Rotaract Australia MDIO
This Meeting’s Highlights
Program: Rotaract Australia MDIOSpeaker: Jake Weragoda, Immediate Past Chair of Rotaract AustraliaMeeting for the week of August 1, 2016 to August 7, 2016
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
"AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!""Oi oi oi!"
Happy August and welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley's meeting for the week of August 1, 2016! My name is Mitty Chang, and I am the proud president of this Rotary club, the "jewel of our district" as our speaker last week dubbed it.This week our feature speaker is an incredibly distinguished and decorated Rotaractor from Australia who will be speaking to us about Rotaract Australia MDIO and the events it organizes on a national level. As many of our members and visiting Rotarians are familiar with, Rotaract is one of Rotary International's official youth programs. Rotaract Clubs bring together young professionals from ages 18 through 30 to make an impact locally and internationally through humanitarian service, fellowship, and professional development. They are often referred to as the next generation of Rotarians.Make your way through the rest of this meeting, and you will hear from our Australian guest speaker at the Program segment of this meeting! Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi! (The Australian chant.) As you can see our club loves our international friends! We also love supporting youth programs and hearing from young entrepreneurs. Members and guests who have been joining us for our July meetings, I hope you have all enjoyed the programs and will continue enjoying the ones we have to come.I am incredibly excited that our speaker for next week's program will be a 1988 Olympian. Aptly timed, we will be hearing from a former Olympian just as this year's Olympics in Rio start. Make sure to join us for our program next week!I also want to thank everyone who donated to last week's happy dollars! As one of our new initiatives for the year, we are periodically rotating different charitable causes that will be the beneficiaries of donations raised for happy dollars on select weeks. Last week was the first time we've tried that, with all of the funds going towards the For Haiti Project that will be benefiting the Joan Rose Foundation in Haiti. We raised $100 last week in happy dollars alone for the For Haiti Project! Thanks to Nate Gildart, Matthew Seales, Ken Oku, Yvonne Kwan, Richard Knaggs, and Heather Shaw for making the $100 happen! There will be more opportunities to donate to great causes in the months to come. Stay tuned!For our Members: Can you all believe we are already into our second month of this Rotary year? It's an incredible honor to serve as your club president. I am constantly looking for feedback on how to improve these meetings, and how to make this club better serve you. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com with your feedback and comments. And if you have not carefully taken a look at our members segment of the meeting and the past announcements, please be sure to do so. We are constantly growing the member benefits section!And for our Guests: So incredibly excited to have you join us! Whether you are a visiting Rotarian, prospective member, friend of a friend, or just someone stopping by -- our goal is to make sure you're getting some inspiration out of this meeting. As you continue scrolling and reading through our meeting, please leave a comment at the bottom of the meeting once you're done. We would love to hear from you! You can tell us things like where you're from and what you thought of the meeting! You can also ask the speaker a question in the comments section.Enjoy the rest of the meeting!
Yours in service,
Mitty Chang,
President
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Power of Images: Ice Climbing in France
We believe in that saying a photo is worth a thousand words. Great images can inspire people and can conjure a wide range of emotions. This week we feature a photo from by photographer Alexandre Buisse on ice climbing in Chamonix, France!
About this photo: "Ice Climbing in Chamonix, France," photographed by Alexandre Buisse, from National Geographic's Extreme Photo of the Week.
“I was in awe of Mathis's grace and fluidity on what was obviously an extremely difficult climbing sequence,” says photographer Alexandre Buisse of the shot he took of French climber Mathis Dumas hanging upside down in the Mer de Glace ice cave in Chamonix, France. Getting into place was relatively simple according to Buisse. “It’s a short train ride up to Montenvers, then a short hike down to the glacier level," he recalls. "It is too steep to put ice screws on lead, especially on hard, old glacial ice, so Mathis aided up the intended route. He then gave the route a few attempts before finally linking it.” Buisse notes that once Dumas started climbing, it was simply a matter of waiting for him to make an elegant move. “I used a studio light to add some fill flash in the shadows, but other than that, I mostly relied on the strong natural light coming from the outside, which created a lovely texture on the ice.”
Simply amazing!
Laughing Out Loud 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.”
Hey! This is Yvonne, your Lady of LOLs. This week's funnies are inspired by our guest speaker from Australia!
Why did the manager hire the marsupial?
Because he was koala-fied!! Get it? Koala-fied. Quali-fied!
What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?
..A stick. ...HAHAHA!
Weekly Inspiration: Unearthing Shipwrecks in Lake Michigan
Every week we bring you videos of innovation, inspiration, and entrepreneurship. This week we are featuring a video from Great Big Story on Unearthing Shipwrecks in Lake Michigan!
Cold freshwater preserves shipwrecks! Treasure at the bottom of Lake Michigan! Sounds like good trivia night answers to remember!
Thank you to the Rotary Club of Msasa in Harare, Zimbabwe for the Rotary club banner and welcoming our member, Tzviatko!
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!
All events are marked in Pacific Time and are located in the San Francisco bay area / Silicon Valley.
Upcoming Events:
Happ-E Hour Online Social - August 4th online
Members and guests locally and around the world are welcome to join us for one of our online socials, Happ-E Hour this Thursday, August 4 from 6 PM to 7 PM Pacific Time! Happ-E Hours are a great way for members to connect with other members, and for our guests to talk to our members. This is a beverages Happ-E Hour. Please make have some sort of beverage in hand! (Any beverage you fancy!)
You can join us for this Happ-E Hour on August 4 at 6 PM Pacific Time by clicking on this link:https://zoom.us/j/7489282423
Second Harvest Food Bank Service – August 20th in San Jose, CA
On Saturday, August 20, from 9 AM to 12 PM – Come join us for a morning of sorting food at Second Harvest Food Bank! We will be at the Cypress Center in San Jose. This event will be capped at 5 people. Members who went in May said this was an event we absolutely had to do again, so here we are!
REGISTER: Members interested can RSVP with Andrew Taw (service@siliconvalleyrotary.com) or on Meetup.
Rotary Membership Seminar – August 27 in Milpitas, CA
On Saturday, August 27 from 9 AM to 12:30 PM – Members and prospective members, if growing Rotary sounds interesting to you, come join Rotary club presidents, Rotary membership chairs, and Rotarians from throughout the district for this free seminar on how to grow Rotary membership. Light breakfast is included. This event is free to attend.
REGISTER: Please register if you are planning on attending! You can register by clicking here on our Rotary District webpage.
Hiking Social at the Alamere Falls – September 10 in the Point Reyes National Seashore, California
On Saturday, September 10 our club will be making a hiking trip to the Alamere Falls inside the Point Reyes National Seashore! Members and guests are welcome! We will be beginning our hike at 9:30 AM and will be getting lunch together afterwards. Please plan on arriving to the parking lot by 9:15 AM. Driving instructions will be provided a week before this event.
For Our Members: Reminders & Benefits
This section is dedicated for reminders to our members and for our members to report to us what service projects they have participated in recently. Members, please note this section will CHANGE every week!
New Announcements:
Request for Member Spotlight Videos!
Members, you might have noticed that there is no member's spotlight segment for this week's meeting. That's because I need your help in getting more spotlight videos! All members who have not yet done so, I would really appreciate it if you could send to me a 2 to 3 minute video of yourself. The video should include a self introduction, and also share with us something important in your life that we don't already know. In your video you could show us where you work, where you spend most of your time, your favorite place(s), or just an insight to your life. You can email me the videos (actual video files preferred, but I will take Youtube or Vimeo links too!) at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Programs - Looking for More Program Speakers
Members, how have you been enjoying the programs so far? I would love to get your feedback at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com if you have thoughts about how to improve them. We are also always looking for more guest speakers, so if you know of any great speakers, please let me know or make an email introduction for me.
Invite a Friend!
It's August! If you have not yet, I encourage and ask each of you to invite one friend or guest to visit our Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley's online meetings. It's as easy as telling them our website address. As you all know, we are still a relatively new club -- we will be celebrating our 2 year club anniversary in January -- and it's great to get more word of mouth out there about our club. One of my goals this year as president is also to grow our club to 50 members. In order to make that happen, I need your help. Let's start this conversation by just inviting our friends and guests who we think would enjoy this club.
Summary of Past Announcements
Dues Past Due! If you have not paid your dues yet, please note they were due June 30th. Please kindly fix this on your own. Questions? Contact our treasurer, Allen Thompson at treasurer@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Min-E Grants of up to USD$250 per project available for members only. Contact Andrew Taw at service@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Rotary Rewards: Members, be sure to check out the discounts Rotarians get to Disneyland, hotels, airfare, and so many other businesses. Go check offers, please go to Rotary.org, login, then go to “Rotary Rewards” page
Club Leadership Opportunities: We still have many committees and committee chair positions that are available for members who want to get more involved with the club leadership. Please contact President Mitty at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com
NEW! Option to Pay Dues Monthly: All members now have the option of choosing to pay their dues in monthly installments of USD$28 per month instead of every six months. This monthly payment option requires a credit or debit card be used for automatic debits. Please note that the monthly installment option is a little bit more expensive than if you prepay the full six months at a time. Members, if you want to start using the monthly payment option, please complete the Pay Dues page and select monthly option and complete that form. If you have any trouble with the form, please contact President Mitty at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com — All other dues related questions should be addressed to Club Treasurer Allen at treasurer@siliconvalleyrotary.com
NEW! Leadership Development Grants: Our club has a new member benefit we are testing out. We will reimburse up to USD$150 per year per member for the registration fee of a Rotary leadership events or other pre-approved leadership development events. For example, you could use this grant to attend a Rotary District Conference or the Rotary International Convention, and we will cover up to USD$150 of the registration fee. Please note this only covers registration fees and cannot be used for food (that is not pre-included in registration), housing, travel, or other incidentals. For non-Rotary events, please email President Mitty at president@siliconvalleyrotary.com at least 10 days in advance for approval. The leadership team has allocated enough money for 15 members to take part in this grant. After which our club’s Board of Directors will have to vote on whether or not to increase the allocation or not. Our goal is ultimately to see more members engaged! Please take us up on this amazing benefit! (That’s half your dues back! Wow!)
NEW! Rotating Happy Dollars Beneficiaries: Our happy dollars will now have rotating beneficiaries! That means on certain weeks the money collected from our happy dollars will be donated directly to the charity of the week.
Service Survey
Member! Please share what you’ve been up to, as it allows us to get to know each other better in the process!The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
Happy Dollars
Each week we ask our members to share news with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal for this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each other, while giving back to a good cause.
Last Week we raised For Haiti
Every dollar we raised last week with Happy Dollars is being donated to the Joan Rose Foundation via the For Haiti project by our past speaker, Kitty Hu. If you missed the video about their humanitarian service work in Haiti, check it out below.
These members and guests below stepped up to the call for help last week and made generous donations to help support the For Haiti project. We thank these generous souls:
From member Nate Gildart ($10):
"Great work Kitty and my heart out to the people of Haiti."
From guest Matthew Seales ($10):
[No comment left]
From guest Ken Oku ($20):
"Had a great time at the service for veterans on Frifay the 29th. President Elect Stephen really did a great job representing the club and giving a warm welcoming feeling. Great to meet with you and excited to work with you again on the next project."
From member Yvonne Kwan ($15):
"Thanks for bringing this organization to us, Kitty! You're awesome! Good luck! :)"
From member Richard Knaggs ($10):
"For Haiti and celebrating the birth of my son Luke Alexander on 27 July."
From member Heather Shaw ($20):
"For Haiti"
From member Mitty Chang ($15):
"I'm so happy and proud to be president of this club. I also want to give Kitty a huge shoutout for all of the amazing humanitarian work she's doing at such a young age. She just got back from completing some humanitarian service in Haiti! And she's only 18!!"
Once again, a big thank you to everyone who donated last week!
The money raised from last week will be donated to the Joan Rose Foundation on behalf of the For Haiti project.The money for this week's happy dollars will be going back to our club's general funds to help power various service projects and grant programs.
Tell us about something good that's happen to you this week, while giving to a good cause! Think of this like a digital karma jar. All happy dollar submissions will be featured in next week's online meeting!
Visiting Rotarians: If you like what you see, this is a really good chance for you to give a digital shoutout to your club in our next week's meeting, while helping fund some of our projects. Perhaps consider donating an amount similar to what you might have paid for the cost of the meal if you attended a brick and mortar club meeting -- or any amount you are comfortable with!
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 on Delivering Indestructible Soccer Balls:
From member Ferheen Abbasi (Osaka, Japan):
"Shout out to Tzviatko for the awesome spotlight, Kristi for her intro and Laura for her background! It's so great to see and hear from Rotary members across the world :) Great presentation, Oliver. Something as simple as an indestructible soccer ball can bring such joy to millions of children around the world. I hope that we get the Rotary logo on there!"
From guest Kristofer Telfer (California, USA):
"Great idea to put the Rotary Logo on the industructible soccer balls! I can't wait to do my new member intro video, as well as start my own projects! This is my 4th consecutive week of attending as a guest, cannot wait to apply for membership!"
From guest Brett Sham (Sydney, Australia):
"It's been great listening to so many young people over the last few weeks that are so passionate about and dedicated to their projects. But beyond that, also hearing their stories and how Rotary has had a lasting impact on their lives. The projects and causes are so diverse, but what shines through from all of them is their inspiring leadership, how they have taken things from an idea and worked hard to turn them into reality."
From guest Laura Higgs (Illinois, USA):
"Hi all, thanks for allowing me to briefly present what I do, I've always been a fan of how you do your online meetings! Check out our alumni website for more info and the full list of alumni programs: www.rotary.org/alumni . It's nice to see so many of the visitors and members are former program participants (like you Nicole Pham), and I'd love to talk to anyone further if you wish!"
From guest Nicole Pham (California, USA):
"LOVED this meeting. It was super interactive and I love hearing about everyone's passions and interesting lives! I love your work in Vietnam Oliver and I am so proud to hear about all that you continue to do. Also I'm super happy that the Interactors enjoyed RYLA. RYLA was such a big part of my life and still remains so 7 years later. I can't wait to help sponsor future high schoolers to attend."
From guest Patti Wilczek (California, USA):
"Learning about the intersection of gaming and psychology was fascinating (as an ex-clinical psychologist). There are some really smart people out there using the field of human behavior to make lots and lots of money! It was great virtually meeting Tzviatko. Not only is it wonderful to learn about Rotarians' experiences from around the world, it caused me to appreciate the inclusivity and level of involvement of a broad range of people that a eGroup affords. Finally, learning about the work of so many passionate, tenacious, devoted young people (e.g., RYLA, Oliver) was heartening. There is a lot of work ahead if we are to truly change our world. I believe Rotary helps cultivate and empower the youth and young adults to be our next leaders. Great meeting!"
Thank you everyone for attending last week's meeting!
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!
The Program
Every week we bring to you a program on innovation, education, entrepreneurship, and humanitarian service. This week we are featuring Jake Weragoda, the Immediate Past Chair of Rotaract Australia MDIO.
Jake Weragoda is a past Chairperson of Rotaract Australia. A Rotaractor since 2007, Jake is a Paul Harris Fellow and was the 2013 Australian Rotaractor of the Year. He is a past District Rotaract Representative and Rotaract Club President in Sydney, Australia, and has attended 3 Rotary International Conventions. He is a regular Rotary speaker, and presented at the Big West Rotaract Institute in 2015. Outside of Rotaract, Jake works as a Project Manager for a food and coffee company, and plays the sport of cricket.Rotaract (which stands for Rotary in Action) is a Rotary-sponsored service club for young men and women ages 18 to 30. Rotaract clubs are either community or university based, and they're sponsored by a local Rotary club. This makes them true "partners in service" and key members of the family of Rotary.In this week's program, Jake tells us more about the work Rotaract Australia is doing together to create fellowship and leadership opportunities with Rotaractors throughout Australia.
Related Links:
Video on Rotaract Australia Games 2017(video was shown in presentation above but had sound issues)
Facebook Page for Rotaract Australia(give them a like!)
Upcoming Recordings & Meetings
Ever wondered how you can join one of our live recordings to ask our speakers questions live? Well, now our recordings are available to guests as well!
Upcoming Meetings:
Week of August 8 – The Olympics with 1988 Olympian Paul Kingsman
Week of August 15 - Vietnam Medical Mission with Nicole Pham
Upcoming Recordings:
This Week: The recording for 1988 Olympian Paul Kingsman will be Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 10 AM Pacific Time. The connection address for this recording will be: https://zoom.us/j/7489282423
Next Week: On Tuesday August 9, 2016 at 8 PM Pacific we will be recording Nicole Pham who will be speaking to us about the Vietnam Medical Mission. The connection address for this recording will be: https://zoom.us/j/7489282423
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 though. 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!
