The State of the Union on Sports
This Meeting's Highlights
Program: The State of the Union on SportsSpeaker: Jan Eric NordmoMeeting for the week of May 30th to June 5th, 2016
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our meeting!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 45 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; read it while on public transit, waiting in line for coffee, or even at the park! Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
Welcome Members & Guests!
Message from our Club President
What do you love to do? Is there a way that can be something that helps others?A little farther down in our meeting, I'll introduce you to someone who has a challenge, and that challenge might make one guess that the incredible talent he has was never open to him. And yet…We all have abilities, both natural and carefully developed, which can inspire others, and the simple question for most of us is, do we use those abilities in creative and meaningful ways?This may be the week that you decide something that has always been a challenge might be that which can become a strength, and acting on that decision may well inspire others. As Rotary International President Ravi Ravindran would say: Be a gift to the world.
Rotarian guests, we ask that you consider contributing something - whatever for you is the regular cost of a Rotary meal, perhaps - to the efforts of our club. Please choose one of the options below:
Send via our secure Happy Dollars form.
Send via PayPal.
Send via Google Wallet* to: ecsv.rotary@gmail.com
Send via check to the mailing address, below.
* To pay via Google Wallet, you’ll need to log in to your account to donate.Those of you who prefer a more traditional approach can mail a check made out to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley to our treasurer: ℅ Allen Thompson, 13500 Cascade Ct., Bakersfield CA 93314.Non-Rotarian guests, there is no need for a donation from you. As we see it, your job is to simply enjoy what you read and watch, though at the end we do ask that you let us know you were here and also leave a comment letting us know what you think. This club is loaded with folks who love sharing ideas, and we look forward to your sharing yours!
Yours in service,
Rushton Hurley,
President
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
The Power of Images
An image can capture a story or a possibility in wonderful and powerful ways, and we share one or more great images each week in the hope that it will inspire something for you!
A beautiful photo may transport us to another place or an entirely different activity. As we get close to this summer's Olympic Games, we might take a moment to look for the beauty in movement, and let it move us to push ourselves in new directions.
The Power of Ideas
A good thought can inspire us to act in cool and innovative ways, and so we share quotes each week that we think might be inspiring to you.
There are thoughts that can capture our attention, take us out of our comfort zones, and reset our lives' paths, and we love to share those we think might do so for you.Normally we tap a philosopher or literary giant. This week, though, it's a country/western singer.
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,Never settle for the path of least resistanceLivin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell-bent heart leave you bitter,When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance,
I hope you dance!
From I Hope You Dance, by Lee Ann Womack.
The Power to Overcome
This may not seem like the setting for a Dancing with the Stars video. However, the winners of the final season of this show, Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd, had an unusual challenge: Nyle is completely deaf.The freestyle performance is a fairly intense one, but worth sharing for what it says about who we can be, no matter what barriers we may face. Enjoy!
For Our Members: Reminders
Semi-annual Dues
We're getting close to that time, so please plan to respond quickly to our treasurer's message about dues for July to December when that note gets to you in the coming couple of weeks.
Service Survey
Don't forget to add something to the Service Survey, below. Next week, we'll share what everyone has been up to! What you add may inspire something that someone desperately needs.
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we hold regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley every month! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of our events and service projects listed here. Also be sure to join our Meetup Group!
This Week!
Sunday, June 5 - Help Meals on Wheels
Join us for a really fun night volunteering for A Taste of France, a gala fundraising for Meals on Wheels! On Sunday, June 5, some of the best chefs in Oakland will be serving their ever fantastic grub. There’s a silent as well as a live auction and it all takes place on the rooftop garden of the Kaiser Center in Oakland! There will be a volunteer training at 3:00 and the event runs from 4:00-7:30. Because this is such a big event, you’ll notice that you can pick from a wide range of roles.
Click here to sign up! The directions are on the right of the page. Once you’re signed up, feel free to let us know on the Meetup.
Camera Czar Featured!
Anyone taking a good look at the cover of the June issue of The Rotarian might stop and think, "Haven't I seen that picture before?" The answer is yes - it's one we've featured by our own Camera Czar Keith. We love seeing one of our own get that kind of recognition. Way to go, Keith!
For Our Members: “Min-e-Grants”
This section is for club members only. We offer $250 grants for our club members to request for a service project members want to start up in their local community. We encourage this seed money as a way to get more collaboration and other organizations involved to make a positive impact locally.
If you know an honorable organization making good things happen in the community, and it's one you try and put time into yourself, and you can find another Rotary club or other organization to match it, you can apply to the club for a grant of up to $250 to help with their work. For the full details and instructions on applying, visit the link below. Please note that this is only open to members of the club.
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Min-e-Grants
The World of Rotary
We are part of the Rotary International family, with over 1.2 million members in over 180 countries around the world. Rotary’s reach is global. Here we tell our members and guests about Rotary’s initiatives and events.
Innovative Education in Kenya
This is both a cool story and a preview of next week's program. Global grants are one way that individual clubs work to set things in motion, and depend on Rotarians to make connections and build from them. This project, led by the Rotary Club of DeSoto (Texas) and the Rotary Club of Nairobi (Kenya), aims to address a critical problem in Africa regarding communication and education about HIV/AIDS.https://vimeo.com/158449925I know you'll enjoy next week's program, so please join in!
District Newsletter
You can learn about what's happening in our district via the May newsletter, which is now available at this link. In it, you'll find a recap of our district conference, a great article by Jim Gibson, District Vocational Service Chair, and much more. Enjoy!
For Our Members: Service Survey
This section is dedicated for our members to report to us what service projects they have participated in recently. We love giving shoutouts to our members for the good work and the impact they’ve made in their local communities.
The Service Survey is one of several ways we share who we are as a club. When you visit any Rotary club, you want to know who these people are, what's important to them, and how their club works.With the Service Survey, we tell about the various ways, big and small, we've each taken time to make life a little better for others. What have you been up to? Let us know, as what you say may set in motion something by someone who reads it.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
Happy Dollars
Happy Dollars is the segment of our meeting where anyone can choose to make a voluntary donation to tell us a short story about something good that has happened to them this past week. Maybe someone paid for your coffee, gave you a ride somewhere, or you got a job promotion.
What makes you happy? Was it the graduation of a child, or the triumph of a sports team, or perhaps some moment of hope in the news?Our members and guests are invited to take a moment in this part of the meeting to toss a few dollars toward our club's efforts and share a piece of news. Like every active piece of any Rotary meeting, it's also a chance to share and connect with others. Please join in!member Rushton Hurley ($5)Not a major hockey fan, but I think it's great fun that Silicon Valley's team is heading to its first Stanley Cup Finals. Go Sharks!member John Lozano ($7)With hopes my donation brings good luck to the Warriors game 7!member Keith Marsh ($20)My Happy Dollars are for my recent photo that made the cover of The Rotarian Magazine. [Thanks for sharing the love on that front!]guest Caleb LaPlante ($5)Glad to have found your e-club. I'm a member of the Greater Grants Pass Rotary [Oregon], but look forward to also participating in your meetings as I'm able.member Brian Liddicoat ($15)Twin Peaks, season 3, coming to television next year. After 25 long years since season two's cliffhanger ending, "it is happening again."
Birthdays
After a string of six weeks with each having a member's birthday, we hit a dry spell until the end of June, when we'll celebrate the birthday of Heather Shaw and François Tessier. Until then, find a way each week to surprise someone with a piece of encouragement or good news. A little gesture can go a long way!
The Tidbit
Our Tidbit section is designed to help you learn some technology or other trick to help you out in some way. This week, we honor the inner kindergartner in all of us with this search trick.
Not knowing a definition can leave you a little out of balance. You can tilt things back in your direction by snagging a definition directly from the Google Search page, and it's simple! Here's how:
A Little Humor
We try sharing something funny each week because we believe laughing is healthy! The key word in that last sentence was, “try.”
From the Laugh Factory comes this week's attempt to extract a chuckle.
It's Game 7 of the NBA Finals and a man makes his way to his seat at center court. He sits down and notices that the seat next to him is empty. He leans over and asks his neighbor if someone is sitting there. He responds, "No, the seat's empty."
The first man exclaims, "What?!? Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the NBA Finals and not use it?"
The neighbor responds, "Well the seat is mine, but my wife passed away and this is the first time we haven't been together."
The first man responds, "I'm sorry to hear that. Wasn't there anyone else, a friend or relative, that could've taken that seat?"
The neighbor: "No, they're all at the funeral."
Perhaps she died trying to get him to look away from a game on TV.
Selected Comments from Last Week
Each week we ask our members and guests to leave comments at the bottom of this page, telling what they thought of the program and the meeting. We hope you, will, as well, as it's one way of getting to know you and each other better.
Here are several from last week's meeting, capped by Chase Adam's program on the healthcare crowd-sourcing site, Watsi:
From member Paul Mosso (California, USA):Chase, Thank you for sharing your work with us. This is a very cool program. I like the idea that when you donate you know what the money is going for and the outcome once their treatment is done. This truly lets you help a person as if they were in your own community. Happy Birthday Shags! I hope you enjoyed your day!
From member Nate Gildart (Tokyo, Japan):Chase, what an innovative program, and impressive at how quickly you set up a team and grew the organization. It certainly brings people together, and reminds us of how easy it is to make a difference in the lives of others. Great work! I'll post about Watsi publicly.
From member Brian Liddicoat (California, USA):Chase, you have done more good in your life than I could do in 20 lifetimes. Thank you.
From member Andrew Taw (California, USA):Congratulations on your case, Brian! A big step indeed! Incredibly inspiring project, Chase! I was thinking about Watsi for days afterward and reconsidering what need, great or small, that I could also fulfill.
From guest Sandy Stabile (California, USA):I love the Memory Project. What a huge difference it makes for those children's lives. What a great project for the art class students also. I love your club and the projects that you are doing and have done.
From member Keith Marsh (California, USA):Great program. I love these kinds of success stories. Well done Chase.
From member Linda Diekman (Illinois, USA):Chase! What a great origin story. Your work is inspiring. I often work with young students on service learning projects, and I think there are some great connections between your work and needs of student organizations looking for a cause. Thanks for sharing.
From member François Tessier (Quebec, Canada):Salutations from Sri Lanka!
The Program
We work every week to bring you speakers who see the world in interesting ways and can give us ideas on how to create possibilities for our communities. This week we have with us a Silicon Valley Rotarian, Jan Eric Nordmo of the Rotary Club of Santa Clara, to talk about the "State of the Union" with sports.
His talk will cover the state of sports from the amateur and youth level to the professional level, focusing on issues and challenges faced by athletes, parents, officials, administrators, and fans in sports today. We'll explore whether sport is a reflection of society or society is a reflection of sport, and how the economics of sport may impact all of us. We'll cover concussions, injuries, college recruitment, gambling, sponsorship, the good, the bad and the ugly, forecasting trends, and changes in the industry.Jan Eric is the Past President of the Rotary Club of Santa Clara. He was a professional soccer player and is now an aspiring sports and recreation scientist.Members and guests, please welcome the president of the Arena Soccer Centers, Inc./Off the Wall Soccer, Jan Eric Nordmo!
Learn more about Jan Eric at his Linked In page and at the Off the Wall Sports site.
If wanting to learn more about Jan Eric's topic, you might also check out these sites:
Athletic Business ("the Resource for Athletic, Fitness and Recreation Professionals")
ESPN Sport Science ("uncovers sports' biggest myths and mysteries")
Upcoming Programs
Week of June 6th: Darren Collins - Project HAND UP: Using Puppets to Teach Health Education
Week of June 13th: Chris Cochrane - How to Raise Money Using Video
You’re Almost Done! One last thing: The Attendance Survey..
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done. First, 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 though.
More importantly, for all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment below 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!
