From Mean to Meaningful: Lasting Change Through Teacher Mentoring
Meeting for the week of May 30, 2022 - June 05, 2022
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: From Mean to Meaningful: Lasting Change Through Teacher Mentoring
Speaker: Jan Brown
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.
Members and guests,
Welcome to this week’s meeting of the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
May is Youth Service Month on the Rotary calendar and focuses on Youth Service, which is one of the five Avenues of Service, which recognises the importance of empowering youth and young professionals through leadership development programs such as Interact, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, and Rotary Youth Exchange.
As a reminder, Rotary is responding to the crisis in Ukraine, with many Rotary Clubs taking swift action and providing food, water, medical equipment, and shelter for Ukrainian refugees. According to Rotary International, the war in Ukraine is having devastating consequences on civilians as families flee their homes. According to the United Nations, more than 3.5 million people, most of them women and children, have sought refuge in neighboring countries and across Europe, while about 7 million more people have been displaced within Ukraine.
You can learn more about Rotary’s response (Rotary responds to Ukraine crisis) and how Rotary and Rotaract Clubs throughout Europe are providing humanitarian support (Rotarys network enables rapid humanitarian relief for Ukrainian refugees). The Rotary Foundation has designated its Disaster Response Fund as the main avenue for contributions (The Rotary Foundation creates channel for direct humanitarian support in Ukraine region), which you can support by making a donation here (Disaster Response Fund | My Rotary). Donors who contribute to the Disaster Response Fund will receive full recognition for Paul Harris Fellow, Paul Harris Society, and / or major donor status (however, those donations will not count toward Club or District Annual fund achievement). Your contributions will enable Rotary, Rotarians and Rotaractors in the region to Serve to Change Lives.
Brett Sham
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 !
My Spouse is Mad...
I hate it when my spouse gets mad at me for being lazy.
It’s not like I did anything!
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we share a short video highlighting innovation, education, entrepreneurship, or whatever we think might inspire you to see the world in new ways.
What does the idea of "pilgrimage" mean to you? Have you ever walked a long way because you chose to? This video is about the Camino de Santiago in Europe, and may get your thoughts in motion for a trip to Spain.
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.
This photo was taken in Norway by Alexandre Correia. The left half of the sky is the Auroa. On the right, ice crystals create "light pillars".
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.
Click on Image
More Food Hacks -- In a Webpost!
Here's a great article on some food hacks. It won't take too long to scroll through them. Some are quite clever!
Relay for Life
Hello, everyone!
We're still waiting on the final totals for the event, but at the moment, the event has raised a little over $54,000 to help fund research to fight cancer, run programs for survivors and caregivers, and develop educational materials to help people lower their risk for contracting cancer.
My ACS page is where our donations happened, and we are just shy of the $1500 goal by about $70. Anyone who wants to help get us over the line, feel free to click on the link at the beginning of the paragraph!
Thanks again to everyone in the club who took part with messages, walking, and/or donations! Here's our team (let me know if you took part but aren't on the list):
Alexandra, Ange, Angelica, Brett, Cecelia, ChrisM, Ferheen, Heather, Keith, MarkB, Martina, Maxi, MikeK, Nick, Olukunle, Raj, Rushton, Sarah, Shags, Tatiana, Terri, and Tzviatko, along with friends of the club Paul Boehm and Tanya Martin
We'll get a more detailed report to you later this month, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from the event:
Delivering food and washing up in the snack shack:
Our 2022 walking team:
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
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! The section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.
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 in the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.
Program: From Mean to Meaningful: Lasting Change Through Teacher Mentoring
Speaker: Jan Brown
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!
What does it really take to create lasting, meaningful changes in education in a developing country? After 12 years as volunteers in Rwanda, the answer to our speakers, Jan Brown and Bill Whipple is clear: encourage analytical thinking, problem-solving, and executive function skills. The teacher mentoring program they run in Rwanda is leading to tangible changes that will last for generations.
Janet Brown is a passionate advocate for high-quality, evidence-based preschool, elementary programs, and teacher education. Her mentors, starting with a teacher in a rural school in Iowa, followed by faculty at Iowa State, Penn State, and the University of Maryland, launched her on a career that now spans more than 50 years. Jan has contributed to education publishing with four leading professional organizations as well as with Crayola. Over the decades, and armed with a camera, she traveled to every continent, except Africa.
When Jan retired, she was ready for more adventures. At the request of Rwandans, she and eventually her husband, Bill Whipple, a retired clinical dietitian, have volunteered and lived in Rwanda since 2010. Jan founded and is president of TEACH Rwanda, an NGO that mentors teachers who have never seen a globe, used a magnifying glass, or read a children's book.
Members and guests, please welcome Jan Brown and Bill Whipple!
You can also follow TEACH Rwanda on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeachRwanda/
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.
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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.
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