Bringing Together Community Organizations Digitally with xPollinators
This Meeting’s Highlights
Program: Bringing Together Community Organizations Digitally with xPollinatorsSpeaker: Crystal Huang, the creative mind behind xPollinatorsMeeting for the week of January 30, 2017 to February 5, 2017
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; 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 to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Message from President Mitty
Club Elections this week!
Are you a new visitor? Then I want to welcome you to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley's online meeting! Every week we curate inspiring and educational content in an online format like the one you're seeing here. As you continue reading, watching, and scrolling, our hope is that you'll leave feeling a little bit more inspired. As an online Rotary club, we have these asynchronous meetings online, but we also meet in-person in the Silicon Valley / San Francisco bay area for service projects and for social events. Keep reading on, and feel free to also join us for one of our in-person events if you can make it!
Returning to our normal programs! Members and guests, what did you think of our program last week from Anne using video from the Rotary International Assembly? Was it a good break from our regular pre-recorded Zoom programs, or do you prefer we keep to our normal programs that our club records? Would love to hear your feedback in the comments as we return to our normal programs for the next few weeks.Politics. I feel the need to issue a public apology here. One of our valued members called me out about some of my meeting writings on how they sometimes get political. My humble apologies to anyone who has ever felt that way or been offended. For those of you who don't know, there are only a few rules about what you cannot do in Rotary and one of those is that politics don't belong in Rotary meetings or official events. We're an apolitical organization, and that's actually one of the reasons why I love Rotary -- the fact that you're able to connect with members across different generations, philosophies, and political spectrums. As a young president and young professional, I'm still learning and goof up. But I think it's important to learn from those mistakes. I want to also take this moment to reiterate that I really do appreciate the feedback I get from members who send me a message or give me a call. Whether you want to send me thoughts, warm fuzzies, criticisms, suggestions, complaints, or anything in-between, I'm always available to hear from members. Members, I cannot promise I will agree with you on everything, but I promise to do my best to listen and to learn. I am also going to take this time to recognize the countless members who have caught smaller mistakes such as typos and grammatical errors in my writings. Even the comments about typos are much appreciated!
Club Elections. A very quick reminder to all members that club elections are this week! Please be sure to check your emails!Lastly, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has donated to happy dollars! Whether it's been in the past to support a cause, to The Rotary Foundation, to our club projects, or to sending Interactors to leadership development events -- you are all amazing! It's because of generous Rotarians and guests such as yourself that Rotary is able to do so much good in this world. In this week's meeting, you'll learn more about how Rotary is helping local young leaders. And this week everyone has a final opportunity to help chip in to sponsor another young leader in Interact to be able to attend their annual President's Winter Retreat (See happy dollars segment).Thank you to all each of you do, and happy belated Lunar New Year to those who celebrated last weekend!
Yours in service,
Mitty Chang,
President
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
P.S. The joke master is on vacation this week! We'll return the following week with our weekly jokes, plus our birthday baronness will make an appearance too!
Weekly Inspiration: These Young Sisters Sent a Weather Balloon to Space
Every week we bring you videos of innovation, inspiration, and entrepreneurship. This week we are featuring a video from Great Big Story.
When it comes to after school activities, Rebecca and Kimberly Yeung may be some of the most motivated students in America. At 11 and 9 years old, these sisters took their interests in science and technology and launched a space program with weather balloons to gather data about our climate. After their first launch successfully climbed to 78,000 feet, President Obama caught wind of their work and invited them to the White House Science Fair. Perhaps even the sky is no limit for these young scientists.
The future is bright!
World of Rotary: The 2017 Rotary Jumpstart Award Recipients
Rotary is a 1.2 million member organization, with clubs in over 170 different countries. In the Silicon Valley alone, there are over 50 Rotary clubs. Our club is one of many Rotary clubs out there, and this segment is dedicated to sharing stories about what's going on in Rotary.
This week we are featuring a special project that our Rotary District 5170 organizes each year called the Jumpstart Awards. Jumpstart was started by Rotarians in our district in order to help students from socio-economically disadvantaged families to get a little bit of extra support to be able to be more successful. Recipients of the Jumpstart Award are high school students who have shown academic promise despite going through economic struggles. Recipients of the award are given a brand new laptop computer from Rotary for them to use to help propel their ideas and creativity. In Rotary, we believe that every young leader graduating high school needs a laptop. We are also happy to invest in the success of our young leaders. The money for the laptops comes from various fundraisers Rotarians in our Rotary district put on for the project, as well as from The Rotary Foundation.Congratulations to both Dariyona and Ilda for being two of the 2017 Rotary Jumpstart Award Recipient! Member Andrew Taw helped spearhead the Jumpstart Award grant for Dariyona and Ilda on behalf of our Rotary club. Special thanks to Rotary District 5170 for providing the computers for the Jumpstart program.Below are photos of the two award recipients (left is Dariyona and right is Ilda) along with our Rotary District Governor Jeff Orth.This message was filmed with Dariyona shortly after she received her laptop, and shared with her permission to all of our club members and guests:https://youtu.be/g5uJ-9x_ulsAnd the message below was filmed with Ilda shortly after she received her laptop:
In Rotary, projects like Jumpstart are started when a Rotary member has an idea about how they can make a difference in someone's life. Thank you to Rotarians who step up to create these amazing projects, and also thank you to everyone who has ever donated to The Rotary Foundation's annual fund, which helps provides grants and foundation money back to Rotary clubs, who can choose to support projects like Jumpstart.
When asked what the first thing they would each do when they go back home to open up their new laptops, Dariyona replied with "homework" and Ilda replied back with "scholarship applications."
Go Dariyona and Ilda! We wish you both the best, and hope to hear updates from you two!
Monthly Photo Challenge
Every month we have a new photo challenge for members and guests. It's an opportunity to share a snapshot of your local community and what's going on in your life. All you have to do is submit your photo in the comments section! This segment is curated by member Kristi Govertsen.
A message from Kristi:
"
We're almost done with January's photo challenge, and will be starting our new theme this week as well. To honor our current Rotary theme of "Rotary Serving Humanity" our February theme will
be:
HUMANITY.
The goal of this entire photo project is a way for all of us to get to see snapshots (literally!) of our respective corners of the world. A visual glimpse into each other's lives, if you will. It isn't a contest and is completely optional. In fact, if you want to submit a photo every week of the month showing us a picture you've taken of HUMANITY we'll take that too! We're still working out a few details about how we're going to compile and share them, but will keep everyone updated as we move forward. Additionally, if you still want to take and submit a photo for January (theme: NEW), don't hesitate to sneak that into this week's comments too.
~Kristi Govertsen
"
For Members: Updates - CLUB ELECTIONS
This segment of the meeting is dedicated to our club members. This section includes announcements and new initiatives. Guests, you are welcome to read this section or just skip it.
Members, Club Elections THIS WEEK!
Attention Members - Election voting has been extended and will close on Sunday, February 5th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Email vote links will be sent out at the end of Monday, January 30th to you all (Pacific Time). If you are reading this before the end of Monday, it is because we're doing a quick last call for nominations.
Concerns? Questions? Complaints?
Hey members! Something bugging you about the eClub experience? Or is there a project or initiative you really want to start up? Reach out to President Mitty at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com or via telephone and let's talk about it! Sometimes we're just waiting for a member like you to step up and help spearhead a new initiative! (And sometimes President Mitty makes mistakes and needs sharper minds to let him know when he's made a mistake.)
Reminders - Ongoing Initiatives:
Monthly photo challenge is ongoing!
Coffee with a Rotarian is still ongoing! New month, new pairs!
Last Chance! Service Blotter for January on-going below:
Members, want to get your service update into the next service blotter? Please share what you’ve been up to, as it allows us to get to know each other better in the process! Just click on the link below to let us know!
For Members Only: Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
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 for automatic calendar updates and to RSVP for our events! These are open to all guests as well!
https://www.meetup.com/siliconvalleyrotary/
Recent Event Recap:
This past Sunday we had two events!
In the morning, our members Andrew Taw, Mitty Chang, Stephen Zhou, Yvonne Kwan, and Rushton Hurley headed down to Castle Rock State Park for a hiking social. The event had hit a plot twist as the main road down south from Saratoga was unexpectedly closed due to mudslides from the recent storms. Andrew, Mitty, Stephen, and Yvonne who had met up in Saratoga to carpool were left unable to get into Castle Rock! Rushton, however, had taken an alternative route down Highway 17 rather than going through Saratoga. Left in new territory with no cellular reception, our brave charter president Rushton forged on his own path through the gorgeous views of Castle Rock State Park, while the rest of the group hiked the nearby Fremont Open Meadows Preserve in Saratoga. Thanks to everyone who made it out!
Later Sunday evening, Andrew Taw, Mitty Chang, Yvonne Kwan, and Rushton Hurley got together with Rotary District Governor Jeff Orth and District First Lady Barbara Orth for our club's Jumpstart Award Ceremony (explained earlier in the World of Rotary segment). The award recipients were present, along with members of the Upward Bound program and Holy Names University.Special thanks to Andrew for spearheading the program!
Upcoming Events:
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
Rotary Area 8 Talent Show (Cupertino), Sat. Feb. 4, 2017
Join Rotarians from through Cupertino and Sunnyvale for an area-wide social featuring talent from every club! Details to be announced.
Happy Dollars: Sponsor our 2nd Interactor to PWR!
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!)
Last week's happy dollars went towards sponsoring our first Interactor, Marilyn, to attend the annual Interact President's Winter Retreat! Here are messages from last week's happy dollars:
Thank you to member Rory Olsen for his $15 donation, to be donated to Rotary's PolioPlus! Rory had this to say:"Please apply my donation to Polio Plus. I love my new iMac!"
Thank you to member Linda Tangren for her generous $20 donation! Linda had this to say:"I just returned from a trip to Germany and a Danube river cruise. The weather was a bit cold for this California Girl. However, it was a great family trip. I love walking in the footsteps of history and I did this when I crossed the old Iron Curtain between Austria to Czech Republic. It was difficult visiting Dachau and it will change me forever. It removes that cloak of detachment we can retain when you only read about history. Glad to be back in California. Happy New Year to all!"
Thank you to member Brian Liddicoat for his generous $15 donation! Brian had this to say:"Love and happiness, friends!"
Thank you to member Monique Ziesenhenne for her generous $20 donation! Monique had this to say:"Best of luck, Marilyn!"
Thank you to member Heather Shaw for her generous $15 donation! Heather had this to say:"Thankful for good health For the winter retreat????"
Thank you to member Mitty Chang for his generous $15 donation! Mitty had this to say:"Tossing in some happy dollars because it was an experience of a lifetime for me to have the honor of speaking again at the Rotary International Assembly. Thank you Rotary for the amazing opportunities you've given me in life already! I'm also always really happy to support our future leaders! PWR is an amazing event. Marilyn, you'll have an incredible time!"
Thank you all for your donations last week! The money from the donations last week went towards sponsoring our first Interactor, Marilyn, to the President's Winter Retreat for Interact this February! Massive thanks to everyone who made a donation! Marilyn sent us her thanks, and we're also really excited to be helping send such a wonderful young leader to an amazing leadership development event.
This week's donations will go towards sponsoring a 2nd Interactor from KIPP San Jose Interact Club to their annual President's Winter Retreat for leadership training.
Meet Chris, an Interactor and future leader of the KIPP San Jose Interact Club!
https://youtu.be/DTgzJTMSDxM
All proceeds from this week's happy dollars will go towards sponsoring Chris's President's Winter Retreat (PWR) experience. Happy dollars is also a great opportunity to share with the group about something good that has happened to you.
So what are you happy about? Share with us below, and help support one of our future leaders!
Selected Six
Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select six comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.
Here are six comments selected from last week's meeting about Hacking the refugee Crisis by Teaching Programming to Refugees in Berlin:
Guest Roger Plested (Canada) had this to say:"Anne, thank you for such an inspiring speech. Being in Rotary has changed my life as well. I am glad to find someone else who observes National Peanut butter day. I have one question of Keith, How much time did you spend in Post to create the picture I enjoyed the meeting. Have a good week everyone."
Member Nicole Pham (California, USA) had this to say:"This week's meeting filled me with a lot of inspiration and hope. I really needed it. Have a great week everyone."
Member Brett Sham (Sydney, Australia) had this to say:"Anne, great to hear the impact you and the other Peace Fellows are having around the world. Having participated in several Rotary youth programs myself, I love hearing stories from people that have had a long connection with Rotary and where this journey has taken them; was great to hear that you have also participated in the Rotary Youth Exchange Program and RYLA. I noted in your speech you stated that one of the other Peace Fellows is now also a Rotarian and active in his district - are you a Rotarian yourself or is this something you have considered and what are the barriers that are stopping you from joining (interesting to hear you also mention how Rotary needs to change and adapt)?"
Member Raquel D. Juncal (Costa Rica) had this to say:"The social reality is complex, just like the human condition, so any peacebuilding project must properly consider the multiplicity of factors and elements that are interrelated. Education for peace can not remain indifferent to this complexity because it reflects, whether or not, a militant social model and committed to certain values. So, for me, the Rotary Peace Fellowship is definitely making a difference in the world. It not only imparts knowledge, awakens talents and generates skills; also, it serves to promote the truth, virtues and good attitudes of a virtuous being; someone true in all circumstances, right in thought, in word, in work. Education is possibly the most powerful agent for cultural change and for social progress because it allows, on the one hand, the integral development of the person and awareness of social problems; as well as facilitating on the other, the search and implementation of the appropriate solutions. Really inspiring speech, Anne!"
Member Linda Tangren (California, USA) had this to say:"Anne, your co-development of the Refugees on Rails program confirms for all Rotarians the value of the Rotary Peace Fellowship. We know that you will continue the practice of the 4 C's and do other great things. Sidebar: Kudos to Yvonne Kwan... I always laugh out loud! Keep it up, please."
Guest Fernando Morales had this to say:"What an inspiring speech Anne! I love how you have reminded us that we are all here to make our communities a better place. As you said, it's at the core of what Rotary is doing and that I've been fortunate to see in many places, specifically in Central America. Your program also represents a creative and new approach to solving some of the world's issues. This approach is definitely what we need and where our world is headed. I've been interested and convinced for a while in the idea of all this displaced talent being useful to their new communities. A lot of times opportunity is the missing element and you are creating this for many people. Awesome job. Thanks for sharing!"
Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!
Program: Bringing Together Community Organizations Digitally with xPollinators
Every week we bring to you a program on innovation, education, technology, and humanitarian service. This week our guest speaker is Crystal Huang, the founder of xPollinators, a social network for community organizations.
Crystal Huang, a graduate of the University of California - Davis, is the creative mind behind xPollinators (pronounced "cross pollinators"), a social network solution for community-based organizations. Recently launched in September 2016, xPollinators is currently beta testing its platform directly with organizers with the mission of becoming the platform that connects communities with each other to share resources and knowledge.We asked Crystal to share with us about her journey to creating xPollinators, and questions on how xPollinators works and is gaining momentum.
Members and guests, please join me in welcoming Crystal!
Special thanks to member Andrew Taw for referring Crystal to our club!
Related Links:
thexpollinators.com - official website
Want to Connect with Crystal?
We have asked Crystal to periodically check back on this meeting page during the week of this program, January 30, 2017 through February 5, 2017, and respond to comments as necessary. Feel free to leave a comment and direct it to Crystal.
Meeting Schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 to 45 minutes long and are subject to change without notice. (Sometimes speakers cancel on us!)
Upcoming Recordings:
Friday, February 3, 2017 at 2 PM PT - Recording with Aaron Horowitz, Co-Founder and CEO of Sproutel (creators of Jerry the Bear)
Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 12 PM PT - Recording of Thuy Nguyen, President of Foothill College
If you would like to join us for any of the live recordings, please email president@siliconvalleyrotary.com with your request. Requests will be checked up until 5 minutes prior to the recording time. Please note the timezone is all California, USA time.
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. 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.
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!
