Meeting for the Week of Apr. 20th, 2015
This Meeting’s Highlights
Speaker: Joanna Jaeger
Program: Creative Ideas for Employment for People with Developmental Disabilities
Meeting for the week of April 20th to 26th, 2015
Greetings
The Welcome
Welcome, everyone, to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!When I first began to work on this week's meeting, I was in Tahoe City for a conference of college educators to help them learn about possibilities with technology. Had I written these greetings then, it would have allowed for a continuing of greetings from places other than home.As it is, though, I got distracted (a rather continual occurrence in my life), and am now back at home, it's Sunday afternoon, and I've just spent two days at our district's annual conference. Cool and inspiring stuff! More about that soon.I hope you'll find plenty to inspire you in this week's meeting! As always, we have word about the good work being done by Rotarians around the world, an image to amaze, a thought-provoking program, and more. That "more" includes a new segment this week, called, "The Tidbit." Please let us know in the comments what you think of it!Guests, we welcome your comments, as well, and ask that you consider contributing the cost of a meal to the service projects our club is putting in motion. Feel free to use our donation system for Happy Dollars, or you can write a check made out to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley and mail it to our treasurer: ℅ Allen Thompson, 13500 Cascade Ct., Bakersfield CA 93314.
Spread Goodwill
This video has been a popular one in education circles for several years. The young man in the piece has become an internet celebrity, and rightly so. Here's some advice he has for you:
Take opportunities this week to say that which brings joy and encouragement into the lives of those around you.
Attendance Reminder
Your president's goal is to have every member attend every meeting this month! Given the clarification sent out at the beginning of April, this is the easiest time there will ever be to do so. Let's make it happen!
The Power of Images
This week we're working to see possibilities that may elude us on first glance. In the picture below, Cool Camera Czar Keith Marsh took a picture in color, and then worked with it in black and white to generate what you see below."Here is another HDR cloud photo I took a few weeks ago. This one was taken from the west end of the San Rafael Bridge looking northwest over the pier at the Marin Rod & Gun Club. I converted it to Black and White with a Photoshop plugin from Nik Silver Efex (now owned by Google)."May you see new possibilities around you every day this week!
Happenings
Club and District Stuff
eClub Social for May, Part 1
A couple of our younger members are working on a plan for a fun social the afternoon of Saturday, May 9th, which may involve a great restaurant, and will surely include fun folks who are members of this club. Please plan to attend, and if you want to bring someone you think would be a good addition to our weekly cyber gatherings, you are certainly welcome to do so.
Top Chef of Dublin
The Rotary Club of Dublin (California, not Ireland), has its annual fundraiser the evening of May 17th. Taste delicious food, sample fine wines, and enjoy craft beers at this gig supporting the club's effort to help Eric's Corner, a resource for education regarding epilepsy. Learn more at the Top Chef of Dublin website.
eClub Social for May, Part 2
There is the possibility that a group of us will go to the San Jose Earthquakes soccer match on Sunday the 24th. If that's of interest to you, send an email to Webmaster Mitty (webmaster@siliconvalleyrotary.com). We hope to have enough of us involved to score some kind of discount. Stay tuned for more details!
The World of Rotary
Rotary International is made up of 1.2 million women and men in about 34,000 clubs, congregated into just over 500 districts. Districts typically have an annual conference, and our district (Rotary District 5170) had its conference last weekend at the DoubleTree in San Jose.Inspiring messages, reports on amazing service projects, and lots of fun highlighted the weekend. Lots of attendees asked about our club and let us know they are excited that we are working to create new avenues for people to join in to explore service possibilities for our communities.A big thanks to member Yvonne Kwan for taking the lead on the decorations of our hospitality suite! Even though she didn't finish work Friday until 8:30, she showed up in time, having picked up lots of goodies we shared with the guests in the suite. Yvonne, you rock!In addition to the celebrated Yvonne, you see on the left, club webmaster and board member Mitty Chang, and on the right, Upward Bound aficionado and way-cool member Andrew Taw. Great work, guys!
Service Time
Perhaps you've been wondering what happens with the data that comes in our service survey. Well, in next week's meeting, you'll learn about some of what's come our way. Been doing some good in the world? Share it in our service survey now!
Money Matters
from treasurer Allen ThompsonGreetings fellow eClub of Silicon Valley Rotarians! Here is your treasurer's report.We're starting to see members' dues payments come in. For those of you who haven't paid your dues yet, please do so as soon as you can. You can send a check to me, Allen Thompson, 13500 Cascade Ct, Bakersfield CA 93314 or, for members who want to pay their dues online, go to https://dev-siliconvalleyrotary.pantheonsite.io/dues/. Dues are $150 and cover the period through June 30. If you need me to resend your invoice, please let me know. Send me an email: treasurer@siliconvalleyrotary.comWhile you're there paying your dues, you may also like to take the opportunity to make a donation to The Rotary Foundation. It's quick and easy, I take care of getting the donation to the Foundation and you only have to tell me if there's a particular fund you want your donation to go to. If you don't specify, I donate the money in your name to the SHARE Annual Fund. That's the one that returns money to our district for our projects. So far this month, members have sent in $600 with their dues for TRF. Awesome!!We also have our Happy Dollars section for our Members and Guests. Please donate Happy Dollars for your memorable occasions and leave us a note in the comments section telling us what your Happy Dollars are for.Some of our members pledged toward gift cards for the Justin's House fundraiser. President Rushton fronted the cash for that and we need to get him paid back. Please send me a check for your pledge or use the Happy Dollars and leave a comment that the money is for Justin's House.A special THANK YOU to the Rotary Clubs of Morgan Hill, Los Altos, Livermore Valley, Palo Alto, Hayward, and Cupertino for their generous contributions to help us get our club kickstarted.Best wishes and yours in Service to Rotary,Allen Thompson
Sharings
A Little Bit of Humor
from member Allen Thompson
Lauren was frustrated. She had complained dozens of times to her teenage daughter about her newest gag of kissing the bathroom mirror immediately after applying lipstick, but it was all to no avail. Finally, one day after spending a half hour scrubbing the mirror, only to find another kiss mark an hour later, Lauren had had enough. “Lizzy!” she hollered, “What?” came her daughter’s reply through her bedroom door. "Have you seen the toilet brush that I’ve been using to clean the bathroom mirror?" The problem stopped.
The Tidbit
This week we begin a new section for our meetings, which we are (for the moment) calling The Tidbit. The idea is to share something very useful, very quickly.The inaugural tidbit will teach you how to re-open a tab you just (accidentally) closed.
Happy Dollars
Sometimes, what makes us happy is a moment for someone we love. Here's a gem from one of our members about her granddaughter:member Linda Tangren ($16)Granddaughter turned sixteen in January and passed her driving test March 19, 2015. Hooray for Kendall!member Rushton Hurley ($5)Here's a happy five for member Linda Tangren, who finished her chemotherapy treatments earlier this month, and is doing well. My wife Tabitha and I will walk for you and all who are fighting cancer at our local Relay for Life later this month!
Fill out my online form.
Selected Comments from Last Week
Last week Dr. Luis Pérez treated us to all sorts of interesting ideas about how to bring opportunities to those with disabilities. A legally blind, celebrated photographer, Dr. Pérez wowed the group in conversation with him. If you missed it, feel free to check out that meeting when you finish this one!
guest Felipe Bittencourt (Brazil)
It is the first time I attended an eclub meeting. I thought it was very well organized. For the theme of teaching to the margins, I really liked how he described the idea of average student. I am not much of a fan of the ordinary school curriculum, as options are always very limited in our local schools in Brazil. A few visionaries are trying to change the idea of measuring people by more than their scores, but it shall take a long time to be embraced by the biggest part of society.
member Andrew Taw (California, USA)
Great presentation! I work with so many students who have a really hard time with test taking and I really appreciate the things you had to say about assessments.
member Chris Cochrane (Ontario, Canada)
Organization of learning/schools is a hot topic. US educations is falling in general behind many places instead of leading the world. Luis, universal design may be a great answer. Keith another stunning photo. You rock!
member John Lozano (California, USA)
Luis, I really enjoyed your presentation, as a participant and viewing it again! Educators can benefit from exploring the area of UDL in their classrooms. So many great resources to discover from your website and CAST.org. I hope to better integrate the UDL philosophy in my school (not just my classroom). Your presentation is very timely as the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s alumni magazine just had a great article about UDL and Dr. Rose’s work (an Ed school alumnae). The article echoes your presentation with the idea of not changing the students but making the curriculum more flexible for the students (and teachers). Keep up the great work and look forward to hearing more about UDL in the future.
member Manju Ramachandran (California, USA)
Great presentation! I loved to hear how architecture was the field where a lot of these standards that we take for granted came from. I’d love to hear more about how these concepts can be integrated with Common Core.
member Shags Shagrin (California, USA)
Have a great time at the District Conference this weekend — wish I could be there for a bit, but no… Next weekend is a great event for a group for whom I serve as treasurer: The Bay Area Storytelling Festival sponsored by the Storytelling Association of California. Info at: http://www.BayAreaStorytelling.org
one more…
And finally, a great message from a visitor following Keith Marsh’s program the week of March 30th about his National Immunization Day trip. The commenting person is a member of the Rotary Club of Smith Mountain Lake, and was on the trip to India with Keith. I asked her what she thought of the meeting and the eclub:
guest Pidge Morgan (Virginia, USA)
I was dragged kicking and screaming into the technology age….so the whole thing surprises me. It was nice to hear Keith talking and see him “in person”. The group that went to India were all very friendly and we did bond. I think most of us are still in touch with each other. I really like the picture of you in the corner while Keith was the main speaker. This was definitely my first eclub meeting and would attend again when I need a make up.
This Week’s Program
One of the principal pieces of our work is helping all people know that they have something to give. Our speaker this week, Joanna Jaeger, is a long-time advocate for children with special needs, and has spent many years working with Parents Helping Parents, a Bay Area nonprofit serving families with children with special needs.
Ms. Jaeger has a son with autism, and is passionate about the value of having the chance to work, both to him and to others with disabilities. She will share many ideas about ways employers can include people with disabilities on their teams, as well as the advantages for doing so.
The primary organization presented is Parents Helping Parents, and you are welcome to learn more about their efforts at their website. You can also get back to the many other links presented in her slides, which are available at this link.
Ms. Jaeger has offered to check in over the course of the week to see what comments may have been left in order to answer questions you might have, so please do leave a comment and a question, if you have one.
Don’t forget to register your attendance below, and we’ll see you next week!
