The following are summaries of weekly club meeting programs in the month of October, 2013. Thank you to participants and contributors!
October 1, 2013: Program – Charlotte Perkins – Redskins Richmond Training Camp
Charlotte grew up being a Dallas Cowboy fan but now is a Redskin fan after her “labor of love” representing Bon Secour in making the Redskin Training Camp a reality.
She asked “Why would a non-profit CatholicHospital form an alliance with an NFL team?” She found a common bond in their interest in giving back to the community. Bon Secour, when approached by Mayor Jones to participate as the sponsor, wanted two things to enable their service to the community:
- To buy/lease the Westhampton School property to expand St. Mary’s Hospital
- Close 27th Street East Richmond for an office building to provide need medial services such as a dialysis center
Charlotte said that the most difficult part of the complicated negotiations between Bon Secour, the Redskins and the City was getting approval by the “5 Sisters” for the logo. Finally, strict components of the agreement involved the Redskins being willing to pay for public service announcements if anyone in the organization does things with which Bon Secour would have philosophical problems (i.e. spousal abuse).
She is proud of the public / private partnership that has brought jobs and volunteers to the community.
There were over 25, 000 in attendance at Fan Appreciation Day and the attendance for the camp was the most ever by an NFL team.
Charlotte was very complimentary of how the players interacted with the youth at the camp and how they continue to have a relationship being ambassadors for community charitable causes.
October 8, 2013: Program – Club Assembly
William Shewmake, gave an update on the Midlothian Rotary Foundation.
October 15, 2013: Program – Dr. Paul Hebert
Chandler Williams introduced his fellow VMI graduate Paul Hebert as our guest speaker for the day. Paul graduated from VMI in 1968 with a degree in civil engineering and then completed his formal education by earning his masters and PhD from UNC.
His career has been spent promoting and working on various water and sanitation projects across the globe for the World Bank and the United Nations. Although he is a Steamboat Springs resident, he is currently teaching at VMI for the fall semester. In 2010 he was awarded the Jonathan Myrick Daniels Humanitarian Award from VMI. The only two previous recipients of this award were former President Jimmy Carter and former UN ambassador Andrew Young.
Most recently, he has been working with Rotary International, Districts 5440, 5450 and 9212 (Kenya) as part of the Rotary Vocational Training Team. They mission was to promote the WASH program – Water, sanitation and hygiene and economic development in Kenya. His team traveled to Kenya in August and the Kenyan team visited Colorado in September. While in Kenya, they toured the country to assess water and sanitation needs. They found many successful projects and including many that were using innovative techniques. Currently, the efforts in Kenya appear to be uncoordinated with no strategic planning.
Future efforts to provide water and sanitation will be focused on schools and the training of youth. These projects will be demand driven and not supply driven. District 9212 will formulate a 10 year WASH strategy which will need to be endorsed by all the clubs in the district and monitored by the district. The ultimate goal is for all schools in the district to have adequate WASH facilities and hygiene education by 2023.
October 22, 2013: Program – Randy Wycoff ( West Richmond Rotary) and Lisa Kopecko
Today’s program consisted of a presentation about the Nutzy Rotary Funn Run which will be held on December 7th. This year’s run will benefit United Methodist Family Services and participating YMCA’s. The 5k race will start at 8 am and will consist of competitive runners, casual runners, walkers and strollers.
The Nutzy’s Winter Funn Fest will be held at the Diamond at 4 pm on the Friday before race. There will be live entertainment, Santa Claus, holiday crafts show, a toys for tots drive and the race registration pick up.
The actual race registrations are ahead of last year’s pace and the sponsorships are right in line with last year.
Randy Wycoff (West Richmond Rotary) and Lisa Kopecko (former Midlothian Rotary member) brought us up to date with the status of the race. In addition, they explained how the fund raising activities work.
Randy discussed why “peer to peer” fund raising is so successful with this type of event. Once you’ve established an account and have emailed your contacts, your contacts will help you in your fundraising efforts because friends will support friends, donations are within their comfort range ($80-$100) and it is so easy.
Randy also outlined the steps members should take to participate through the First Giving platform. The first step is to set up your fundraising page (Robbin will be sending out detailed information on how to do this). Next the system will access your email address within your address book. Then you’ll set up a simple solicitation letter which you then edit and send.
Randy’s rules of fundraising are:
- Be the first to make a donation so that your friends can see that you have
- Select 15 friends to whom to send your emails
- Commit to sending out your emails three times
- Don’t worry about selling the cause – your friends will support you
- Although the First Giving system will send a thank you to your supports, be sure and personally thank them as well.
