Upward Roots
Meeting for the week of October 8-14, 2018
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Upward Roots
Speaker: Elizabeth Knight
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!
Here’s a message from President Andrew:
Greetings Members and Guests,I started my life of service much later than my peers. While my friends in high school were joining Interact (the high school version of Rotary) and other community service clubs, I discovered poetry and was writing with abandon. It wasn’t until I reached college at UC Davis when I joined a peer counseling group and Rotaract (courtesy of our very own Past President Mitty Chang) that I discovered both the fulfillment of social impact work and the camaraderie that came with it.Our speaker this week, Elizabeth Knight, starts kids on a life of service really early: in elementary and middle school ages. I am incredibly grateful for the work that she does with Upward Roots because discovering that I had the power to improve other people’s lives profoundly changed my life so I know Upward Roots is profoundly changing the lives of Oakland students who may, someday, become future Rotarians.
Sincerely,
Andrew Taw,
PresidentRotary eClub of Silicon Valley
Weekly Funny with the Lady of Laughter (LOL)
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 Yvonne Kwan, our “Lady of Laughter!”
This week's jokes come to you courtesy of my 5th grade class. They're definitely a punny bunch!
What did the alien say to the soda?"Take me to your liter!"
What is a tree's favorite drink?Root beer!
Where do you take a bad rainbow?To prism!
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
The repetitive rituals of watering, pruning and shaping minute trees is a life of devotion, giving Bonsai master Chiako Yamamoto a serene connection to nature and time itself.
World of
Rotary scholarship gives CEO skills to preserve culture, history
Learn more at https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-scholarship-gives-ceo-skills-preserve-culture.
Coffee With a Rotarian
A natural part of Rotary is the networking and the fellowship you get out of meeting other Rotarians. Coffee With a Rotarian is a monthly program of our club where we match participating club members for one-on-one virtual (or in some cases in person) coffee meetings, so they can learn more about each other. This program is organized by member Tzviatko Chiderov.
This week we have Rushton from San Jose, CA, USA reporting on a chat with Mitty from Fremont, CA, USA.
Mitty and I know each other quite well, but thanks to CWR, we took time to reconnect, which is cool because we've both been very busy! We talked about tools for getting more information about our club and Rotary out to others. (Anyone in the club have experience with https://teachable.com/ ?). We certainly talked about travel, as it's a major interest for both of us. Mitty had a goal of getting to 30 countries before turning 30, and did so; #30 was Uganda where he visited some months ago to speak at a Rotary district conference. One thing that really impressed him was that -everyone- he met there was involved in a Rotary grant project. That -is- impressive!
We encourage all club members to participate in Coffee With a Rotarian. You can sign up here!
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
On the first meeting of every month, we feature service reports from club members for the previous month. Thanks for your service everyone!
For Members Only
Past Announcements
Member name badges will be shipped out soon.
Claim your @siliconvalleyrotary.com email forwarder! Email Webmaster Mitty at mittyc@siliconvalleyrotary.com to get set-up with your own @siliconvalleyrotary.com email address forwarder.
Join our members-only Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotarysiliconvalley/
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the 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!
Past Events & Projects:
Here is a screenshot from our last online member social!Here is a picture from our recent school supply donation to Scott Lane Elementary School:
Upcoming 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
What would you like to do?
Hey Members! What would you like to do? We’re working on putting together some exciting socials and impactful service projects for our upcoming quarter’s event calendar. Let us know what you want to do by posting in our members only Facebook Group (if you don’t have access, please request it with Webmaster Mitty). Remember, you’re only taking advantage of the full impact of Rotary when you’re stepping up to get involved.
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 on the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.
Catherine A made a $25 donation.Grateful that the Bruce Munro "Stories in Light" exhibit will open at Villa Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, this month. http://montalvoarts.org/participants/bruce_munro/
Rory Olsen made a $20 donation.Tomorrow we will do a final review of the restoration of my house after the Corps of Engineers flooded it!Please apply my donation to Polio Plus.
Brian Liddicoat made a $15 donation.Wow! Big trial day yesterday. Just as I get ready to leave for the most important cross-examination of the trial, I get the court's mailed decision in my last trial. Opening the envelope with trembling hands and: we won! Was late to court because I had to stop on the way and break the good news to my client. Good feelings all around.
Share your happy dollars thoughts with us and help with doing good around the world.
Selected Comments
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 a few comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.
Here are the comments selected from last week’s meeting.
Charlie Tuttle said:Thanks Suzanne for the great presentation. I enjoyed hearing about your Rotary journey, and the Compass Series sounds amazing!
Roger Plested said:I challenge each member this week to talk to one person about our club.I enjoyed and had a lot of fun recording this program for this meeting. Thank you Suzanne for the wonderful presentation and thank you Cecilia for attending. As a result I have gotten to know Suzanne and Cecilia so much more.
Espen M said:It was interesting to learn of Suzanne's background and accomplishments. The firefighter video was inspiring and something I need to show both my son and daughter.
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: Upward Roots
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others. Special thanks to member Roger Plested for leading our club's Programs Committee in finding us amazing speakers each week.
Elizabeth Knight is Executive Director of Upward Roots. Prior to assuming the role in October 2016. Elizabeth served as the Program Director for one year. Previously, Elizabeth worked for over a decade in international development, most recently running country operations and educational, media independence, and youth development programs for the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) out of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Share your thoughts or ask our speaker a question in the comments at the bottom of this meeting page!
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 https://zoom.us/j/5104080000. 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! 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!
