Delivering Smiles to Children One Birthday Cake at a Time™
Meeting for the week of January 04, 2021 - January 11, 2021
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Delivering Smiles to Children One Birthday Cake at a Time™
Speaker: Alison Bakewell
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page.Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time. Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
To properly attend this meeting, please:
Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from our Club President
Welcome to 2021!
Are you a new visitor? Then I want to welcome you to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley's online meeting! Every week we curate inspiring and educational content in an online format like the one you're seeing here. As you continue reading, watching, and scrolling, we hope that you'll leave feeling a little bit more inspired.
Members and returning guests welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year! It's hard to believe that we're already halfway through with this Rotary year. With 2020 behind us, I'm looking forward to seeing what 2021 will bring.
To everyone -- I'm always happy to find out how our club (or how I) can help you out. Reach out to me and let me know how you're doing or post a video in Slack to update the whole club about your life! After all, there's only one of me, and dozens of you! Our club is here to help you improve your community and change the world, but we can only do that if you reach out.
I hope you enjoy this week’s program with our guest speaker Alison Bakewell, from Cake4Kids. Don’t forget to fill out the attendance survey and leave your questions and/or comments in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Have an amazing week!
Yours in Rotary service,
Raquel D’Garay-Juncal
President, Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Guests, we are happy to have you join us this week!
As we see it, our flexibility as an online, asynchronous club allows a special type of service to Rotarians around the world: we make it easier for anyone to strive for and maintain 100% attendance. That keeps you engaged with Rotary's events and ideas, and provides a moment of inspiration for devoting your creativity, talents, and resources to good causes.
You are certainly not required to pay anything in order to attend our meetings. However, if you would like to make a small contribution to our service efforts, you are welcome to do so in our secure Happy Dollars section down the page. This could be what you normally pay at your own club's meetings for lunch, for example. Any amount is welcome, but first and foremost, we're happy you've joined us, and hope you will share with others who we are and what we do to help inspire Service Above Self.
And don't forget to fill out our attendance form so you get an email you can pass on to your club's secretary!
The Four Way Test
The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.
Of the things we think, say or do
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Weekly Funny with Shags.
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin !
An Old Parrot Story...
A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious, and laced with profanity.
John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music, and doing anything else he could think of to clean up the bird’s vocabulary.
Finally, John had had enough. In exasperation one day, he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. He shook his fist at the parrot, but the parrot just got angrier and even ruder.
In desperation, John threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes, the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
Fearing he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arm and said:
“I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I am sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behaviour.”
John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behaviour, the bird continued:
“May I ask what the chicken did?”
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
For the weeks of January, I'll bring back some of the best inspirational videos we have shared in meetings past. This one, CNA Speaking Exchange, is one of my favorites and an especially strong one for us - a group that sees possibilities in technology for meaningful connection and service. (We shared this in March of 2015.)
World of Rotary
Every week we will focus on a particular story that tells of our organization and the work of Rotarians in the world.
Through a Rotarian's Lens
Sometimes a photo can capture an amazing moment. In this section Member Keith Marsh shares his incredible photography!
If you'd like to submit a photo for this section please contact Keith.
Kohana Rock at Hetch Hetchy near Yosemite. After mid night, it was a two mile hike back to the parking lot.
Learn Something New
This section is curated by members Shags Shagrin and aims to teach our members and guests something new, fun and useful! If you have any ideas on a fun trick or skill you'd like to share please contact Shags.
Get Up and Shake It!!!
Happy New Year, All!! To continue the party, here's an interesting video featuring some great physical comedy: "Evolution of Dance". "From the robot to the chicken dance to the twist (but curiously stopping short of the Macarena), inspirational comedian Jud Laipply does it all in this 6-min. dance sequence. Moving seamlessly between eras, Laipply has been viewed more than 138 million times for a reason — his video triggers nostalgia in the happiest of ways. We can all remember, begrudgingly or not, mimicking Vanilla Ice or the cast of Grease at one time or another, though maybe not with Laipply's infectious enthusiasm." Here's one of YouTube's All-Time Top 50 Videos!
Service Report
Tell us about service you’ve done recently in your community.
Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
On the first meeting of every month, we feature service reports from club members for the previous month. Thanks for your service everyone!
Week of Jan 3rd - Donate blood or donate money if you can't donate blood or drive someone to donate blood
Bay Area:
Stanford Blood Center
American Red Cross
Don’t forget to take a selfie or a screenshot and post it to the #52-ways-to-be-a-more-engaged-rotarian channel!
https://app.slack.com/client/TNH7VRC0M/C01CQ53AE95
Thank you to Rushton for posting about his donation!
"For the last #52-ways-to-be-a-more-engaged-rotarian for 2020, Tabitha and I gathered up several old (but clean) towels and rugs, some extra kitty food and treats, and even mouse toys, and took them over to the Humane Society of Silicon Valley. Great folks, and also the place where we adopted Luna and Lola two and a half years ago!"
Club Announcements
Haven't joined the conversation on Facebook yet? Consider joining the conversation by signing into our club members-only Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotarysiliconvalley/
Service Project Information
Club members, if you are participating or have previously participated in a service project as part of our club, could you please complete the following form:
https://forms.gle/jxfpHHiKBv7P5YXy5
New Members Introduction
Felix Pretscheck
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.
Past Events:
Upcoming Events:
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
District 5170 Events
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email inquiries@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Happy Dollars: Do Good by Sharing Something Good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it’s appropriate!)
Here are the happy dollars contributions from last week!
This section is usually updated on the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.
Catherine A made a Other Amount donation.
In this challenging year RESV members shared online meeting tools with other Rotary clubs, when the pandemic prevented their gatherings. Our RESV members continue to work dilligently towards Rotary goals. Please us these funds for RESV projects.
Rory Olsen made a $20 donation.
This week just passed was weird. the two days before Christmas were cold and blustery. Then on Christmas Eve it went up into the seventies. Lots of Merry Christmas texts. Please apply my gift to Polio Plus.
Program: Delivering Smiles to Children One Birthday Cake at a Time™
Speaker: Alison Bakewell
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub nor Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
Cake4Kids provides free birthday cakes to at-risk youth and foster children, ages 1-24. For those who are homeless, low-income, victims of abuse or trafficking, or in the foster system, there isn’t always a reason to smile. Our goal is to give each child a special day through the seemingly simple gesture of a custom cake, in an effort to boost their self-esteem.
Our speaker, Alison Bakewell, is responsible for Operations at Cake4Kids. She has been active in many local non-profit organizations and has felt most inspired by the mission of Cake4Kids. She joined Cake4Kids as a baker in 2013 and was eager for the opportunity to become involved in the operations ensuring that as many children as possible felt special on their birthday. In late 2016 she transitioned to run operations after Trish O'Dwyer left to pursue her passion for chocolate making.
Before joining Cake4Kids. Alison spent more than 25 years in the high-tech industry in progressive IT roles through to the executive ranks. Alison is a Bay Area native and lives in San Jose with her husband, Tom. Their 7 children live throughout the Bay Area and Boulder, CO.
Upcoming Program Recording Schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
You’re Almost Done! Please complete The Attendance Survey…
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done.
We have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.
Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.
For all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
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