Newberg Noon Rotary Club Newsletter for April 1, 2020

No April Fools Joke..…ALL Rotary clubs have been advised to curtail meetings until further notice.  Even District Training and the Rotary International Convention in Hawaii have been cancelled or postponed.

A bit of CREATIVITY is afoot, however…vis-a-vis a number of meetings.  The District Training has had its first “on-line” sessions…and the meeting for April 8 will be our first attempt at having a “virtual meeting”….courtesy of Mike Caruso’s “ZOOM” account.

Brandy Penner “attended” a District Training session….here are her observations:

“Good Morning!

I hope that this semi sunny Saturday morning is off to a great start for you all. I am attending various district trainings today and so far so good! I also attended the Early Bird meeting as a visiting Rotarian this last week and it was great to see a few familiar faces, but it made me miss our weekly meetings.

I reached out to Corey and Shannon earlier this week and began a discussion regarding what it would take for our club to get up and running holding our weekly meetings virtually. It is my understanding that:

1. Mike has a Zoom account, which can be used to get us started.

2. Shannon is inundated with Chamber business, helping out our local business community in this difficult time. She understandably does not have the capacity to act a full program chair at this time.

3. I am available to take on the programing piece in the interim in order to support Shannon in her role and to get our club programming up and running. The website has our calendar of speakers so I can reach out to upcoming speakers to confirm their continued availability or shift our schedule around if needed.

4. Our April 8th meeting speaker happens to be living in my house so I can ensure her availability! Inarm is our Thai exchange student and presented to the Early Bird group this week and it went very well. Her presentation could be a great way to start our first virtual club meeting since she is readily available.

5. Paula can help spread the word and get details out regarding the specific zoom information that Mike can provide.

These are new and uncharted times and we need to ensure that we stay connected, support members and continue to follow our 4 Way Test. I am excited to be small part in supporting the work that it takes to make these things happen! Please let me know if you have questions, concerns or ideas.

Brandy”

Additional comments from Paula……”I like the idea of a Zoom Club meeting–I think most of our members can access the meeting without great difficulty.  It’s a fairly simple process to access the site etc.  I am willing to do whatever is needed to move this forward.  I would suggest we prepare a simple ‘template’ for what we want to do during these meetings so we can plan forward with program ideas, presentations and discussions. “