~ Newberg Noon Rotary Club Newsletter ~
Rotary Club of Newberg, Zoom Meeting
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
~ Zoom Meeting Participants ~
Shannon B, Mike, Dan, Jeff, Auggie, Joe, Ralph, Judy, Walter, Todd, Paul, Paula, Patrick, Michelle, Michael S, Shannon K, Kim, Lisa, Kathie, Laura, Geoff, Doug, Larry, Amber, Patrick, Dale, Wendy, Lynn, Brandy, Jim.
~ Call to Order ~
President Shannon Buckmaster welcomed Rotarians and Friends of Rotary to the Zoom meeting at 12:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, 2021. The Rotarians split out into breakout groups to start the meeting.
~ Flag Salute ~
Paul lead participants in the Pledge of Allegiance.
~ 4 Way Test ~
Judy lead participants in the recital of the 4 Way Test:
Rotary’s Four Way Test of the things we think, say and do:
#1 – Is it the TRUTH?
#2 – Is it FAIR to all concerned?
#3 – Will it BUILD GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
#4 – Is it BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
~ Announcements ~
Happy St. Patrick’s day! Also today is Polio Plus day for the Duck Donations.
~ Guests ~
Erin Thomas, Guest Speaker
~ The Rotary Duck ~
Mike: Could not make it to the meeting but donated for Polio Plus.
Shannon B: Celebrated her 40th birthday on Monday. Happy Birthday, Shannon!
Joe: Polio as well as all vaccines. Thanks to everyone and all the organizations around Yamhill County who has helped with the vaccine effort. Also wished Shannon a Happy Birthday and showed off his donut socks.
Geoff: Mentioned he is a few days from his 2 week wait period after getting his second vaccine and thanked Joe for sharing his socks. Congrats Geoff!
Dan: Wanted to give big thanks to Paula and Patrick for helping put together the latest Advantage Magazine article. Also mentioned that he enjoyed catching up with Dale at the breakout rooms. Finally gave a shout out to Rotarian Sean Andres who was on the cover of today’s paper for having been appointed to be on the Oregon Cultural Trust Board.
Laura: We now have, for the EMS Grant, 31,000 Club Funds. We also have a contingency donation from an anonymous donor that ensures us to our full goal of $35,000! How exciting! Way to go Laura, Paul, Paula, Patrick, and Mike!
Todd: Gave a Happy Birthday to Shannon.
Kathie: Welcomed Jeff back. Mentioned that she has had great opportunities to work with Jeff’s wife Jackie on various community projects. Celebrated her 32nd Anniversary to her husband, Nathan. Also reported that First Federal is donating $40,000 to 95 local non-profits. They received a total of 5,172 votes. Top service categories were to youth and education, then food and shelter, then animal rescue organizations.
Auggie: Acknowledged that it is St Patrick’s Day.
Ralph: Gave to support Polio in honor of his uncle who had Polio and was disabled as a result.
Wendy: Celebrated officially being a member of the Club! Welcome and congrats!
Total Collected today for Polio Plus: $367
~ Today’s Program: Every Woman Treaty Global Grant Update by Erin Thomas ~
About Erin:
Erin, a Portland Rotarian and Peace Fellow, was nominated to the Peace Fellow Program by the San Diego Club. She is now a member of the Rotary Club of Abina in NE Portland. Her family moved to and now lives for Ghent, Belgium at the end of 2020 for a job relocate for her husband. The town is beautiful in a mid-evil, Gothic sort of way. Erin has 2 kids: Gordan is 14 and Regina is 12. They are both in Immersion School over in Belgium. They don’t have a car but have free access to Tram passes and bikes. They also have been doing weekend adventuring around Belgium and are loving it. The trains and museums are pretty empty due to COVID and much of the tourist type experiences are contactless reservations. Offices are not open, work from home only. There is very strict mask-wearing rules everywhere for anyone over 12 years old. Vaccinations in Belgium are slow moving and will begin in May and then some outdoor restaurants will open.
About the Grant:
A few years ago, Erin presented to our Club about the organization she was working with, The Every Woman Treaty. At that meeting, Laura had spoken to her about our Club’s relationship with the Club of Kathmandu. This discussion opened the door to beginning this grant project. This is the first ever Peace Grant out of our District 5100, being worked on by Erin as well as members of our club including Laura and Patrick. These peace grants are not tangible like water or other, which results in a more challenging explanation/pitch to donors. This type of grant involves intangible efforts to change minds and hearts. This project is a great success in terms of being awarded funding from Rotary International as the Covid Pandemic has dried up a lot of global funds. Erin noted that the pandemic has lead to drastic increases in violence against women. In Nepal, despite the creation of the Domestic Violence Act of 2009, domestic violence is still the leading cause of violent death (approximately 1 in 3 women have experienced domestic violence). Now that domestic violence has been enshrined into law there is an opportunity for Nepal to move forward or backward at this point due to many seeing the law as having solved the problem, while it is still the case that the issues and statistics have not gone away. Erin and the advocates for women supporting this type of program see training and education as the roadmap to success in battling domestic violence and inequality for women. This is a great grant because the Kathmandu women helped with this and the men did not have big buy in as this being a true an issue until they saw the data. This is important for that reason. It is a real partnership that factors into the work towards world peace. Hopefully, the work being done in this grant will lead towards the formation of an independent, self-sustaining, coalition or federation that advocates jointly to advance womens’ rights in Nepal.
For more information on this project and organization, visit everywoman.org.
~ Next Week’s Program: Turtle Dove Shelters by Patrick Evans ~
Check your e-mails for Mike Caruso’s Zoom meeting access information.
~ Joke of the Day ~
This weekend I spent an hour attaching all of my watches together to make myself a belt.
It was a waist of time.
~ Happy Quotes! ~
“Be available for life to happen.”
– Bill Murray
~ Published 3/21/2021: Dan Keuler, Newsletter Editor ~
