Save the Planet in Your Spare Time
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF Sept 30, 2024
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Save the Planet in Your Spare Time
Speaker: Joyce Mercado
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 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 encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Message from our President
As the 2024-2025 President of our Club, I welcome our members, fellow Rotarians, friends, and guests. Thanks for joining our weekly meeting!
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!
It's All About Proportions
One semester when my brother, Peter, attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, an art-student friend of his asked if he could paint Peter's portrait for a class assignment. Peter agreed, and the art student painted and submitted the portrait, only to receive a C minus.
The art student approached the professor to ask why the grade was so poor. The teacher told him that the proportions in the painting were incorrect.
"The head is too big," the professor explained. "The shoulders are too wide, and the feet are enormous."
The next day, the art student brought Peter to see the professor. He took one look at my brother and said, "Okay, A minus."
INSPIRATION
If you are thinking about worthy charities for a donation, consider the Rotary Foundation! Here's an example of the peace and conflict resolution program from a few years ago.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
How It's Made
I make cheesecakes, but not in this volume. Wow!
Club News For Members
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Our Weekly Bulletin, sent every Monday, provides club information. To stay informed, please ensure your email is current on ClubRunner and add mailservice@clubrunner.ca to your address book so it does not go into Spam.
PROGRAM: Save the Planet in Your Spare Time
SPEAKER: Joyce Mercado
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they 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 or 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, Joyce Mercado, is the author of Save the Planet in Your Spare Time—A Climate Protection Handbook for the Busy Person. The book chronicles Joyce's journey to becoming a climate protection leader in Alameda so others can learn from her experience. Joyce's work covers reducing emissions, writing for the local press, partnerships, and maintaining one's optimism.
Leaders influencing others in their communities to protect the climate, community by community, is an essential element in fighting climate change. With the guidance in this handbook, Rotarians can be an effective part of the solution to the climate crisis. Anyone can be such a leader, even those with a busy life.
Joyce Mercado has been a climate activist in her community of Alameda for the last twenty years, even while holding a full-time job as a Technical Sales Manager for IBM and raising two children with her husband, David. She is a monthly climate protection columnist for the local press, an Al Gore program-trained Climate Reality Project Leader who has given dozens of presentations on climate protection, a member of many climate protection organizations, creator of the Alameda Climate Protection Checklist and Resource List with 70 actions individuals can take and has been recognized by the City of Alameda for her climate protection leadership.
The climate emergency prompted her to write a book when she retired so others could learn from her experience to become climate leaders in their communities. Joyce is a proud Rotarian, serving as Community Service Chair and President of the Rotary Club of Alameda. Joyce has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. For two years, Joyce went to graduate school at Princeton University to study plasma (electrically charged gas) physics. Deciding that plasma physics was not for her, she attended her first on-campus interview and got a job at IBM, which she kept for the next 35 years. Joyce lives in Alameda, California, with her husband, David.
Members and guests, please welcome Joyce Mercado!
To find the book, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Planet-Your-Spare-Time/dp/B0D3MY1XSR
To get the Climate Protection Checklist, go to:
https://casa-alameda.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CASA-Climate-Protection-Checklist-March-2022.pdf
Some other recordings referenced in this talk:
Klara Noray Moradkhan - Durable and Sustainable Pavement Coating (Cool Pavement)
https://youtu.be/-dkRXXATbZM
Seema Lindskog and Rod Sinks - Using Solar Power To Benefit Nonprofits and the Planet
https://youtu.be/0CZrrlRHRt8
Carling Spelhaug - Applying Artificial Intelligence to Modernize Our Recycling Infrastructure
https://youtu.be/hIjToyrv6Vs
Nate Salpeter - Education, Inspiration, & Innovation - How Sweet Farm Impacts More, with Less
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUcMrqYtvk
Our Three Podcast Series
Our main program speakers are available as podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week, they are available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Or you can click below for this week’s speaker:
The Weekly Rotarian
Inspiring Solutions
And our original podcast, featuring some of the best of our previous speakers, is still available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Development Success Stories
Our third podcast features success stories about economic development from around the world. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or you can click below.
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.
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 makeup.
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!
Important: Once you submit the Attendance Survey below, please make sure you see the confirmation message. If you get an error message instead, please try the 'submit' button again, and if that doesn't work, please refresh the page and fill out the form again. Thanks!
