|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
Friday Program
For STEL, the influence his mother had started early continues today. She always encouraged him to leave the earth a better place than he found it. “The way we can achieve immortality is through our influence here on earth.” STEL complimented our student of the month, Jesse Franklin, on his plan and his commitment to serving people. He may not know what he is going to do specifically, but he has a plan. “I tell my students all the time, 'A vision without a plan is a hallucination.'" It takes lots of study, hard work, and commitment to make your vision a reality.
Morris Kremen introduced visiting Rotarians and guests. We had two visiting Rotarians and three guests. Morris completed his job perfectly by saying, “You are all always welcome at the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club!” Jim recapped the GSE team from Japan. He and his wife, Sandy, hosted Imoto and had a great experience. When he left, Imoto said, “Oh, Jim-san, Bellevue Breakfast, best club, best club.” The Japanese GSE team returned to Japan on Wednesday and our GSE Team, led by our very own Sayoko Kuwahara, left Wednesday as well. Sayoko and her team arrived safely and are already enjoying their trip!
Student of the Month: Jesse Franklin
Jesse will be attending Claremont-McKenna this fall, where he will play football and major in economics and business. While he doesn’t know exactly what he is going to do after college, he does know it will have something to do with helping people. Congratulations, Jesse, for being our Rotary Student of the Month!
Last Minute Rotary Walks! Talk
Surprisingly (or maybe it was planned), a large number of people came racing to the front of the room waving checks. Andrew face pointed out that Jenny forgot to recognize Tim Moriarty as a committee chair. Andrew knows all too well that Tim was a committee chair, he missed one meeting and found himself assigned to Porta-Potties. John Martinka then played To Tell The Truth with some “Jenny-isms” from the Turkey trip. John asked us which one was not true. Here they are:
As it turns out, all of the quotes are true. It was a scam for Andrew to increase his collections this year, since he is behind in his “fundraising” goal. • • • The first Rotary Walks! is now history. Click on the links below to view a short video by Ernie Hayden and a slideshow of the event.
GSE Team Travel Log From Sayoko
We waited for the Japanese GSE team to arrive, but it was not long before we received a phone call from Emoto-san. Their flight had mechanical trouble 4 hours after taking off and it turned around over the Pacific Ocean to land in Anchorage. They are hoping to return to Japan tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, but no assurance at this point. The Saitama 2770 District GSE committee members were at the airport to welcome us. They are so energetic, friendly and fun! They said affectionately, “Emoto is too serious. We are not like him at all. So, please relax.” They took us to Narita Shrine to pray for our safety while our stay in Japan. They promptly began a party on a chartered bus. It was not even 2 hours after we arrived in Japan that we all began drinking sake.
We attended the Welcoming Party where District officials, Club Presidents, and host families attended for us. The GSE Committee members who picked us up at the airport continued to be extremely helpful and supportive of us. They made all of us feel very comfortable. We made our first official presentation to 80+ people. Everything went well technically. We delivered our presentation completely in Japanese. We all felt that all the practice we had done paid off. We re comments on our presentation like: “I have been involved in GSE forever, but have never seen any GSE presentation like yours before. It is fabulous!” and “Your team can articulate what GSE is about in your presentation better than anything I have read about the GSE program,” and “Let’s change our district conference agenda and have all the exchange and scholarship students here this presentation.” Needless to say, I was very pleased, but more importantly, I was extremely happy for my team members, as they went through A LOT to construct our presentations. We practiced and practiced and practiced. Remember, not all of them speak Japanese fluently. ALL OF OUR HARD WORK PAID OFF TODAY. The team did a fabulous job!
Apparently, the Rotary Foundation Chair, Kawamoto-san, who had seen our presentation, made a lot of calls to Rotarians last night to tell them to attend the GSE segment of the District Conference. The auditorium was packed to maximum with people standing against the wall all the way around the room. Both Japan Team and U.S. teams lined up on stage. We looked sharp although our hearts were pounding. Nao-chan reported his team’s experiences in the U.S. Then came our turn. Onto the huge screen our presentation was projected and we related our personal stories. Thanks to the skilled technical staff, everything went smoothly. We walked off the stage with sense of pride, accomplishment and relief. Team members said that they were very pleased that our presentation carried an important message which is in line with Rotary and GSE mission. We received more positive comments about our presentation and the way we carried ourselves. At the official dinner with the RI president’s agent, many club presidents came to our table and gave us feedback, saying our presentation was “impressive,” “dignified,” and “meaningful.”
The D5030 GSE team leader was given 5 minutes to make a speech to these young people and team members shared their views of Japan. The immediate Past Gov. Kita came to the auditorium where our discussion was going on made the following statement. “In our district, we stress the importance of educating the future generation. The large number of students we receive from other countries and Japanese students we send to the world says a lot about our dedication. After we heard the GSE’s presentation which focused on individual social responsibility, we felt validated, but at the same time, we felt the time we devoted to the International Exchange during the District Conference was not enough. Besides, we said to each other that the youth/GSE discussion and presentations should be done in the main hall. We have made a decision to change the format for the next District Conference to include the larger segment of the International Exchange.” The 5030 GSE team has been given more opportunities to appear on stage in front of people than the conference schedule initially indicated. The team leader has been asked to give quite a few speeches. We met a huge number of Rotarians in just 2 days. We are very relieved that the District Conference is over. Tomorrow is a free day and we spend our time with individual host family. 05.01.07 - Free Day Rotarians here are so kind and particularly concerned with our health condition. One’s health barometer by their definition is how well we are eating. We are fed unbelievably well. Lindsey said, “I am eating my way through Japan.” Sayoko has never eaten so many meals a day in recent years. Kelly and Lindsey are very adventurous. They are trying everything and loving most everything. Alice, Michele and Sayoko appear to have something to eat in their hands all times. It may sound that we are just eating all times. But we do remember that we are a GSE team and our purpose is vocational experience.
Friday Program Rourke O’Brien introduced our speaker today, Salome Thomas-EL (STEL). Some of you may remember that STEL was extremely well received by the BBRC when he spoke to us in 2004. STEL is a Principal in Philadelphia, guest speaker around the country, author, husband, and father of two little girls. He has now written his second book, "The Immortality of Influence," and shared some of his thoughts with us. For STEL, the influence his mother had started early continues today. She always encouraged him to leave the earth a better place than he found it. “The way we can achieve immortality is through our influence here on earth.” STEL complimented our student of the month, Jesse Franklin, on his plan and his commitment to serving people. He may not know what he is going to do specifically, but he has a plan. “I tell my students all the time, 'A vision without a plan is a hallucination.'" It takes lots of study, hard work, and commitment to make your vision a reality. In dealing with young men and women, STEL has found that with high school kids, the way to get to the boys is through the girls. Boys don’t care what STEL has to say, but they hang on every word the girls say. He uses the girls as a secret weapon to get the boys to achieve. When asked for their phone number, STEL tells young women to say, “I will give you my phone number, but first, I need you to solve a quadratic equation.” Next thing he knows, that young man is in his math tutoring sessions asking to learn quadratic equations. Remember, “If he is not on his way, he is in your way!” Growing up in inner-city Philadelphia, STEL was supported by his mother, teachers, and community — then did what everyone else did and left. He took a job in television production working with big sports stars. He went back to school for a Career Day event and realized he had walked out on some of the people who had influenced him the most, his teachers. He quit his job in TV, went back to school and earned a degree in education. Then he did what most people wouldn’t have done: he returned to the same neighborhood where he grew up and went to work as a teacher. In his first year as a teacher, his school lost 20 students to murder. Unthinkable for most of us, but a reality of many of the nation’s urban districts. STEL had to find a way to get these kids engaged and using their brain to think and make decisions. To make a long story short (the long story is in his first book, "I Choose to Stay"), STEL got the kids playing chess (ask
One of those experiences was having Arnold Schwartzenegger visit the school. He offered to play one of the kids. I warned him, “Arnold, do not challenge the girls, they treat the chess pieces like offspring, they will not give them up.” He didn’t take the advice and played Denise, one of the top 50 female chess players in the nation. Denise won and Arnold exclaimed, “You terminated The Terminator.” The experience certainly left a lasting impression on the students, and so did the $25,000 that Arnold donated to the chess program! They couldn’t believe that someone from outside their area, who didn’t know them, would donate money to them! STEL developed a friendship with a school in Vermont. One of the goals was to show the students they are more alike then different. After getting to know each other through letters, STEL and kids traveled to Vermont to visit. Vermont was significant in that it was the first state to abolish slavery. The children had an opportunity to see the house where Harriet Tubman lived, and they read letters demanding slaves be returned and letters saying no. They also found their new friends liked similar music, had issues with their parents and faced the same teen challenges. It was an incredible experience for everyone. “We need to teach our young people that we must seek to understand before we are understood.” The life of an urban educator is a tough one. We don’t hear all the stories about the kids who have incarcerated parents, whose siblings are killed in gang violence, or whose mothers are raising eight kids single-handedly. “My goal is to keep these kids from getting checkmated in life.” There was a student in elementary school whom most teachers had written off, but STEL got to him and taught him chess. His name was Willow, and chess turned his life around. Willow started making good decisions, participating in school, getting good grades, and he loved chess! Unfortunately, when he went on to high school, there was no chess club so Willow didn’t have chess anymore. He started making bad decisions. Friends came to tell STEL what was happening. “Willow was killed on the street, and it haunts me every day.” We influence each other in a very powerful way. Kids like Jesse (our student of the month) don’t turn out the way they do without positive influence. As adults, we sometimes forget the power of our influence, and who we influence. It’s not just our kids, but our family, the people we work with, the people we interact with every day and those that we will never meet. Rotarians are known for helping people around the world that we will never meet. Will Smith is reading the script for the movie based on STEL’s first book, "I Choose to Stay." Will invited STEL and his family (he’s not sure how his mother-in-law fit into one of the suitcases) down to visit. They had a wonderful time. The script is still being worked on, but hopefully it will become a reality. STEL gave the BBRC a special invitation to attend the red carpet event in Seattle because of our “powerful influence.” Don’t ever underestimate the influence you have on others. Questions: What were the circumstances around the death of the students? What do you think about standardized testing? On our trip to Turkey, all the kids had uniforms. What do you think about uniforms?
The Price of Gas These examples do NOT imply that gasoline is cheap; it just illustrates how outrageous some other prices are. Compared with gasoline ...
So, the next time you're at the pump, be glad your car doesn't run on Scope, Whiteout, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or WATER!
|
|
||||||||||||||||
Rourke O’Brien introduced our speaker today, Salome Thomas-EL (STEL). Some of you may remember that STEL was extremely well received by the BBRC when he spoke to us in 2004. STEL is a Principal in Philadelphia, guest speaker around the country, author, husband, and father of two little girls. He has now written his second book, "The Immortality of Influence," and shared some of his thoughts with us.
Bob Bowen offered the invocation and pledge. Bob attended the District conference last weekend and had the privilege of sitting next to David Stern, a long-time member of the Edmonds Rotary Club, former Edmonds Police Chief and incoming Club President. David passed away suddenly on Tuesday from a brain aneurysm. Bob requested a moment of silence for this outstanding individual and fellow Rotarian. 
Bob Holert introduced (with some difficulty) Student of the Month Jesse Franklin. Jesse's parents Seth and Kathy Franklin were also in attendance. Jesse is a senior from Sammamish high school, who has a 3.96 GPA and is a successful athlete. Jesse has always been committed to helping others. He helped organized a walk-a-thon to raise money to support one of the teachers at SHS whose son was recently diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. He is also a camp counselor and has helped with youth sports teams. 
Jenny Andrews thanked her committee chairs for all of their hard work in getting the walk-a-thon going. She reminded us that we all made a commitment to the walk-a-thon by either getting walkers or writing a check. When we had the raffle, we had an $800 commitment per person. This year, the contribution was lowered to $500 per person. Please bring your check if you have not gathered enough walkers.
04.26.07 - GSE Team Arrives in Japan 
04.27.07 - First Official Day in Saitama
04.28.07 - District Conference, Day 1
04.29.07 - District Conference, Day 2 
Today, we went to Nikko, a beautiful place of historical importance, with representatives from Groups 7 and 8 of District 2770. Unfortunately, it was drizzly and cold — but it reminded us of Seattle.
or
