace and conflict resolution information and awareness could be applied. To view the list of plenary speakers and the different topics in the various tracks go to: Peace Conference Speakers. The conference was hosted by the following southern California Rotary Districts: 5330, 5320, 5340, 5300, 5280 and 5240.
In each of the plenary sessions there were guest speakers who spoke of their experiences in promoting peace or contributing to resolving problems or raising awareness to make solving problems a reality. Because of the number of tracks and the variety of the subjects covered by the speakers, it is impossible to chronicle them in this article. What was the central theme, however, is the idea that peace is everyone's responsibility. Since our world has changed in ways that that impact our lives in so many ways, it is essential that we not only seek ways to resolve conflicts, but also learn about the various ways that we can contribute to intercepting and preventing situations that could result in violence or conflict. More than one speaker stressed that governments and law enforcement can only know about the threats like the terror attack in San Bernadino or sex trafficing that is occurring in every community if law abiding citizens adopt the motto - If you see something - say something. It is impossible for law enforcement to be available to intercept the threat if they don't know about it. Because of increasing coordination of effort of the terror organizatons or the network of criminal groups, citizens need to be aware. We heard from law enforcement that they would prefer not to have to resort to deadly force because their own lives are on the line in such violent confrontations. We saw in the terror situation in San Bernadino that when the police stopped the couple who were the terrorists, a firefight resulted before the terrorist themselves were killed. We see incidents in the news about police being attacked and killed in situations they face every day.
Another theme of this conference is the difference that one person can make in the lives of others. One of the ways that we can be a gift to the world is by our individual efforts on behalf of any idea or project that will improve the lives of others. Some of the speakers addressed how the efforts of one person who was dedicated and persistent made all the difference in the world.
In the future, the videos and other materials from this conference will be available. Also speakers from the various groups involved in the breakout sessions will be available to speak to us about the facts we need to know in order to contribute to peace locally.
