This was our fourth virtual meeting and was made possible and in appreciation to RICK ROSE and his Film Creations.
President BOB LOGAN called the meeting to order reminding us of our last meeting’s excellent presentation by speaker, Dr. Terry Hunt, and seeing how the 5 ton Easter Island statues “walked”. President BOB also shared some more Coronavirus Pundemics from JERRY SULLIVAN using a squeaky rubber chicken for punctuation. He then reminded us that the death toll continues to go up because of the coronavirus pandemic, but talks have indicated communities are “opening up” and possibly we will be meeting live in mid or late May. There are two areas that our club will be participating in support of the pandemic: Financial, which is currently being considered by our club board; and Service, through Rotary International’s Volunteer Surge initiative where one million volunteers are needed to help in the healthcare system after participating with online training (www.tgig.org). President BOB has signed up for the service training and encourages us each to do the same.
A meaningful Pledge of Allegiance video was shared with Charlie Daniels reciting Red Skelton’s rendition of a description, word for word, of the Pledge. The Patriotic Song video was “God Bless America” sung by 40 vocalists in honor of our healthcare workers, our heroes of today.
Our Inspirational video was of Adrianne Haslet, a ballroom dancer, who lost her leg as a result of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and three years later, after receiving a prosthetic leg and much dedicated work, ran in the Boston Marathon again. President BOB introduced our guests and visitors who were both local and from around the U.S. as well as GARY SCHEER who brought his wife, Barbara, and former longtime Rotarian Clarke Duncan and his wife, Shirley. GARY also had Lute Olson (VIP cutout) and KURTIS DAWSON had Darth Vader (VIP cutout).
Matt Russell did the video introduction of our speaker, John Hudak, editor of Tucson Lifestyle Magazine who shared the evolution and changes to Tucson Lifestyle since becoming editor. He shared why a local magazine is important including: local newspapers aren’t doing as many in depth articles; magazines are read by those under 25 and 35, as well as the traditional older readers, and use the magazine as a resource (gardening); lush photos, etc. are graphics, and compelling stories that celebrate people and community activities, etc. A separate magazine has been developed for our visitor market, Essential Insider’s Guide of Tucson, with a distribution of 5,000 which are placed in all local hotel rooms. President BOB had him sign “Tomorrow I’ll Be Kind” for the Make Way for Books library.Birthdays were celebrated by CHRIS EDWARDS, JENNIFER HOFFMAN, and ANN LANCERO.
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President BOB shared two Random Acts of Kindness he recently did including a homeless man living behind dumpsters at Reid Park and shared the video of him receiving ANN LANCERO’S Blessing Bag from BOB.
KURTIS DAWSON, President and CEO of the Southern Arizona YMCA, shared how the Y is responding to the current pandemic by closing all normal operations in mid-March and then providing free online workout sessions, making phone calls to active older adults and live-stream exercises for them, e-mailing activities for families to do, and as of March 19th having all local facilities provide child care for healthcare and first-line workers serving about 200 children each day.President BOB introduced a Rotary International video about a doctor and his wife from India who have gone on a medical mission, for the past 18 years, to Rwanda. The closing quote was from the movie, The Shining, “A couple of weeks in isolation with the family. What can go wrong?” Our toast, “Today we toast to our Rotarians. At home and with family, we listen and adjust our lives according to what the health care experts tell us. We wear masks and stay away from others. And we think about when we can get together again. We will soon… Please stay safe.” Adjournment followed the toast.
