WELCOME TO THE WEEKLY MEETING

FRIDAY, August 26, 2016

In this meeting:

Welcome
Rotary Calendar
President’s message
Rotary Minute
ABCs of Rotary
Update on Polio
Council on Legislation changes
D7020 Conference 2017 video
5 Caribbean facts
What happened last Saturday
What happened Wednesday
RI President-elect (2017-18)
Wellbeing article
Humour
Foundation Corner
Rotary Anthem
Four-way test to end

NOTE: Where links are provided in the meeting, click the link to view the video. To return to the meeting, click either your browser's BACK button or click the previous window or TAB.

OUR GREETER THIS WEEK IS ROTARIAN JOHN

President's Message

President Paul

Dear fellow Rotarians and Guests,

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020. My name is Paul Amoury, and I am the president of the club for the Rotary year 2016-17. I do hope you’ll enjoy the time you spend with us.

Each one of us is important in helping to make Rotary achieve the very worthwhile goals that are part of Rotary. We all have a role to play.

As Membership month draws to a close, we must focus constantly on ensuring that our club is a vibrant club with members who share our vision of a better world.

September is fast closing in, and the Rotary theme is Literacy. Our Butterfly Storybook project will take centre stage as September unfolds.

Thank you for stopping by. I wish you well in the next week and in all that you do for Rotary.

THE ROTARY CALENDAR

AUGUST

Membership and New Club Development

SEPTEMBER

Basic Education and Literacy

Club assembly, September 17

OCTOBER

Economic and Community Development

Remember our DG's visit on October 22.

NOVEMBER

The Rotary Foundation

DECEMBER

Disease Prevention and Treatment

JANUARY

Vocational Service

FEBRUARY

Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution

MARCH

Water and Sanitation

APRIL

Maternal and Child Health Month

MAY

Youth Services Month

JUNE

Rotary Fellowships Month

ROTARY PROVIDES HELP WITH SHELTERBOX

ShelterBox and Rotary clubs take action following earthquake in Italy

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy early Wednesday, killing more than 240 people and trapping an unknown number beneath rubble. Tremors were felt as far away as Rome, 100 km (65 miles) southwest of the quake's epicenter.

International disaster relief agency and Rotary International project partner is sending a response team from its headquarters in the United Kingdom to the remote mountainous area of Italy where the destruction is most severe. The response team will arrive Friday, 26 August, to assess the area's needs.

Luca Della Volta, president of , the affiliate organization in Genoa, will accompany the response team. Della Volta is working with the Rotary Club of Rieti in District 2080, the club closest to the earthquake-affected sites, and will meet with officials of the Italian Civil Protection Department, fire department, and Red Cross to coordinate efforts.

If families and individuals made homeless by the disaster need emergency shelter, ShelterBox will send tents and other equipment from its locations in Italy and other sites across Europe. Della Volta says the most urgent need is for tents and relief supplies for the hospital of Rieti, where most of the patients from the destroyed hospital in Amatrice were taken.

"I am truly heartbroken over what has happened," says Della Volta, charter president of the Rotary E-Club of 2042 Italia. "As Rotarians, we are always available to help people in need."

ROTARY MINUTE

QUOTATIONS REGARDING ROTARY

by Rotary International Presidents

1991-92 Rajendra K. Saboo (needle manufacturing), Rotary Club of Chandigarh, Union Territory, India. Rotary vision: A challenge to every Rotarian to Look Beyond Yourself for opportunities to serve.

“Giving is living. What is important is how much of yourself you put into the giving. That is what makes the living sublime.”

— A New Definition of Rotary, THE ROTARIAN, January 1992

1992-93 Clifford L. Dochterman (university administration), Rotary Club of North Stockton, California, USA. Rotary vision: Observance of the Golden Rule of service — Real Happiness Is Helping Others.

“The search for individual joy, satisfaction, and happiness is universal, and I strongly believe it is a goal that can best be fulfilled by helping others… Some of the most rewarding moments in our lives occur when we are helping, serving, and caring for others.”

— A Chat with President Cliff, THE ROTARIAN, August 1992

ABCs OF ROTARY

RI President (1992-93) Cliff Dochterman

Urban Peace

By the year 2000, the United Nations estimated more than half the world's population would live in urban and suburban areas, many in cities of over 10 million inhabitants. The challenges of life in such densely populated areas with increasingly shared resources was seen to lead to rising tensions.

Many problems, once associated with poverty and urban decay in large cities, are spreading into communities remote from large cities. These include:

. The negative impact of drug and alcohol abuse

. The spread of street gangs and community violence

. The growing number of homeless people; and

. The rising rate of teenage pregnancy

The causes of these problems are many:

. Unemployment and unemployability

. Poverty and hunger;

How have clubs responded? Some have contributed financial support to drug and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation agencies. Others have created projects that educate communities, provide alternative activities to youth at risk of using drugs, and match young people with Rotarian mentors who help build their self esteem.

To help assure a healthy, hope-filled future, Rotary clubs must continue to aggressively confront

substance abuse today.

. Erosion of family values

. Domestic violence

. Lack of literacy and numeracy skills

. Deterioration of inner cities

All people have the right to enjoy life free of the fear of violence and crime. Rotary gave special attention to these issues in 1996-97, sponsoring seven urban Peace Conferences; and more than 6,000 Rotary Conferences for New Generations were held worldwide. Rotarians returned to their communities, empowered by the realization they could make a difference in the lives of those around them.

Recognizing the magnitude of the need, the RI Board of Directors approved a three-year emphasis on Urban Peace, beginning in 1997, to focus the organization's resources on this central aspect of Community Service.

Rotarians and Rotary clubs can survey residents to identify the problems that threaten their communities and - working to unite local civic groups, governmental and nongovernmental organizations - develop plans of action to help solve them.

Substance Abuse Prevention

Drug and alcohol abuse has grown to alarming proportions worldwide. The problem is closely linked to crime, violence, poverty, child and spousal abuse, AIDS, homelessness and other ills in society.

Rotary International launched an anti-drug campaign in the early 1980s, urging clubs to assess the problem in their communities and identify resources to combat it. Concluding that preventive education is the best investment of Rotary's efforts, RI focused attention on substance abuse prevention through forums, recognition of clubs and districts for outstanding projects, and highlighting them in THE ROTARIAN magazine and other RI publications.

In 1992 the RI board renewed its commitment to substance abuse prevention, making it a 10-year emphasis of the organization. RI encourages Rotary clubs to work with government and non-government agencies to:

. increase awareness among members and the community about local programs dealing with substance abuse

. undertake or support substance abuse prevention programs that instill positive values and self-esteem in young people

. support local family-based substance abuse treatment programs

UPDATE ON POLIO

Rotary's fourth World Polio Day celebration, on 24 October

Polio this week as of 17 August 2016

After advance notification of WPV1 in Borno state, Nigeria last week, two cases of WPV1 have now been officially reported, the first since July 2014. Virus was isolated in two local government areas (LGA) of Borno; in Gwoza, in a child with acute flaccid paralysis, onset of paralysis on 13 July and close healthy contacts of that child; and in Jere from a close healthy contact of a child who had developed AFP symptoms on 4 July.

An outbreak response plan has begun, focusing on both Nigeria and the Lake Chad sub-region more broadly (specifically parts of Chad, northern Cameroon, southern Niger and Central African Republic). See ‘Nigeria’ and ‘Lake Chad sub-region’ sections for more.

Coming soon: the Global Polio Eradication Initiative web site is getting a makeover. Keep a lookout for the new design of the site, which will allow visitors to see the latest information on the programme, interactive data visualizations and media content including photo essays and videos. Existing resources from our current website will be available on the new site as well.

The GPEI seeks nominations for members of the new Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) that will monitor and guide polio transition (‘legacy’) planning. The closing date for nominations is Friday 9 September 2016. This new Transition IMB is separate from the current IMB, which monitors and guides progress towards interruption of transmission.

Source - http://www.polioeradication.org/dataandmonitoring/poliothisweek.aspx

Understanding the 2016 Council on Legislation changes

...submitted by Rotarian Diana

2016 COL Decisions: Meeting Flexibility and Format from Rotary Training on Vimeo.

MEMBERSHIP MONTH COMES TO A CLOSE

ARE YOU HUNGRY?

DISTRICT 7020 CONFERENCE 2017

5 Fast Caribbean Facts You May Not Know

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Tuesday August 23, 2016 – Sure, you may be from the Caribbean and you know a lot about where you come from, but here are a few cool trivia tidbits to wow your friends!

There are over 7,000 islands said to be part of the Caribbean but only two per cent of them are inhabited. There’s a prodigious amount of land in the region colonized only by wildlife. That means more for us to explore!
The Caribbean was actually discovered by accident. Good old Christopher Columbus believed he had arrived in Asia (East Indies) but he was in fact in the Caribbean. The name “Caribbean” is derived from the Amerindian tribe, the Caribs, where many of us have ancestral links (but they were warlike and sometimes practiced cannibalism, so we’re not that close!).
The Caribbean has influenced many a musical genre over the years. Famous for its Reggae, Calypso, Reggaeton, Salsa, Chutney (inspired by the East Indian migrations) and steelband (“pan”) music. Pan music, also known as “steel pan” music, is derived from old oil drums that are cut and tuned in a way that, when struck, emit a heavenly sound. The steel pan was invented in Trinidad and Tobago – the ONLY musical instrument created in the entire 20^th Century!
The entire region lies on a tectonic plate called the Caribbean Plate that underlies the Caribbean and Central America. The last major shifting of the Caribbean Plate occurred in a 2010 earthquake which affected Haiti. Seismic specialists claim that, not including the Haiti event, the region is 20 years overdue for a major strike.
Did you know there is a rare Caribbean oyster that is said to climb trees? Well, not quite. Being that they are without arms and legs this puts them at a distinct disadvantage. What really happens is as the tide comes in on the mangroves, the oysters ride up with the tide and attach themselves to the trees, when the tide ebbs the oysters remain on the trunks leaving the impression that they have climbed the tree.

The Caribbean is home to the weird and the wonderful – and we love it!

WHAT HAPPENED SATURDAY

August 20

WHAT HAPPENED ON WEDNESDAY!

August 24

Snapchat for women’s education.

As the latest guest on The Late Late Show’s Carpool Karaoke sketch, Michelle Obama and host James Corden talk about her Let Girls Learn initiative in between raucous bouts of singing to Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, and Missy Elliott.

Let Girls Learn is focused on helping the 62 million girls around the world who are not in school for a variety of reasons surmount physical, cultural and financial barriers to receive an education.

On the show, the First Lady announced her upcoming trip to Liberia, Morocco and Spain for the initiative, inviting viewers to follow along on her recently created Snapchat account.

and the second fun video -

The Let Girls Learn website -

Let Girls Learn - https://letgirlslearn.gov/

Attendees:

Keeping you up to date and in the know –

Ian Riseley

RI President 2017-18

Rotary Club of Sandringham

Victoria, Australia

RI President-elect Ian Riseley

Ian Riseley is a chartered accountant and principal of Ian Riseley and Co., a firm he established in 1976. Prior to starting his own firm, he worked in the audit and management consulting divisions of large accounting firms and corporations.

Riseley has been a member of the boards of both a private and a public school, a member of the Community Advisory Group for the City of Sandringham, and president of Beaumaris Sea Scouts Group. He has been president of Langi-Taan Ski Club as well as honorary auditor or adviser for a number of charitable organizations.

Riseley’s honors include the AusAID Peacebuilder Award from the Australian government in recognition of his work in East Timor, the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the Australian community, and the Regional Service Award for a Polio-Free World from The Rotary Foundation.

A Rotarian since 1978, Riseley has served as treasurer, director, Foundation trustee, and member and chair of numerous RI and Foundation committees.

He and his wife, Juliet, a past district governor, are Major Donors and Bequest Society members of The Rotary Foundation. They live on seven hectares at Moorooduc, where they practice their personal philosophy of sustainable and organic living. They have two children and four grandchildren.

Don't try to be happy. We're programmed to be dissatisfied

Frank T McAndrew

Source - https://www.theguardian.com

************

In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning in one’s life, respectively.

Since then, thousands of studies and hundreds of books have been published with the goal of increasing wellbeing and helping people lead more satisfying lives.

So why aren’t we happier? Why have self-reported measures of happiness stayed stagnant for over 40 years?

Perversely, such efforts to improve happiness could be a futile attempt to swim against the tide, as we may actually be programmed to be dissatisfied most of the time.

Part of the problem is that happiness isn’t just one thing.

Jennifer Hecht is a philosopher who studies the history of happiness. In her book The Happiness Myth, Hecht proposes that we all experience different types of happiness, but these aren’t necessarily complementary. Some types of happiness may even conflict with one another. In other words, having too much of one type of happiness may undermine our ability to have enough of the others – so it’s impossible for us to simultaneously have all types of happiness in great quantities.

For example, a satisfying life built on a successful career and a good marriage is something that unfolds over a long period of time. It takes a lot of work, and it often requires avoiding hedonistic pleasures like partying or going on spur-of-the-moment trips. It also means you can’t while away too much of your time spending one pleasant lazy day after another in the company of good friends.

On the other hand, keeping your nose to the grindstone demands that you cut back on many of life’s pleasures. Relaxing days and friendships may fall by the wayside.

As happiness in one area of life increases, it’ll often decline in another.

‘For most of us, however, the reason that the good old days seem so good is that we focus on the pleasant stuff and tend to forget the day-to-day unpleasantness.’ Photograph: Justin Horrocks/Getty Images

This dilemma is further confounded by the way our brains process the experience of happiness.

By way of illustration, consider the following examples.

We’ve all started a sentence with the phrase “Won’t it be great when…” (I go to college, fall in love, have kids, etc). Similarly, we often hear older people start sentences with this phrase “Wasn’t it great when…”.

Think about how seldom you hear anyone say: “Isn’t this great, right now?”

Surely, our past and future aren’t always better than the present. Yet we continue to think that this is the case.

These are the bricks that wall off harsh reality from the part of our mind that thinks about past and future happiness. Entire religions have been constructed from them. Whether we’re talking about our ancestral Garden of Eden (when things were great!) or the promise of unfathomable future happiness in Heaven, Valhalla, Jannah or Vaikuntha, eternal happiness is always the carrot dangling from the end of the divine stick.

There’s evidence for why our brains operate this way: most of us possess something called the optimistic bias, which is the tendency to think that our future will be better than our present.

To demonstrate this phenomenon to my classes, at the beginning of a new term I’ll tell my students the average grade received by all students in my class over the past three years. I then ask them to anonymously report the grade that they expect to receive. The demonstration works like a charm: without fail, the expected grades are far higher than one would reasonably expect, given the evidence at hand.

And yet, we believe.

Cognitive psychologists have also identified something called the Pollyanna principle. It means that we process, rehearse and remember pleasant information from the past more than unpleasant information. (An exception to this occurs in depressed individuals who often fixate on past failures and disappointments.)

For most of us, however, the reason that the good old days seem so good is that we focus on the pleasant stuff and tend to forget the day-to-day unpleasantness.

These delusions about the past and the future could be an adaptive part of the human psyche, with innocent self-deceptions actually enabling us to keep striving. If our past is great and our future can be even better, then we can work our way out of the unpleasant – or at least, mundane – present.

All of this tells us something about the fleeting nature of happiness. Emotion researchers have long known about something called the hedonic treadmill. We work very hard to reach a goal, anticipating the happiness it will bring. Unfortunately, after a brief fix we quickly slide back to our baseline, ordinary way of being and start chasing the next thing we believe will almost certainly – and finally – make us happy.

My students absolutely hate hearing about this; they get bummed out when I imply that however happy they are right now, it’s probably about how happy they will be 20 years from now. (Next time, perhaps I will reassure them that in the future they’ll remember being very happy in college!)

Nevertheless, studies of lottery winners and other individuals at the top of their game – those who seem to have it all – regularly throw cold water on the dream that getting what we really want will change our lives and make us happier. These studies found that positive events like winning a million bucks and unfortunate events such as being paralyzed in an accident do not significantly affect an individual’s long-term level of happiness.

Assistant professors who dream of attaining tenure and lawyers who dream of making partner often find themselves wondering why they were in such a hurry. After finally publishing a book, it was depressing for me to realize how quickly my attitude went from “I’m a guy who wrote a book!” to “I’m a guy who’s only written one book.”

But this is how it should be, at least from an evolutionary perspective. Dissatisfaction with the present and dreams of the future are what keep us motivated, while warm fuzzy memories of the past reassure us that the feelings we seek can be had. In fact, perpetual bliss would completely undermine our will to accomplish anything at all; among our earliest ancestors, those who were perfectly content may have been left in the dust.

This shouldn’t be depressing – quite the contrary. Recognizing that happiness exists, and that it’s a delightful visitor that never overstays its welcome, may help us appreciate it more when it arrives.

Furthermore, understanding that it’s impossible to have happiness in all aspects of life can help you enjoy the happiness that has touched you.

Recognizing that no one “has it all” can cut down on the one thing psychologists know impedes happiness: envy.

FOUNDATION CORNER

WHAT IS THE ANNUAL FUND

ANNUAL FUND is the primary source of funding for all Foundation activities. Our annual contributions help Rotary Clubs take action to create positive change in communities at home and around the world. Our gift helps strengthen peace efforts, provide clean water and sanitation, support education, grow local economies, save mothers and children and fight disease.

The EVERY ROTARIAN every year (EREY) initiative asks every Rotarian to support The Rotary Foundation every year.

Through our annual Sustaining Member contributions of $100 or more, the Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020 has been a 100% EREY contributor since we were chartered in 2013. Let us continue to support The Rotary Foundation (TRF) through our annual donations.