Sign up now for UN Rotary Day

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Screen shot 2016-08-31 at 4.29.52 PMIf you’ve ever been curious about getting a first-hand look at the true international scope of Rotary, you have two chances each year to do so. One, of course, is the annual international convention, which this year will be held in Atlanta. But, if you can’t commit to that amount of time, here’s an excellent opportunity just a short drive away.

“Rotary Day at the United Nations” now is taking reservations for the annual event, this year scheduled  Saturday, November 12, at the UN’s New York City headquarters. Note: Only 241 tickets remain as of this writing. Here’s the link to sign up.

The longstanding event marks Rotary’s role as one of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that helped create the UN. On this special day, 1,500 Rotarians, Rotary Youths, and guests from around the world assemble for a variety of fascinating panel discussions featuring leaders and officials from the RI, the UN and its affiliated Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

Lunch, included in the registration fee, will be servedin the main United Nations Cafeteria overlooking the East River. The registration fee is $65, which is paid for by your club. If you’d like to get a personal comment on a UN day experience, check with Bill Dowd or Jim Butterworth who attended two years ago.

Here’s a little more information about the RI-UN partnership, provided by RI:

Rotary’s relationship with the United Nations dates to 1945 when some 49 Rotary members acted as delegates, advisors and consultants at the United Nations Charter Conference. Today, Rotary holds the highest consultative status possible with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization (NGO).

Rotary and the United Nations have a long history of working together and share similar visions for a more peaceful world.

In 1945, nearly 50 of the 800 delegates representing their governments at the San Francisco Conference to draft the UN Charter also were members of Rotary. The role of Rotary clubs in promoting understanding among nations, providing a platform for dialogue, and creating positive change in communities around the world provided valuable support for the newly-established United Nations.

Rotary and the United Nations have since built a strong and productive partnership. In 1985, Rotary launched its PolioPlus program, the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication through the mass vaccination of children. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, formed in 1988, is a public-private partnership that includes the World Health Organization and UNICEF, along with other key agencies.

Rotary holds the highest NGO consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, which oversees many of the UN’s specialized agencies. Rotary maintains ties with the United Nations and other organizations through its network of 31 representatives in 15 capital cities around the world. Rotary representatives, including two youth representatives, serve as unofficial ambassadors, meeting with colleagues to share information and opportunities for collaboration.

Rotary’s representative network is active at the UN offices in New York; Geneva, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria, and the Economic Commissions for Africa, Asia, Western Asia, Europe and Latin America. Rotary also has representatives at UNESCO, UN-HABITAT, the UN Environmental Program, the Food and Agricultural Organization, World Food Programme, UNICEF, World Health Organization and World Bank.

 

Have you checked this lately?

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This listing, frequently updated, covers not only SRC’s activities, but social, training, fundraising, service, and other activities throughout District 7190. You can get to it by simply clicking on “Calendar” in the “Inside Information” listing on the website home page, or go directly to the club Facebook page and click on “Events.”

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ShelterBox teams headed for quake-ravaged Italy

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Screen shot 2016-08-24 at 4.43.18 PMThe majority of natural disasters seem to happen in Africa, Asia, and South America, and ShelterBox is always among the very first responders to bring aid to the victims.

Screen shot 2016-05-25 at 4.38.58 PMThis week, however, ShelterBox teams are being dispatched to central Italy where a devastating Wednesday earthquake of 6.2 magnitude has resulted in the deaths of at least 250 people as of this posting, along with swaths of destruction that have virtually wiped out a series of small towns, according to ANSA, the Italian news service.

ShelterBox, which usually is on scene before most governmental agencies, is always in need of a steady revenue stream because of the unending number of disasters it tends to worldwide. The Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club has purchased five ShelterBoxes, at $1,000 each, recently, but the organization always can use more.

If you can donate, please do so through club treasurer Murray Forth rather than doing so online. That way we can track where our donations are going. If you need more information on the ShelterBox program, contact Bill Dowd, our club’s ShelterBox liaison officer.

• Go here for a continually updated CNN blog on the situation.

 

 

 

‘School Supplies Drive’ — Kids helping kids

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Columbia High School students pose with their donations.

The second and final delivery of donations for SRC’s 2nd annual “School Supplies Drive” was made today, completing our effort to assist students at the high school and lower elementary grade levels in the Rensselaer City School District.

“This portion of our drive was a very generous effort by students at Columbia High School put together by John Sawchuk,” said project coordinator Bill Dowd. “I had suggested club members might think about creating a ‘kids helping kids’ component to the drive, and John used his position as Columbia principal to make it happen. Columbia kids have in the past also helped with other SRC projects. and we’re very grateful to them and their strong community spirit.”

A day earlier, Bill had dropped off several hundred donated items from club members and families at the Circles of Mercy service agency that is packaging the items for individual students and will be distributing them before school resumes.

By a rough count our drive resulted in more than 500 items for kids living in a school district in which one-third of families live below the federal poverty level. The effort was in line with one of Rotary’s key areas of assistance — improving literacy and education.

NOTE: This project will be featured in the September issue of The District 7190 Toolbox electronic newsletter.

 

‘School Supplies Drive’ donations being delivered this week

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Donations
Sue, a Circles of Mercy volunteer, shows some of the donations being packed for kids.

The first of two batches of donations to the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club’s 2nd annual “School Supplies Drive” was dropped off this morning at Circles of Mercy in Rensselaer.

Project leader Bill Dowd delivered more than 200 items ranging from backpacks to notebook paper to rulers to pencil boxes to binders to dictionaries and much more.

The supplies will be distributed by the family services agency Circles of Mercy to high school and pre-school kids in the Rensselaer City School District where more than one-third of the children come from families living below the federal poverty level.

A second delivery, being put together in support of the SRC drive by John Sawchuk and a group of his students at Columbia High School, will be dropped off at Circles of Mercy on Tuesday.

“I thank all of our SRC Club members and their families who pitched in to help make this very worthwhile drive a success again this year,” Bill said.

“Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make a huge difference in the lives of those less fortunate than we, and this is one of those ‘painless’ efforts directly in line with one of Rotary’s core principles — fostering improved education and literacy.”

Ugandan banker to be RI president in 2018-19

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Sam Owori welcomed home by Rotarians at Entebbe International Airport.

Rotary International has selected its president for 2018-19, and his fellow Rotarians gave him a hero’s welcome when he returned home this week from RI world headquarters in Chicago after the election.

Samuel Frobisher Owori, a banker in Uganda, was greeted by a boisterous crowd of hundreds at the Entebbe International Airport near the capital city of Kampala.

Owori, who became a Rotarian in 1978, has held a variety of Rotary offices since becoming a club president in 1987, including that of district governor for all of Uganda.

“Rotary is going to become a household name everywhere in the world. There is a lot of work to do. I am going to push other countries that are just coming up so that we grow membership,” Owori said.

Owori has a strong record in recruiting new members as well as fostering new clubs. When he became the district governor, there were only nine Rotary clubs in his nation. Today, there are 89.

He has served as regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, regional RI membership coordinator, RI Representative to the United Nations Environment Program and UN-Habitat, and RI director. He has been a member or chair of several committees, including the International PolioPlus Committee, the Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force, and the Audit Committee. Most recently, he served as trustee of The Rotary Foundation, chair of The Rotary Foundation’s Finance Committee, and a member of the Investment Committee. He is a Benefactor of The Rotary Foundation, and he and his wife, Norah, are Major Donors and Paul Harris Fellows.

Professionally, Owori is chief executive officer of the Institute of Corporate Governance of Uganda. Before that, he was executive director of the African Development Bank, managing director of Uganda Commercial Bank Ltd., and director of Uganda Development Bank.

 

Take us out to the ballgame …

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… and we do so once every summer. This particular Thursday night at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, the 60+ contingent of Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club members and friends was joined by more than 100 Rotarians and guests from other clubs in District 7190 for a true Rotary night.

After a picnic dinner in the pavilion we were treated to a 4-2 win by the Tri-City ValleyCats over the visiting Abderdeen (MD) Ironbirds. Here are some scenes from the evening, captured by Bill Dowd and Roberto Martinez.

Playin'
PLAYIN’ (the home team is in white)
Plannin'
PLANNIN’ (Uncle Sam speaks with local young ladies who will sing the National Anthem before the start of the game)
Honorin'
HONORIN’ (Various clubs’ Rotarians of the Year are honored en masse. Our own Debbie and Peter Brown are at right.)
Sammy
EMOTIN’ (“Sammy” is the musical cheerleader for the ‘Cats.)
Chattin'
CHATTIN’ (Isn’t the action in the other direction?)
More Chattin'
CHATTIN’ 2 (Socializing is part of the activity.)
CHATTIN' 3 (And the socializing continues.)
CHATTIN’ 3 (And the socializing continues.)
Chillin'
CHILLIN’ (A pleased-looking group.)
Wavin'
WAVIN’ (and eatin’, too.)
Posin' 2
POSIN’ (with and without shades.)
Posin'
POSIN’ 2 (Great smiles from mother and daughter.)
Searchin'
SEARCHIN’ (In training for airport security jobs?)
Officiatin'
REPRESENTEN’ (District Governor-elect Fred Daniels in yellow shirt and Immediate Past DG Milan Jackson at far right.)

 

ShelterBox monitoring multiple disaster areas around the globe

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ShelterBox, which just renewed its affiliation with Rotary International for another three years, has been busy this summer responding to disasters around the world, many of which get little coverage in the international media.

Flooding in Sri Lanka, a typhoon in Fiji, an earthquake in Ecuador, and the ongoing conflict in Syria are just a few of the 2016 deployments. Here are situations that the ShelterBox Operations Team is currently monitoring:

• Louisiana:  Flooding — At least 40,000 homes damaged, thousands displaced and 11 people killed in some of the worst flooding in Louisiana history.

• California: Wildfire — The 18,000-acre Blue Cut fire has burned through rural communities in California, triggering evacuation orders for more than 82,000 residents as 700 firefighters battle the blaze.

• Arequipa, Peru: Earthquake — A 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck in the Caylloma province of Peru damaging houses, schools and highways. The quake struck a day before the anniversary of a 2007 earthquake in Peru that that left more than 500 people dead, 1,300 injured and around 200,000 homeless.

• Mosul, Iraq: Conflict — It is likely that up to one million people could be displaced from Mosul as an expected offensive begins this month. ShelterBox is looking into how to best support refugee camps outside the city that are already overstretched.

• Syria: The city of  Alepo is surrounded and cut off. Right now, the Syrian Government and rebel forces are locked in conflict over the divided city of Aleppo, with essential aid lifeline, the Castello Road, now impassable. An estimated 300,000 civilians, 60% of them women and children, are caught in the crossfire with dwindling supplies of food and water. The situation is dire.

• Multi-country Refugee Problem: ShelterBox has been responding to the Syrian refugee crisis since 2012, supporting displaced families with tents, shelter kits and educational equipment, both inside Aleppo and in displacement camps within Syria and refugee camps in neighboring countries including Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece. ShelterBox’s Operations team is monitoring the latest developments, and is in constant contact with colleague organizations on the ground in Syria.