The following are summaries of weekly club meeting programs in the month of August, 2013. Thank you to participants and contributors!
August 6, 2013: Program – Lee Anne Holdren – Vice President for Alan Newman Research – U.S. Military Sponsorship of Professional Sports.
Will Shewmate introduced Lee Anne Hodren with the Alan Newman Reach, a subsidiary of the Martin Agency. She is a graduate of Midlothian High School, Virginia Tech, and UNC (Masters).
Her presentation – U.S. Military Sponsorship of Professional Sports: Does It Work?
Key Points:
- She discussed the National Guard Sponsorship of NASCAR (#88—Dale Earnhardt’s car)
- Based on her firm’s market research, consumers, National Guard, and NASCAR fans all view the association of the National Guard and NASCAR favorably.
- NASCAR fans (aged 18-34) are more likely to say that they would consider the military as a career (than non-NASCAR fans).
Lee Anne mentioned the McCollum-Kingston Amendment and how the amendment was defeated on 6/14/13 by a vote of 289-134. For more information, search the internet on this amendment.
August 13, 2013: Program – Heather Barrar and Elisa Bennett — GSE team trip to Brazil
Bob Stallworth introduced 2 of the 5 GSE team members who went to Brazil. Heather Barrar works at Chesterfield County in the Environmental Health Department and Elisa Bennett is a 5 grade Spanish teacher at St. Catherines.
Their presentation – review their recent GSE team trip to Brazil
Key Points:
- They were part of a 5 person team that made the trip—-one of the team members was Mickie Chapman (River City Rotary). Elisa was sponsored by Midlothian Rotary and Heather was sponsored by Blackstone Rotary. Both speakers thanked our club for our tremendous support of a fantastic learning experience.
- The team spent 35 days in Brazil and visited schools, businesses, tourist sites, and attended Rotary meetings. Elisa gave our club a ‘personal space exercise’ and it was fun to watch Bill Stinson kiss Pete Stith on the cheek!!
- They mentioned that they took Rosetta Stone training to learn some Portuguese. Many other languages are also used in Brazil such as English, German, Italian, and Spanish.
- They also discussed many other topics of interest (i.e. Huge extremes within social classes in Brazil with very little ‘middle class’ as you’re either ‘well to do’ or ‘not so well’. Heather talked about how many elected officials (17) are in such a small population of 200,000 and the ‘obligatory voting’ where the ‘down side’ is that it is pretty easy for politicians to ‘buy the votes’ of the lower class residents (by providing gifts, etc.)
August 20, 2013: Program Speaker – District Governor Charles (Chuck) Arnason
DG Arnason thanked Bob Stallworth and Wayne Woodcock for all of their great work over the years.
Key Points from his speech:
- He thanked us for being the best Rotary Club in the world and uses this same opening line for all of his speeches as he has visited 41 Clubs so far this year.
- Focused on the topic “Why are you here?” Answer: “Somebody asked you to join”. We all need to be responsible for recruiting future Rotarians as that is the soul of Rotary. Also, only 30% of Rotarians have sponsored a new member so we all need to be better and more proactive in this area. Of the new members who join Rotary, we need to fully understand their ‘passion’ as 80% of new Rotarians resign within a 5-year time frame.
- We all need to have a passion for the Rotary Foundation—-in our District, we raise $250,000 per year and ½ of the money goes back into our pool for District/Local grants. The other ½ goes to Rotary International.
- He also shared stories from his trip to Haiti and how Rotary really makes a difference in the lives of people.
- Polio eradication—-reminded everybody of Rotary’s goal to eradicate Polio by 2018. In 1988, there were 355,000 new cases of Polio and it’s down to only 223 cases in 2012. Our contributions really do make a difference. He mentioned the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation—they will match every Rotary dollar 2 for 1 for the next 5 years. For every dollar that Rotary contributes (which provides 7 immunizations) there is a 2 for 1 matching grant from the Gates Foundation. That means for every dollar we contribute, there will be 21 immunizations. What a great international program and it all starts with each member’s contribution.
- He mentioned that Rotary does a good job with Rotary Interact but that we need to focus on transitioning these high school graduates into Rotaract (when they go to college). These organizations are great ‘springboards’ for new Rotarians when they graduate from college.
- Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA)—this is an excellent leadership skills program at the 4H camp in Wakefield (during a weekend in February 2014). We need to sponsor some deserving students for this program.
- In closing, DG Arnason stressed for all of us to engage in Rotary and be passionate about Rotary.
August 27, 2013: Program – Dr. William M. Lennarz – Update on the proposed Children’s Hospital for Richmond Area
Will Shewmake introduced Dr. William M. Lennarz, the Chief Medical Officer for Pediatrics with Bon Secours Virginia. The key points from Dr. Lennarz’s speech were:
- He gave us an update status of the Richmond area having an independent children’s hospital.
- Richmond is the largest city in the United States that does not have a children’s hospital. Overall, there are now over 100 such hospitals in the U.S. and 40 have been built in the last 10 years.
- Mentioned the complex, comprehensive problems that exist now as there is an increase in younger children being extremely sick with complex health issues.
- Dr. Lennarz mentioned many benefits for having an independent children’s hospital—-better case outcomes, safer care, shorter stays, and lower overall costs of care to the community.
- Several key Richmond individuals and companies are ready to finalize a pledge to secure substantial funding for this type of hospital.
- Five feasibility studies have all demonstrated the financial feasibility for the children’s hospital.
- Projected planning process time from approval to final build out of the hospital would be 5 years.
