A Different Model for Small Scale but High-Impact Infrastructure Projects
Meeting for the week of August 22, 2022 - August 28, 2022
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: A Different Model for Small Scale but High-Impact Infrastructure Projects
Speaker: Robert Freeman
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 fellow Rotarians and friends:
August is Membership Month, so it's time to celebrate our club, our members, and the positive actions we carry out locally and internationally. There are many ways to join in the celebration. Need a suggestion? Reach out to our amazing Membership Committee to find out how you can be the next Online Social Star! Whether you want to share your hobby, your profession, your culture, or your passion, you can do so by speaking at one of our social events!
Your vocation matters to us, and it matters to Rotary. You are the ones who dream big to change the world through ideas and meaningful projects. For this reason, as we make membership one of our priorities this year, let us be sure to value and engage current and new members because an engaged Rotarian is one of the most valuable assets.
Another way to get engaged is to help us increase our online presence. Each of you is our club brand ambassador, and all of the wonderful work done by our members around the world needs to be shared inside and outside the Rotary community. I’m challenging every member, during the coming weeks, to post about and showcase the work of our club online. Use social media to tell your friends, colleagues, and relatives about our programs, speakers, and the cool stories of our club.
Finally, as you know, this year’s focus will be on health, and as we get plans in order and related activities scheduled, I encourage you to participate actively in our upcoming projects.
Let's continue to support the great work of Rotary through our vocations and membership. There is so much we can do!
Yours in service,
Angelica Marotta, PhD
President 2022-2023 Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, Rotary International District 5170
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 !
More Olives
A fellow came into a bar and ordered a martini. Before drinking it, he removed the olive and carefully put it into a glass jar. Then he ordered another martini and did the same thing. After an hour, when he was full of martinis and the jar was full of olives, he staggered out.
""Well,"" said a customer, ""I never saw anything as peculiar as that!""
""What's so peculiar about it?"" the bartender said. ""His wife sent him out for a jar of olives.""
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.
Some bad habits kill you. If you're a bear, and you're getting into the habit of eating human food, this applies to you. This story is about that reality, but also about how we can learn from being the cause of the bear's bad habit.
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.
As a follow-up to last week's photo, here is the blossom on the Sempervivum succulent a week later. Looks like something from the depths of the Mariana Trench.
Learn Something New
For All the Woodworkers Out There!
When I owned a house, I liked to do projects that involved wood. Wish I knew these tips then! (My first adventure was framing a cedar closet in the basement on a Sunday afternoon in the fall, and I drove a 3" sinker nail into the water main pipe hiding behind the floor joist to which I was anchoring it! Emergency plumber call during football season on a weekend...)
Connect with ReCSV on Facebook
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: A Different Model for Small Scale but High-Impact Infrastructure Projects
Speaker: Robert Freeman
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!
Our speaker this week, Robert Freeman, is the Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project (TGUP). Mr Freeman was homeless in high school, but later spent six years in the U.S. Merchant Marines. Upon getting out, he spent nineteen years in the computer industry, culminating as VP, International Marketing at Sybase, one of the largest software companies in the world. He then turned to teaching, spending sixteen years at Los Altos High School, in Los Altos. It was while there that he founded One Dollar For Life, TGUP’s predecessor. He holds a BS in Economics from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Stanford University.
TGUP has built 260+ low-cost, small-scale, high-impact infrastructure projects in the developing world: classrooms, libraries, medical clinics, water wells, science labs, etc. These projects are helping more than 1 million of the world’s poorest people have just a slightly better chance in life.
Mr Freeman will discuss how he started TGUP, its work today in 22 developing world countries, and his vision for how this model can raise the trajectory of human development, including the role that service organizations like Rotary International can play to help dramatically improve the human condition.
Members and guests, please welcome Robert Freeman!
To learn more, go to:
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.
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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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