Lessons from Solo Sailing the World
This is the meeting for the week of June 12, 2017 through June 18, 2017
This Meeting at a Glance:Program: Lessons from Solo Sailing the WorldProgram Description: Neal Petersen is an award-winning author, round-the-world solo racing yachtsman, international speaker and global investor.Speaker: Neal Peterson, inspiring keynote speaker
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
Rotary Convention in Atlanta!
New to our meetings? 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!This week we are here at the Rotary International Convention here in Atlanta, Georgia! I'm excited to announce that we have nine club members here at the Rotary International Convention! A shoutout to members Brett Sham, Angela Hoang, Ken Oku, Stephen Zhou, Kristi Govertsen, Mitty Chang, Yvonne Kwan, Raquel D'Garay-Juncal, and Maxi Bustos for coming out to the convention this year! We hope to have even more club members attend next year's convention in Toronto, Canada at the end of June 2018.During this week's program recording, we ran into some technical difficulties with the connection. Unfortunately we weren't able to smooth out some of the audio and the video delays and loss, but Neal's story was too good not to share. In order to get the full experience and understanding of his journey, watching the PBS Documentary about Neal that is included in the Related Links below the program video will be pretty insightful to understand more about Neal's journey.Neal's story definitely left me feeling inspired, and I hope this week's meeting will inspire you too.
Yours in service,
Mitty Chang,
PresidentRotary eClub of Silicon Valley
president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Weekly Inspiration: How These Little Inventors will Shape Our Future
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change. This week we are featuring a video from Great Big Story on inspiring inventions.
How can we harness the wild imaginations and inventive instincts of children to improve our lives? That’s the question Dominic Wilcox has taken on, one school at a time. The UK-based artist visits grade schools and challenges young students to channel their creativity into fun and useful inventions. Some of those ideas turn into real-life prototypes.
https://youtu.be/Rd06haHK3uw
That's wildly cool! Feel free to share in the comments about any inventions you've thought of.
Laughing Out Loud (L.O.L.) with our Lady of LOLs
We believe that laughing a little every day keeps you healthier. Every week we try to share with you something that will make you smile! This section is curated by Rotarian Yvonne Kwan, our club’s “Lady of LOLs.”
From Yvonne: "
June 15 is National Lobster Day! Time to get crackin'."
Why don't lobsters share?
They're shellfish.
How does a lobster answer the phone?
Shello?
What do you get when you cross a lobster with a telephone?
Snappy talk.
World of Rotary
Rotary has over 1.2 million members in over 165 countries. This segment of our meeting features updates about Rotary events, projects, and initiatives from around the world.
This week has been the Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This annual convention is the largest regular gathering of Rotarians in the world.
Check out the convention minute video:
For Members Only: Updates
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.
New Rotary Year coming up! Leadership transition.
New Rotary Year begins on July 1! We're transitioning leadership to President-elect Stephen over the next couple of weeks!
Past Member Announcements:
May website updates: The /join page has been updated, New secure https:// SSL connection, new Our Members Page
Club Fundraiser on August 6 "A Taste of Good with Rotary" in Livermore, CA: Looking for help, donations, gift prizes, etc! Email Andrew Taw
Message from Treasurer-elect Heather on Automatic Dues: Make sure to check your emails! We are switching our system over to automatic dues rather than manual payment. Treasurer-elect Heather has more info for you!
TRF Challenge coins: Members who donate the following amounts will receive the following coins: $1000 - Gold, $500 - Silver, $200 - Bronze. Go ahead and request your Challenge Coin via the online form here then!
Service Blotter Submissions: 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/
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 president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Network: Rotary International Convention - June 10-14, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Join over 35,000 Rotarians from around the world at the annual Rotary convention! This year's convention will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and features the centennial celebration of The Rotary Foundation! The Rotary International Convention is the largest regular gathering of Rotarians, and is also one of the best networking opportunities anyone can ever experience. Our Rotary eClub will have member events and experiences in Atlanta! Come join us in Atlanta! Members, be sure to let President Mitty know the dates you will be there!
Our club's event chair: Mitty Chang
Special: Club Charity Fundraiser "A Taste of Good with Rotary" - Sunday, August 6, 2017 at Retzlaff Vineyard in Livermore, California
Save the date for Sunday, August 6, 2017 for our club's first annual charity fundraiser! This delicious food and wine lunch event will indulge your taste buds while we enjoy amazing company, live music, silent auctions, auctions, and ticket drawings. More info coming soon.
Our club's event chair: Andrew Taw
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!)
Last week's happy dollars went towards powering our club's projects and service grants.
Thank you to member Rory Olsenfor his generous $15 donation to Polio Plus fund! Rory had this to say:"It has rained off and on for three days, finally stopping this morning. Now all is well. Please apply my gift to Polio Plus."
Thank you all for your donations last week!
This week's happy dollars donations will be going to help fund our club projects and service grants!
Happy dollars is also a great opportunity to share with the group about something good that has happened to you, while giving back to a great cause.
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 Investing in Ideas: An Interview with Serial Entrepreneur Francine Hardaway:
Guest Maxi Bustos (California, USA) had this to say:"Writing from my room in Georgia Tech campus, after a long day of RI Convention!Having a great time here, I'm really happy I met various members of this awesome club! Ken, congratulations for organizing that sailing activity, I hope I can make it next time. The video looks great, what drone do you have? Francine, thanks for the presentation, it was really interesting! I have learned some of the things you mentioned the hard way (like spending hours preparing nice slides to present to a VC, who just figured out that our business model was not good enough with a few questions). I think an important thing for entrepreneurs is to learn "how to learn from errors".I subscribed to your newsletter, look forward to reading your articles :)"
Member Angela Hoang (Sydney, Australia) had this to say:"Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us Francine, it was great to be able to pick your brain on entrepreneurship and I hope I can keep your advice in mind when I attempt my first proper forays into small business when I go back to Sydney. Since my background is in healthcare it's been really interesting talking to Americans about their healthcare system and I know it's in need of a shakeup - maybe it'll take some entrepreneurial spirit to help untangle it in time. Once again thanks for your time and Mitty Rushton and Chris thanks for your efforts with the meeting, really enjoyed the Q&A nature of the talk this week, I felt like it kept things energised and engaging!"
Guest Cecelia had this to say:"Thank you for your talk, Francine. I thought I was the only person on the planet who is doing business with the children and grandchildren of their early clients! Your insights about delivering medical treatment in India remind me of very early efforts to do that (thinking era of DSL), when my then-Rotary Club had a physician as a speaker, who was attempting to set up a network of computers with video conferencing capability around the developing world. It lacked a sustainability component, but may have ultimately been successful. How far we have come since then, and in so many ways. I was also reminded about some of the other highly sustainable efforts in India, Uganda and other places, that brought business solutions through micro credit, such as by the Acumen Fund and its forerunners. The One Acre Fund is another example that seems successful. As the person who oversees all the Rotary grants in our district, I'm always concerned about the overlap that I see in some efforts, but regardless, entrepreneurship/social entrepreneurship seems to be the best way to effect long-term change."
Member Brett Sham (Sydney, Australia) had this to say:"I'm writing this from Atlanta where I've been having an amazing time at the Rotaract Preconvention and Peace Conference. It's been great hanging out with fellow club members here. Ken, thanks again for an amazing time on the yacht - sailing out and around the Golden Gate Bridge was a highlight of my time there. The drone video was awesome too. Francine thanks for a great talk - I came across that story from The Atlantic a few weeks ago to and found it quite profound and eye opening. I actually went to a session at the Peace Conference yesterday on modern slavery and it's quite scary that this is still happening. Really looking forward to a few more days of education and Rotary fellowship."
Member Nathan Gildart (Tokyo, Japan) had this to say:"Francine, this was an interesting conversation to watch and many comments resonated with me. A few (lengthy) thoughts. I recall ages ago teachers telling me that networking wasn't a 'teacher habit'. I fully disagreed and because of that I've had many opportunities come my way and, more importantly, met many awesome, caring and innovative people. As I write this I'm in Australia for some very cool EdTech stuff, which never would have happened without the networking and learning from the networking. (and building he relationships) Other thoughts: *Google is a great tool, and other sources of information online, but the big piece is teaching people to seek quality information. Information may be accessible by the younger generation (and the rest of us having grown into it, rather than grown up with it), but we need to teach them to learn to find good information. This is the same as in the past. The difference is the access to "too much information". My high school history textbooks and books in the libraries were loaded with culturally and gender-biased information. Bendy straw video: a blend of problem solving and entrepreneurial vision (the sister) - it fits with a recent guest speaker we had. I think it needs to be more of a fabric in our school curriculums. (with social justice at the core - another point made in the meeting). The yachting trip and hike looked ridiculously fun! A little unknown Nate fact: I spent two summers while in university working at a yacht club, cleaning exteriors of yachts, and doing minor repairs on the interiors. Best university-years job I had. Another little known Nate fact: I couldn't, and still can't, sail..... Awesome drone vid, Ken! Having only played with drones a couple of times I'm impressed with the angles you had. (even from the side - I'm used to seeing the typical 'bird's eye view') Very cool. Envious of the event, and seeing the pod of whales, but a nice blow back to my short time in SF last year!"
Member Kenneth Oku (California, USA) had this to say:"We have been working together on projects for a few years now Mitty, always easy to set something up when we work together. It was so great to get to know everyone and spend time with quality people / members. Francine, I've subscribed to your news letter and I'm very excited to read it, just the kind of thing I am looking for. A close friend of mine is actually starting a company, so this weeks meeting was very fun to watch and listen to. You're a shining light in this world of business and I greatly enjoyed your 'rant.'"
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: Lessons from Solo Sailing the World
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, education, technology, and humanitarian service. This week our guest this week is Neal Petersen.
Neal Petersen is an inspirational business speaker who draws from extraordinary life experiences. Delivering a strong and timely message of adaptability and perseverance, Neal turns barriers into solutions by never giving up.An award-winning author and the subject of a PBS documentary, Neal is a natural storyteller—riveting, engaging and highly entertaining. He challenges audiences to find their treasures, to use their experiences to navigate these challenging times to their advantage. Attendees are guaranteed to hang on the edges of their seats as he empowers them to excel.Neal Petersen shares how he overcame the formidable barriers of a childhood physical disability, poverty and the humiliation of Apartheid in South Africa to compete in one of the most dangerous of all sports: solo yacht racing around the globe—27,000 miles, 9 months at sea—alone, and in a yacht he designed and built himself.We are very excited to have Neal join us to share his story! Special thanks to member Megan Breyer for introducing Neal to us. Thanks Megan!
Members and guests, please join us in welcoming Neal Petersen!
(Technical Difficulties! As a warning, the audio and the video in this program recording was a little bit choppy and laggy at times. Unfortunately, we were not able to do a re-recording. I would recommend checking out the related links underneath the video to learn more about Neal.)
Related Links
Ask a question. Leave a comment!
Have a question for Neal? Leave a comment or a question in the comments below! Or just tell us how your week has been!
Upcoming Program 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 45 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Upcoming Recordings:
None at the moment!
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!
