Category: Virtual Activity

‘Hybrid meetings,’ a Rotary how-to

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If you make a practice of regularly checking the calendar page on this website, you will have noticed links to monthly multi-district membership sessions. For June, the topic will be “hybrid meetings.”

The discussion sessions are open to any Rotarian, but advance registration is required. Just click here to sign up.

Rotarians from 7190 will join with colleagues from 7120, 7150, and 7170 to learn how to hold a successful meeting or event combining in-person and virtual attendance. It also will touch on the technical aspects, equipment, and everything else you need to know to help your club with vibrant, inclusive, impactful meetings.  

The Monday, June 7, event is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Once you have registered you will be sent an email confirmation with the link to the event. 

Last-minute District Conference signup open

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The annual District 7190 Conference, a virtual event for the second straight year, will take place Saturday. If you haven’t registered but have had a change of heart and would like to participate, you still can do so even though you’re cutting it close.

All you have to do tonight or Friday by 1 p.m. is go online to sign up, and the event organizers will send you an access link.

The event will take place in three phases:

• The social gathering beginning at 8 a.m.

• The business meeting, which includes a roll call of clubs, a number of committee reports, a vot by the clubs on the proposed district budget for the 2021-22 Rotary Year, and “a few surprises.”

• After a short break, the Remembrance Ceremony will honor Rotarians in the district who have passed away since last year’s convention. That will be followed by recognitions and awards.

Note: The agenda and the proposed budget both have been attached to emails sent to all Rotarians by DG Rich Griesche.

Past RI president to join us via Zoom

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Barry Rassin, past president of Rotary International, will be the featured speaker at a pre-District Conference multi-district Zoom event on Tuesday, May 11.

The 7 p.m. session is open to all Rotarians in District 7190 as well as Districts 7120, 7150, and 7170, although advance registration is required. Rassin will be speaking on new changes in Rotary that affect us all. Attendees also will hear from RI Director-elect Drew Kessler on changes being proposed for our Zone 5.

As announced earlier, the District 7190 Conference, still will be held on Saturday, May 15, with details to be announced.

To register for the pre-conference May 11 session, click here. You then will be sent an email containing the link to enter the Zoom meeting.

Cause-based clubs? It’s a virtual forum

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Rather than having all individual clubs address a wide range of concerns, Rotary is advocating for the creation of cause-based entities. To that end, a virtual workshop next week will address the particulars of how to go about doing that.

Our District 7190 Governor Rich Griesche tells us, “We are changing things up and we have an interactive workshop planned for you at 7 p.m. Monday.  We have enlisted the help of District 5950 (Minnesota) Governor Tom Gump to give us real examples and time to start to plan ways to reimagine our clubs or start new clubs.

“We will … collaborate on things that would be relevant to our communities here in New York, we will share a lot of content, and make it easy for all of us to form a plan to put into action. I mean, who doesn’t want to join a koala lovers or an international traveling enthusiast club?”

Rich has emailed all Rotarians in the district about the event, and attached to his email a worksheet titled “Making Your Club Vibrant” to use or refer to during the session.

Although the event is free, advance registration is required. Just click here for details.

RI Convention going virtual this year

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Because of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, the Rotary International Convention originally scheduled to be held in Taipei, Taiwan, has been changed to a virtual event June 12-16.

The Rotary Board of Director says the decision “is necessary to protect the health of everyone involved. We will share more details about the 2021 Rotary International Virtual Convention soon. Here’s what you need to know now:

Registration

The Virtual Convention will be open to all Rotary members and participants. Registration will open in mid-April and will include a promotional fee of $49 for the first 21 days of the registration period, increasing after that to $65. The cost of each pre-convention event is $20. Both the convention and pre-convention events include access to the House of Friendship. Please continue to check back for more details and updates.

Convention, pre-convention, and ticket refunds

RI is in the process of automatically cancelling and refunding all existing registrations. This includes purchases made for Rotaract, Youth Exchange, and Intercountry Committees pre-convention events, and ticketed meal events.

We kindly ask that you NOT contact RI Registration to inquire about registration, ticket, or housing cancellations as they work diligently on finalizing the process of those cancellations and refunds. Those who had already canceled prior to today will receive a refund of the $50 processing fee. 

Host Organization Committee (HOC) ticketed event registrations

The HOC event ticket fees will be refunded by the Taipei HOC. For more information, please visit rotarytaipei2021.org.

Hotel rooms

No action is required from those attendees who made accommodations secured within Rotary’s official housing block. Maritz, formerly Experient and Rotary’s official housing partner, has already cancelled all individual and group room block reservations and refunded the groups who made partial payments. 

We will post more details as they become available.

‘Young People Speak’ about life in Rotary

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If you missed Monday’s multi-district panel discussion called “Young People Speak,” an insight into what young people experience in Rotary, you may want to give it a try by clicking on the video above.

The panelists, who were from Upstate New York districts, talked about what attracted them to Rotary, what turned them off about Rotary, and what Rotary clubs can do to connect with youths — provide guidance (loosely!), have a strong orientation program, be welcoming, encourage teamwork, be flexible, and be people of action.

Give it a try. You may find the video enlightening and helpful as we try to refresh our club membership.

Holiday off, but we’re Zoom-ing back next Thursday

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Welcome to the 2020-21 Rotary Year, and Happy Fourth of July week.

Following tradition, there will be no meeting this week because of the holiday, but we will hold a meeting via Zoom videoconferencing from 6 to 7 p.m. next Thursday, July 9.

It will be the first meeting presided over by new club President Dick Drumm. Here’s his agenda outline, with details to be emailed to members before then:

1. Summer events
2. Year-long schedule of programs, speakers, fundraisers, and projects
3. Alternate plans for a meeting site if Quigley’s does not reopen
4. Best way to regularly schedule Zoom meetings to optimize attendance
5. Open for Rotarians to freely express ideas on what they would like if not already included on this agenda

District offering enhanced Zoom training session

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Brady BunchIt has been a challenging year for everyone around the world as we all have felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in some manner. But, with those challenges came new opportunities and ways for our Rotary clubs to operate and help our communities locally and around the world.

One major change of our Rotary clubs was the inability to hold our club meetings in person. However, almost all clubs in District 7190 were able to continue to meet and operate using virtual methods, primarily the Zoom video-conferencing application.

The District, in an effort to help all clubs use virtual methods efficiently and effectively. will be holding training on Zoom meetings on June 23rd. It will cover:

HOW TO ZOOM — Covering basics and initial setup, screen sharing, presentations, visitors/guests, recording, and troubleshooting/concerns.

LIVING WITH ZOOM — Successful meetings, finding speakers, including new members, and retaining members.

Time: 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 23
How: Click on the Zoom link
Meeting ID: 859 1757 4902
Password: 660611

You’re invited to virtual DG Changeover

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The 2020-21 Rotary Theme & Logo

Richard Griesche will be inducted as District 7190 Governor on July 1, the first day of the 2020-21 Rotary Year.

Past DG Tammy Heckenberg will be inducting Griesche in the virtual event as well as Bruce McConnelee as District Governor Elect and Denise DiNoto as District Governor Nominee. We also will have the traditional pin exchange.

“I will be making a short presentation outlining my goals and vision for our year, as we ‘Open the Doors of Opportunity’,” Griesche said.

The 2020-21 Rotary theme — “Rotary Opens Opportunities — “is such a great theme for this year, faced with the challenges we are now dealing with. But, these challenges present opportunities for us to do more service in our communities and around the globe. So, please join us on July 1, and let’s start this new Rotary Year off right.”

The virtual event will be accessible via the Zoom video-conferencing service. Details:

Time: 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 1
How: Click on the Zoom link
Meeting ID: 817 1064 1133
Password: 173739