RI BOARD NOTES

At its January meeting, the RI Board of Directors weighed in on several topics related to New Generations. Here are a few of the Board’s decisions:

• Club presidents and district governors-elect are encouraged to appoint New Generations committees to develop, implement, and support New Generations activities.
• Because service is an essential component of all New Generations programs, clubs and districts should include a service learning dimension in RYLA and Youth Exchange, as well as in Interact and Rotaract, to promote leadership and team-building skills, tolerance, and commitment to social responsibility.
• District Rotaract representatives and sponsor Rotary clubs should encourage Rotaract club officers, directors, and committee chairs to attend district-level leadership training meetings.

In addition, the Board decided that it will not amend the age range for Rotaract members and will not collect annual dues from Rotaract clubs. These decisions grew out of recommendations from the 2011 Rotaract Council.

Read more highlights of RI Board actions.

JUST ONE MORE USE FOR YOUR iPAD

EDISON'S LIGHT BULB GOES THE WAY OF THE BUGGY WHIP

Say goodbye to incandescent light bulbs, not just in your house, but in your car.
Just as Thomas Edison’s favorite bulbs are on their way out in homes, automakers are ditching them as well in cars in favor of more reliable LEDs. Ford is in the forefront with the coming new 2013 Fusion. 
 (click below to read more)

MENSA Q & A

To which literary movement did John Osborne, Kingsley Amis and John Wain belong?

(click below for the answer)

AND I QUOTE

"Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night."

Philip K. Dick

LEAP YEAR EXPLAINED

TODAY IN HISTORY

FEBRUARY 29

1940:Hattie McDaniel is the first African American to win an Academy Award, taking home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as housemaid Mammy in Gone With the Wind. The film wins eight Oscars in total, including Best Picture. Nevertheless, McDaniel and her escort are seated at a segregated table in the back of the room during the ceremony.

1944: Dorothy Vredenburgh is elected secretary of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first woman to hold such a post for a national political party. She would serve as secretary for 12 DNC conventions, from the 1944 Roosevelt-Truman ticket through the 1988 Dukakis-Bentsen ticket.

1960: The first Playboy Club opens in Chicago, famously featuring Hugh Hefner's scantily clad Playboy Bunnies.

IT'S MAKE-UP TIME IN SOUTH FLORIDA

JoAnne Brooks

Today I had the opportunity to make-up at the South Miami (Florida) club. A previous post included some photos I snapped at their annual Art Show that happened this past weekend. The club has about 60 members and they are a friendly bunch. The meeting speaker was an artist who was involved with the art show. JoAnne Brooks is also a polio survivor, and shared some of her life events and concerns as related to polio. As much as American Rotarians have done to help eradicate polio on the world stage we spend virtually nothing on domestic research to help polio survivors, and there are many of them.She pointed out that we hardly even talk about polio in the USA. There was a lot of irony in her presentation. If you are interested in finding out more, she can be reached via email-joanne@jabjewels.com. You can also visit this polio related site www.poliotoday.org.

MENSA Q & A

What is the traditional name for Hansen's Disease?

(click below for the answer)

AND I QUOTE

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."-Samuel Johnson

FRONT LAWN LIBRARIES

MADISON, Wis. — Todd Bol wanted to honor his mother, a former teacher and book lover who died a decade ago. So two years ago, Bol built a miniature model of a library, filled it with books for anyone to take, and placed it outside his home in Hudson, Wis.

He says people loved it. “People just kept coming up to it, looking at it, patting it, saying ‘oh, it’s cute,’ ” Bol recalls.

From that idea, hundreds of similar Little Free Libraries are popping up on lawns across the country. They’re tiny — no bigger than a dollhouse. Some look like miniature homes or barns. Others just look like a box on a post.

But they all hold books.(click below to read more)

TODAY IN HISTORY

FEBRUARY 28

 1984:Michael Jackson sets the record for most wins at the Grammy Awards, taking home eight accolades, including album of the year for his smash hit Thriller.

1525: Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés oversees the torture and murder of Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor of Tenochtitlan, after the young king fails to reveal the golden treasures Cortés expected to find in present-day Mexico.

1993: Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives attempt to execute a weapons search in the compound of the religious sect known as the Branch Davidians, located near Waco, Texas. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians are killed at the beginning of a 51-day standoff. The siege will end on April 19, 1993, when an FBI assault on the Branch Davidians' compound results in the death of 75 people, including leader David Koresh.

WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?

MENSA Q & A

What is the English name for the city called al-Quds in Arabic?

(click below for the answer)

IMMUNIZATION RALLY IN INDIA

By Richard Rivkin, assistant governor of District 6440 and past president of the Rotary Club of Northbrook, Illinois, USA.

After worming our way through the narrow streets of Moradabad, a small city in Uttar Pradesh, India, a local doctor brought us by foot to the End Polio Now rally which had already begun. (click below to read more)

TODAY IN HISTORY

FEBRUARY 27

 1991:President George H.W. Bush announces that combat in Operation Desert Storm is over, proclaiming the defeat of Iraq and the liberation of Kuwait.

1981: Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder record McCartney's song about racial harmony, "Ebony and Ivory," on the island of Montserrat for the album Tug of War.

1992: At age 16, golfer Tiger Woods plays in the Nissan Los Angeles Open as the youngest golfer ever to participate in a PGA Tour event; after two rounds he would be five over par and would fail to make the cut.

THAT SHOULD DO IT!

RI ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Through social media sites, New Generations participants are sharing advice, making connections, and telling their stories. Here are a few messages we've seen recently on RI’s social media channels:

• “Rotarians help with professional dilemmas, career guidance, grant writing, and are contacts in our communities.” From a #RACtalk Rotaract Twitter chat
• “25 years since I was in Rotaract and many of my adult lifetime friends remain from those wonderful 10 years of my life.” From a discussion about Rotaract on Facebook
• “We have chosen to take a long term approach and focus on developing Rotaract and Interact Clubs to develop future Rotarians. . . we would like to establish a vibrant and dynamic Rotaract Club on every 4-year college/university in our state.” From a LinkedIn discussion on attracting younger club members. (Not part of the RI LinkedIn group? Join now.)

SPACE FILM CIRCA 1957

SOUTH MIAMI (FLORIDA) ROTARY ART FESTIVAL

And a fine time was had by all the 30,000 visitors this weekend.

MENSA Q & A

 Give the current name for the country once known as the Belgian Congo.

(click below for the answer)

TODAY IN HISTORY

FEBRUARY 26

2001:Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar orders the destruction of Afghanistan's pre-Islamic cultural heritage, including the famous colossal Buddhas carved into the cliffs of the Bamiyan Valley. The two statues, dating from the seventh century and standing more than 100 feet high, would be demolished in the following weeks in accordance with the Taliban's practice of destroying non-Islamic "idols."

1815: Exiled French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from imprisonment on Elba, a small island off the coast of Italy, and returns to France, where he would find the support of the French military and return to power for a final 100 days. He would be defeated by a British-Prussian coaltion on June 18, 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled again, this time to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

1952: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces to Parliament that the United Kingdom has developed its own atomic bomb, trailing the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's third nuclear power.

BARKING BRAKE LIGHT