Announcements
(notes provided by the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, Ed Perry)

14th Annual Rotary Blood Drive continues until August 3. Your blood can be donated at the Community Blood Services of Illinois at the corner of University Ave. and Wright Street.

Mike Thomas, U of I Athletic Director will be our speaker at this week’s meeting. Please bring a guest and/or a possible new member to the meeting.

Our club provided volunteer help this past week at the Wesley Food Pantry helping to distribute food to over 1,300 people and also helped Eastern Illinois Food Bank by harvesting over 2,000 pounds of corn.

Program

Chris introduced Kaizad Irini, Associated Professor of Horticulture and Agriculture at Parkland College. Kaizad is both a locally and Internationally known landscape architect. Among the many wonderful landscape projects he has done, his landscape design won the international competition for the New York City World Trade Center Memorial project. His program today focused on a recently completed project for St. Jude’s Hospital in Memphis, TN.

Kaizad’s emphasis this morning was on the power of one and its multiplier effect, the ability of one person to touch so many lives and how all of us have that ability. Through a connection of one person a landscape project for St. Jude’s Hospital grew into over 40 students and faculty volunteering design and labor for a “Healing Garden” on the St. Jude’s campus. Kaizad presented photographs and a video of the project. The planting work took place over spring break and the volunteering Parkland’s students and faculty paid their own way, put in over 1,400 hours of work on site and donated over $16,000 through a fundraiser for the project.

Kaizad presented his thoughts and ideas that led to the design. He described how involving the young patients from the hospital in the construction process by painting of pavers was a key factor in turning hope into reality while creating this possibility place. The project also included fun events for the patients including a magic show with Kaizad and Andy Dallas as part of the overall theme to transform hearts and minds.

Kaizad and all the volunteers are excellent examples of one person who touches the lives of many and how the power of one can be multiplied into the power of many.

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Upcoming Schedule

August 1st – Mike Thomas, Director of Athletics, UIUC

August 8th – Christine Catanzarite, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), UIUC

August 15th – Larry Pennie, District Governor

September 12th – Dr. Peter Schiffer, Vice Chancellor for Research, UIUC

Announcements
(notes provided by the crafty and courageous Barb Lintner)

President Chuck reminded us that there is no parking in the Hardees lot.  Cars will be towed.

Athletic Director Mike Thomas will be our speaker on August 1 so it would be a great opportunity to bring guests.

Champaign West Rotary will be conducting its annual blood drive July 2 – August 3.

Champaign Rotary will hold a golf outing on July 29. Rantoul Rotary will hold one on August 23.

Phillip announced that he still could use helpers to pick sweet corn for the Eastern IL Food Bank. On Saturday, July 20 from 7 to 9 am.  Contact him for details.

Larry was looking for volunteers for a food distribution at the Wesley Evening Food Pantry on the day of our meeting.  Thanks to all who helped.

Jack reminded us that dues are due.

Speaker

Dr. Charles Linville and Max Burnette of Ploughman Associates spoke to us on Making Decisions about People and Places.  They outlined several projects which use unique combinations of data information to determine outcomes including outdoor mapping, price surface analysis, remote sensing and land classification as well as business intelligence and operations applications.

In a pro bono project they used outdoor mapping of weather warning sirens combined with population densities to determine areas where people would need to rely on other methods to receive warnings, such as weather radios.

A price surface analysis project on grain prices examined where corn ends up.  Using data from the road network and prices received from four grain facilities in central Illinois, they were able to project what effect a variable price would have on where the corn was taken.

Using satellite imagery to compare images of an urban area from 2010 with current data, they were able to determine what new land development had taken place and where potential customers might be.

Business intelligence and data warehousing applications use available data which is manipulated in new ways to determine outcomes.  For example mapping tools can be used to determine where customers are located if a delivery business wants to guarantee that they will receive orders in 5 minutes.

kGrove is a website under development for subscribers who want to locate people with specific skills.  Subscribers may choose what information they want to search.  Some possible applications are in government matching people with needed skills and in higher education matching employers with students.  Dr Linville is currently applying for a patent since some of the things the website accomplishes are unique.

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Upcoming Schedule

July 25th – Kaizad Irini, Associate Professor of Horticulture and Agriculture at Parkland College

August 1st – Mike Thomas, Director of Athletics, UIUC

August 8th – Christine Catanzarite, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), UIUC

August 15th – Larry Pennie, District Governor

September 12th – Dr. Peter Schiffer, Vice Chancellor for Research, UIUC

ANNOUNCEMENTS
(notes provided by the erudite Mary Hodson)

The club welcomed Cody and Candy Abbott who were celebrating their 43rd anniversary.

Larry announced that he and Judy were celebrating their 25th anniversary.

President Chuck announced that the August 1 meeting with Athletic Director Mike Thomas would be a great opportunity to bring guests.

Champaign West Rotary will be conducting its annual blood drive beginning on July 22.

Champaign Rotary will hold a golf outing on July 29. Rantoul Rotary will hold one on August 23. More details will follow.

Please email Rod Roberts if you can help with the Habitat Build on August 24.

Phillip announced that members will be needed to help pick sweet corn for the Eastern IL Food Bank. The tentative date is July 20.

Benny announced that he would become a US citizen on July 12.

PROGRAM

Tod introduced Reverend Steve Shoemaker. Steve has a PhD in Religion from Duke University. He formerly was the pastor of McKinley Presbyterian Church and Executive Director of the University YMCA. He is currently serving as president of the Urbana Rotary Club and has just returned from the RI International Convention in Lisbon.

Steve talked about his WILL radio show, “Keeping the Faith”, a weekly interview program about religion, spirituality, ethics and values He explained that he approached WILL 14 years ago about doing a program about spiritual matters. Roger Ebert was one of his first guests, speaking about religious themes in the movies.

The program airs at 5 PM on Sundays. WILL broadcasts at 5000 megawatts during daylight hours and at about 200 megawatts at night. As a result, the show can be heard in Chicago in the winter, but just locally during the summer.

Steve volunteers his time and has no budget. However, the station allows him to conduct interviews by phone to anywhere in the world. He spoke of some of the interesting guests with whom he has spoken and some of the technicalities of producing a live interview show.

Gary Olsen has spoken on the show about Shelter Box and his daughter-in-law spoke a few weeks ago about her work with migrants at the US border.

Sadly, Steve has decided to retire and the show will be going off the air in August.

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Upcoming Schedule

July 18th – Charlie Linville, Ploughman Associates

July 25th – Kaizad Irini, Associate Professor of Horticulture and Agriculture at Parkland College

August 1st – Mike Thomas, Director of Athletics, UIUC

August 8th – Christine Catanzarite, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), UIUC

August 15th – TBD

September 12th – Dr. Peter Schiffer, Vice Chancellor for Research, UIUC