Santa’s Surprise consisted of people offering SERVICE gifts (and, optionally, additional physical gifts) to be received by randomly chosen attendees … or to be “stolen” by a later chosen person. The gifts were very, very clever, and the meeting was a whole lot of fun. And all the service activities gifted help us to do good in the World

Venera Urbaeva just graduated from the Duke/UNC Peace Scholar program this past June. She gave a riveting presentation to us about the program, how she got into it, and her aspirations for the future with regards to putting her learning to work in promoting global health. She also found time to tell us about her native country, Kyrgyzstan. Venera currently is doing volunteer service for Curamericas, a charitable organization that provides health services in Central and South America as well as in Africa. Specific work she’s doing addresses health needs of rural Mayan speakers living in Guatemala. In the spirit of the Holiday Season and Rotary’s “Disease Prevention and Treatment Month,” Venera urged us to donate to her organization: www.curamericas.org/donate.

Rotary Zone 33/34 Director-Elect Peter Kyle was this week's guest speaker. The topic was the “Rotary Representative Network,” a function of Rotary on which he currently serves as Dean. It is a fascinating group consisting of Rotarians who have an active presence as volunteer consultants or advisors to various international super-governmental agencies: United Nations, European Union, Organization of American States, etc. The Network insures that Rotary has a voice in framing international policies and activities, and it provides an opportunity to forge partnerships. One of the most important are our partnerships to End Polio Now. It was a fun meeting. And it was great to learn about one of Rotary’s best kept secrets, The Rotary Representative Network.

Sometime ago our guest speaker PDG Dave McCoy addressed a group of District 7690 Rotarians and asked all those who were Paul Harris Society (PHS) members to raise their hands. Virtually everyone raised hands … falsely. The Paul Harris Society involves donating $1000 or more each year to The Rotary Foundation (TRF) related instruments. A Paul Harris Fellow (PHF) recognition is bestowed on a person for a cumulative donation of $1000 to TRF. Those who falsely raised their hands did so because they were PHFs but not PHSs and they confused the two. Dave quickly pointed out the inaccuracy of the hand count and told those who erred that he would see them after the meeting. In this way, he recruited yet more into the ranks of the Paul Harris Society. Dave is a fantastic salesman and advocate for the Paul Harris Society, and he knows each and every one of the 165 D7690 Rotarians who are members of this distinguished group. The moral of this story is you better know the difference between PHF and PHS!

Recent activities presented this week were our performance as a cook team at the 2019 Pigstock BBQ Competition and the Foundation Banquet. We were one of 12 cook teams participating at Pigstock, and if an award had been given for the best dressed team, we would have taken it without any question! Our food was pretty good too! Over $27,000 profit was earned from this event, all of the money going to the Children Of Vietnam charity. Four Global Trekkers and one friend attended the Foundation Banquet. Keynote speaker was Zone 33-4 RI Director-Elect Peter Kyle. Peter gave a great talk about TRF and the ubiquity of the wonderful service our Foundation does around the World. We will see Peter again on December 4 when he speaks about the “Rotary Representative Network.”

This was a superb meeting! Carl Davis is a RI Senior Major Gifts Officer and he spoke about the power of our Rotary Foundation. Carl pointed out that our Foundation actually consists of 3 major components: PolioPlus Fund: Money given to this fund is used to pay for our fight to eliminate polio. Dollars spent from this fund are matched by two from the Gates Foundation, so a massive effort is being mounted to eliminate this disease. Annual Fund—SHARE: Donations to this fund are invested. For three years the interest that comes from the investment is used to pay for RI administrative expenses. At the end of the three year period, all of the principal is returned. Half of it goes back to the districts from which it originated to fund district initiatives such as District Grants. The other half goes to the World Fund, which is used in part for Global Grants and other key service initiatives. Endowment Fund: This is money donated or to be donated for charitable purposes upon the death of a donor. Financial instruments used to do this are the Benefactor pledge (US$1,000) and the Bequest Society codicil (US$10,000 and up). The principal will never be touched. However, interest from the investment will be used to honor the specific charitable requests of the donor. Twenty years from now, the Endowment Fund will be the largest of the three funds.

In his very first formal presentation, 13 year-old John Eakes told us a lot about the service activities in which he has been engaged. He does all of the other things one would expect from a young man his age: school work, baseball and other sports. But as soon as he was able to do charitable activities, his parents made those activities available to him. His favorite is meal packing for other young people his own age, and “Meals Of Hope” has been a charity he has supported with his volunteer service. So … how can adults activate the service DNA in our youth? A partial answer is to make the activities available and fun.

President-Nominee and Membership Chair Reid Perkins was this week’s guest speaker. Earlier this year Reid and two other Global Trekkers (Trish Perkins, Florence Allbaugh) attended the Membership Summit put on by our district. It was a great event, and Reid shared with the rest of us what he gleaned from attending it. Using statistics from our club he showed that we have to plan for attrition … the most vulnerable members are those who have been in the club for 3 years or less (and of these, those who have only been members for 1 year are the very most vulnerable). Acquisition rates must exceed attrition rates for a club to survive. Attrition can be reduced by having great projects and events. One such thing mentioned was a micro-project done by all members during a couple of meetings: coloring children’s coloring books and donating them, blank coloring books and crayons to children who are hospitalized. Although every Global Trekker is a member of the Membership Committee, Reid discussed the concept of the “Tragedy of the Commons.” That is, if everyone is a member of a committee, little to nothing might get done. Not that we are a noteworthy victim of the tragedy, Reid suggested that we should form a special Super Membership Committee having just a few volunteers. Hand raisers were Reid, Kay, Dave and Angel. With these go-getters, the future for Global Trekker membership looks brilliant!

We were honored to have Claudete Sulzbacher speak to us about Brazil’s work in combatting polio. Besides being her district’s (D4680) PolioPlus Chair she is the World’s Greatest Meal Coordinator for the entire county of Brazil! Although 1990 witnessed the last case of polio in Brazil, people have not sat on their hands. The vigilance of Brazil’s health care officials and Rotary’s involvement have been decisive in keeping polio away. Right now, from October 7 to October 25, health care practitioners are traveling throughout the country vaccinating kids aged 1 to 5 against polio and other diseases, particularly measles. Their goal is to have at least 95% of the children in each municipality immunized against these diseases. In Brazil only health care practitioners can administer the vaccines. But Rotarians help too … we help by trying to make the needle work less scary for the kids.