Ann Arbor Rotary Harpoon

Song Leader: Russ Collins            Accompanist: Maurita Holland

Committee Meetings:
    11:00 Golf and Tennis Outing, Rob Shiff
    11:00 Social Committee, Susan Smith-Gray
    11:00 Scholarship Committee, Dave McDowell, Chris Ballard
    11:00 STRIVE Mentors, Andy Dahlmann, Dave Keren
    11:00 Ad Hoc Cloud Committee, Maurita Holland

Upcoming Events:  

February 15 Speaker: Deborah Brzoska, National Arts Education Leader
Topic: Transforming Schools & Student Achievement with Arts Education
February 22 Speaker: Clifford Lampe, U-M School of Information Professor
Topic: Social Media – Potentials, Pitfalls and Practices
February 29 Speaker: Henry Pollack, U-M Geology Professor Emeritus
Topic: A World Without Ice

Notes from the Meeting of February 1:

Director Mark Foster presided at the lunch meeting this week.
 
Don Devine and Joan Knoertzer led us in song, with Don singing "Those Were the Days" in Russian.
 
Lunch team was comprised of Jesse Bernstein who gave the invocation, Joel Berger and Bruce Benz were greeters, Fran Brennan and Wenke Borgnakke recorded attendance.
 
Audio Visual team included Dan Romanchik, Bob Dascola, Norman Herbert, Ed Hoffman, and Doug Weber.
 
The DOGS kicked off a blood drive today. Kathy Wood asked members to sign up on the sheets placed at the tables to indicate interest. Time and place of the event will be determined once level of interest is known. As a minimum 45 members are needed to set up a specific time and place. Literature was provided to outline the donation process.
 
John Sepp from the Nominating Committee reminded members that new member nominations are due by February 8th. Applications may be filled out on line at the Rotary website. Hard copies are also available. Contact John Sepp, Steve Pierce or Bill Dunifon for more information or if there are questions.
 
The Social Committee is planning another event: Ann Arbor Symphony concert on Saturday, March 17th, 2012.  A special block of tickets will be available to Rotary members. Contact Mary Steffek Blaske or call the box office, 994-4801.
 
There was time for news and a few quips—Burma Shave signs-- by Bill Stegath. Those who never saw any, these were signs posted by in the countryside in farmers’ fields in the 1930s and 40s.
Here are three of them:
 
Don’t lose your head                                                
To gain a minute
You need your head
Your brains are in it too
Burma Shave
 
Car in ditch
Driver in tree
The moon was full
And so was he
Burma Shave
 
Passing school zone
Take it slow
Let our little
Shavers grow
Burma Shave

Notes from the Program of February 1:

This week’s three speakers were introduced by Mike Nold; all three are University of Michigan engineering students. Alex Thinath, Carrie Yarina, and Nathaniel Skinner, leaders of M-HEAL, a student run organization working to improve global health gave us an overview of the work they are doing. M-HEAL was established in 2006 to develop sustainable medical solutions for populations in developing countries. It is a multi-disciplinary group that engages all engineering disciplines, business, design, biological sciences, and the humanities to design and build medical devices to be used in underserved areas of the world.
 
Specifically, Carrie Yarina (Director of Community Relations at M-HEAL) and Alex Thinath (M-HEAL VP of Internal Affairs) described a Centrifuge built with bicycle parts to be used in areas where electricity is unreliable or non-existent. Carrie and Alex will be traveling to India this summer to install and coach people to use the device to spin blood which can then be tested for various diseases.
 
Nathaniel Skinner (Project Leader) elaborated further on a project described by member John Barrie of Appropriate Technologies Collaborative a few weeks ago. The device, an Enhanced Stethoscope, is being developed for use in remote rural locations to record infant heart beat, save the file, and transfer it over the cellular phone network to a highly trained physician in Guatemala City for diagnoses and to determine whether the infant needs surgical intervention.
 
Other projects undertaken by M-HEAL are: Surgical Lamp; Child restrain: M-SEAT; Solar Refrigerator; Maternal Health: Portable Exam Table; Medical Device Repair Collaborative; Survey Team.
 
More about Michigan Health Engineering for All Lives can be found here.

Thought of the day: There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic as powerful as an expectation of something better tomorrow. (Author Unknown)

Notes prepared by Nishta Bhatia   Photographs by Dave Reid, Sophie Zhao

Notes of Interest:

New Members bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm to our Club. We have so many projects and activities both locally and internationally, that it is hard to imagine there is not something of interest to everyone you know. New Member nominations for March induction are due February 8. Guidelines for membership are on the website for your review and use when talking to nominees. The nomination form is also available on the website and you can file online or download and hand to John Sepp, Bill Dunifon, or Steve Pierce. We all have interesting friends and contacts who would make great Rotarians so talk up our club and bring in a new member.

One more thought: Although our club has not performed a formal classification survey in some time, it is clear that our membership does not accurately reflect the full range of organizations that we would expect to see represented in Rotary. One area of shortfall is medium-to-large employers in Ann Arbor. Examples are Con-Way, Domino's, DTE, Edwards Brothers, Google, Malloy, McKinley, NSF, ProQuest, Terumo, Toyota R&D and Zingerman's. We have no current members from any of those companies. Surely our members know persons from these organizations who could give us leads toward employees with the "Service Above Self" spirit that makes for a great Rotarian. Please do what you can to help.

Speaking of New Blood…DOGS are looking for 45 Donors for a Blood Drive. The collection date and location are yet to be determined but it will not be Wednesday noon and will have LOTS of parking – and cookies! Contact Kathy Wood if you are interested: Kathy.Wood@kapnick.com. Blood donation takes about one hour of your time and can save a life. 

Three Junior Rotarians from Greenhills were in attendance for their second visit. They were: Anna Forringer Real, Marina King, and Suzanna Meisel, granddaughter of our own Rotarian Henry Amble. They each shared with us a little about themselves and their future plans. Mark Foster, himself a graduate of Greenhills School, presented each of them with a certificate. In addition, Scott Westerman gave each of our Junior Rotarians a lovely gift of his written remembrances from his remarks of the previous week concerning his time as a Junior Rotarian. Remembering his experience of 68 years ago, he wrote, “My wish for you is that your experience here with us will be so memorable that you will recall it for many years to come, and that you will have made Rotary an important part of your life, as it has been for me”. We all join Scott in that wish.

The Golf and Tennis Outing Committee will be meeting the second Wednesdays to set plans for the Outing, which will be on Monday, September 10. Join this important committee to help raise the monies our Club donates to trees, scholarships and Success by Six. Contact Rob Shiff to become part of this great project.

Ann Arbor Rotarian goes to South America: Bob Hyzy is off to Peru on February 10th for his annual medical student rotation, sponsored by the University of Michigan Global Reach organization. Bob is the medical director of Amazon Promise, a small Iquitos, Peru based NGO which provides medical outreach to the indigent and indigenous of Peru's Amazon basin. Through the generous support of Ann Arbor Rotary and our district Bob will be bringing a new GE V-scan handheld ultrasound to assist in diagnoses. During the over three week trip Bob and the group will travel upriver to a jungle lodge on the Yarapa River, near the confluence of the Maranon and Ucayali Rivers at the origin of the Amazon River. During the twelve day stay at the Lodge, where there is electricity created by a small generator for a few hours per evening and only kerosene lamps after 9 pm, the Amazon Promise team will travel by boat to surrounding villages from 20 minutes to 2 and half hours per day, setting up portable clinics in the village school house, only to return to the lodge by nightfall. The last week of the rotation it is back to Iquitos, where the group will hold clinic at the Amazon Promise site in the floating barrio of Belen, as well as in the port area of Masusa and the small village of Isla, just across the Itaya River from Iquitos. Bob has agreed to blog when he can on the Rotary of Ann Arbor Facebook page, recognizing that his access to the web will be limited during the jungle stay.

The U of M Rotaract Club is seeking donations of used clothing and craft materials to benefit the impoverished communities in Guatemala. If you have any used articles of clothing or stuff that you no longer need that are taking up storage space, why not clear them out and donate them for a good cause at the same time! The following are some of the items that we are looking for:

- crayons
- colored pencils
- colored papers
- children's books and DVDs in Spanish
- children's toys
- used children's clothing
- children's shoes
- used blankets, sheets and towels

The list is not exhaustive and just about any type of second hand donations will be helpful. Rotaract will be having a donation bin put up at Rotary Meetings on Feb 8, 15 and 22. You are welcome to bring your donations and place them in the bin. Alternatively, you can also contact Rui Zhang to pick up your donations. The Ann Arbor Thrift Shop will also be contributing to the collection. Leslie Christensen, President of the Shop, who was a guest at the meeting, promised the Rotaractors all they can carry. Your support will be greatly appreciated.

Rotaract Bowling was great fun. Rotaractors send a big thank you to all who attended the Rotary-Rotaract Bowling Event this past weekend. The event was a huge success and we couldn't have done it without you. We really appreciate your generosity and loved spending a quality Sunday afternoon bowling with everyone - it was so much fun! Thanks again, Ann Arbor Rotary Club!

New Rotary Professional Network: The purpose of the Rotary Professional Network is to facilitate the growth of Rotary, not just as a service organization, but also as a potential networking venue. Contact  Bev Seiford or Barbara Eichmuller by February 15 for information on how to join. Also let us know if you’d like to be involved in planning future professional networking activities. We hope you’ll join us!

Harpoon Statistics: After our second week of sending the newsletter solely by Constant Contact, we have compiled some results for last week's issue. These stats are not perfect for a number of reasons but they will give us a basis for evaluating future results. We sent out a total of 426 emails to current members (at one or more addresses) and other interested persons like former members, Rotaractors, Interactors, other clubs and district officials. Five days later, 200 emails had been opened and 97 of those included a "click-through" to the club website. Half of those were to the full Harpoon. The others were to the pages on the Governor's induction and the notes on past speakers. Overall, the new system seems to be working well. Comments, suggestions and questions are welcome. Send them to a2harpoon@umich.edu.

Mark Ouimet, a Member of our Club since 1977, was named 2011’s Legislator of the Year by the Michigan Township Association.  Mark has reached across the aisle throughout his career, which began on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, and those skills were much needed as the emergency manager legislation worked its way through the Michigan House's Local, Intergovernmental and Regional Affairs Committee. Congratulations to Mark.

Meeting Statistics: The fifth meeting of 2012 was on February 1 and drew 139 Rotarians, two Emeritus members (Phil Alexander and Henry Amble), six guests, three Jr. Rotarians one visiting Rotarian (Barbara Dawes of Adrian). In conjunction with the luncheon, a total of 32 Rotarians participated in meetings of the Endowment, International Projects and Membership Development committees. Eighteen Rotarians bowled with the Rotaractors on Sunday, January 30. Finally, three Rotarians met over the weekend to assemble last week's Harpoon, post it on the website and send it out.

Makeup Cards from Roving Rotarians: Brad Bowersox (Ann Arbor North on January 26 and Ypsilanti on January 30) and ADG Spaulding Clark (Ann Arbor West on January 24 and January 31 and Chelsea on January 31).

Birthdays: February 6 – Steve Oldstrom, Chris McMullen; February 7 – Tony Derezinski; February 8 – Millie Danielson; February 10 – Collyer Smith; February 11 – Bob Pehlke

Links of Interest: Websites of interest to Rotarians.

Rotary International: The RI home page has links to About Rotary, The Rotary Foundation, Club Locator and Member Access. Our Club is in Zone 29. The zone has 17 districts and covers portions of Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ontario. District 6380: Our district's website includes 53 clubs in the counties of Washtenaw, Livingston, Oakland and Macomb in Michigan and Kent in Ontario. The district’s monthly newsletter and articles of district-wide interest are posted there.

Rotary Club of Ann Arbor: Our Club’s website provides background material and information including the current Annual Report, Strategic Plan, New Member Nomination Form, Committee Descriptions, Club and Golf Outing brochures, synopses of upcoming programs and an archive of Harpoons.

Submit news, committee meetings, and announcements to the Harpoon, the newsletter of the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor. Contact the Club to subscribe by email.

Our Club also sponsors the following Rotaract and Interact Clubs:

U-M Rotaract Club  Huron High Interact Club

Pioneer High Interact Club   Ann Arbor Rotaract Club

“Reach Within to Embrace Humanity”