Sunrise bulletin for the week of October 23, 2013
On a foggy day in Vancouver town, we were 15 members at our Rotary breakfast, plus 4 guests: Gene Vickers from the Coquitlam Sunrise club (last week's speaker), Josh Green (a financial planner and guest of Gene), Lindsey Curtis (an engineer and guest of Cam Scott) plus Steve McGrandle. President Ann-Shirley Goodell opened the meeting and Bill Sheddy recited the 4-Way Test, almost from memory.
Rotary moment
Tomorrow is World Polio Day, so Ann-Shirley reminded us of the latest stats. This year there have been 296 new cases of polio world-wide, up from 121 last year. Nearly all the increase was in Somalia, where political and economic conditions are very tough, with a few cases in several nearby African countries. Rotary's fight isn't over. The Gates Foundation is now matching all Rotary contributions 3 to 1, so we can contribute $100 online at www.rotary.org and Bill will send $300. We need to specify Polio Eradication if that's where we want our contributions to go.
Club news
Hanne Kooistra, our Youth Exchange student of 3 years ago, sent an email from the Netherlands that she's now in university and will have educational trips to Russia in November and to South Africa in February. She's well and sends greetings to the club.
RWHN (Rotary World Help Network) will be loading a shipping container for Uganda this Saturday starting at 9 am. Larry Belsito is going to help and would like company. Contact him if you can go.
The board will meet on Tuesday morning, November 12. The District Governor will be with us the next day.
Today's program
Doug Anderson was our speaker this morning, representing ToastMasters. Doug has been a member for 44 years and has served as governor for this area. This organization started in 1924 meeting at a YMCA in California. The club in Vancouver's Kitsilano area, where Doug and our member Milie Taing are members, was formed in 1936. Clubs have now been started in some 160 countries, including Russia and China.
Doug says public speaking is most people's second biggest fear. (Is spousal disapproval the first? Or is that just me?) ToastMasters encourages members to take a risk and improve themselves. At their club meetings, each speech, in fact every activity, is timed and evaluated, in order to help people learn and do better the next time. He says preparation is key to public speaking, as is the need to engage everyone in the room.
Doug closed his talk with a long quote he displays in his office which boiled down to "...Risk we must..."
I'm going to work on the spousal disapproval thing. See you next Wednesday (if I survive).
Rob