Committee

Welcome to the BBRC (Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club) Vocational Minute

(This will be read during a meeting, then posted in our Club’s Vocational Database)

Name: Sheldon Sweeney

Description: Financial Advisor for Comprehensive Planning, I went to college at the California Maritime Academy and earned a Bachelor’s Degree. My industry exams taken and passed include: Series 7, 63, 65, Life and Disability insurance.

What I have to offer fellow Rotarians and friends :

• I work with individuals that are losing sleep at night wondering if they’re going to be able to retire and scared that when they do they may have to alter their lifestyle or worse yet, they’ll outlive their money.
• They often feel victimized by the effect of taxes and are discouraged by their tax bill at the end of the year.
• They typically work with an advisor that addresses part of their finances, but are worried they are missing pieces by lacking a coordinated strategy.
• Clients find relief from these concerns when working with me and having a plan that addresses their entire financial situation.

These may not be areas of concern for you, but do any of these concerns sound familiar for people you know?

Something unique about my practice is that I market to women. Did you know that the current statistic in our industry (Financial Advisors*) is that upon the death of the male spouse 75% of women leave their Financial Advisor and seek someone else. (*I must say that I do not think this statistic holds true for my fellow advisors in Rotary, however it is a shocking statistic in our industry)

What Rotarians can offer in support or good introductions for me:

• I help clients who are widowed or divorced and losing sleep about their financial game plan
• I help clients who are upset and worried about having enough money to make it through retirement
• I help clients who need a honest approachable person to ask questions that they may be embarrassed to ask
• I help clients who are angry about their tax situation as they approach retirement
• I help clients who feel crippled by the daunting task of making a successful exit plan from their business so they can retire comfortably.

If any of these areas I mentioned resonate with you or someone you know, I’d love to have a conversation.

Hi All, I send out the requests for proposals last month and they have come back. I need some readers that would be willing to take a look at them with a critical eye and score them with the District Grant matching criteria in mind.

I have scanned all of the proposals in to pdf and  have a checklist to help the readers evaluate them. You can probably read them on your iPhone

I will give first priority to those who have been on the committee in the past. It seems like a lot of people have gone on vacation and are not in town for some reason.

Let me know if you are interested in participating.

I would like to get these turned around in a week or so.

Meeting called for March 4, 2016 at 8;35 in the bar after the meeting.

Steve Peters

speters@pfpllc.com

425-830-7022

Our current exchange student, Ariadna Paraira from Barcelona, is doing very well as a junior at Sammamish High School and will be staying with Steve and Sarah Hayne until the end of December. She will be making a short presentation to the Club this coming Friday, October 17^th.

As a Committee, our biggest challenge is finding two additional host families for January through March and April through June. On September 29^th, Sarah Hayne, Tanya Franzen-Garrett and I gave a brief presentation at the Sammamish High PTSA meeting, where we distributed a flier:  Host Families Wanted.   Catherine Smith, PTSA leader, also sent the flier to the parents of the class of 2016 and Cathy Habib has included it in the Sammamish High School Totem eNews.

I was told at the PTSA meeting that the Rotary Youth Exchange program was the only international exchange program that has been actively promoted at Sammamish High.

To date, I haven’t received any inquiries from parents with kids at Sammamish High about hosting Ariadna. My next move is to ask Catherine Smith to publicize the program among parents with kids in the classes of 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Laura Adams has graciously offered to be Ariadna’s host Mom from January through March in the event we don’t find another host family. She is also responsible for Ariadna’s schedule of activities.   Thank you, Laura.

Three weeks ago, I helped chaperone all six of Rotary District 5030’s international exchange students (Ariadna, two girls from Italy, one girl from Finland, one girl from France and a boy from Germany) on a memorable trip to Yellowstone for their inbound orientation.   Although none of the students knew each other before the trip, they were best friends after a week of bonding, exploring majestic Yellowstone, photographing wildlife and helping with meal preparation. I was with them again on Saturday, boxing apples at Rotary First Harvest.

The first week is in the books and it was successful. On Friday we worked at two schools to create Wi-Fi networks. Rod took one group to the “easy” school, easy because all the buildings are connected by a covered walkway. Alex and I took another team and one-half to the “tough” school. Tough because it has 15 buildings around its campus and we had to run wires through concrete walls, string wires from building to building like electrical lines, and deal with other logistical issues. We got about half done and will finish Monday.

The above will allow the use of laptops in the classrooms, a major step forward for these schools.

Jan’s new sewing project continued to be a success with a small fashion show Friday and will have their final lesson with her on Monday. Last year’s center is thriving and the ladies will be presenting at the “International Women’s Day Street Fair. Laura and Jan found a couple outlets for them to sell their wares.

As mentioned before, the teacher training appeared to be excellent. I think TRF will be pleased with what we’ve done so far. Our follow-up metrics will show if the teachers paid attention and are using what they learned (the facilitator knows this and will monitor it).