ANNOUNCEMENTS (courteous of the erudite Mary Hodson)

CU Sunrise welcomed Penn Nelson and Justin Lytle back.
Food Repack with Centennial Interactors –  EI Foodbank – 5:30 to 7:30 PM, April 17.   Please email Larry if you can help.
Patrice needs help driving and feeding GSE team members during the week of April 9.   Please contact her if you can help.
Okay announced that Gary Olsen is the Rotarian of the Month and thanked him for his work with ShelterBox.
Rotary District Conference is April 27 -28 in Effingham.   Club members are encouraged to attend.  The District conference showcases the best ideas for service around the District.   Special recognitions will be given on Saturday evening.   More details to follow.

On Saturday, 4/7/12, a hearty group of 9 cleaned up the Decker garden on Saturday. Baran, Johnson (Larry and Judy) , Perry, Van Buren, Chambers, Kerins, Chamberlain and Simpson are all proud owners of a makeup. Although the garden looked good from the street, it did need a lot of cleanout. Special thanks to Neil who hauled away all the refuse. There is no truth to the rumor that he was last seen headed down I-74 at about 80 mph with all the weeds blowing out. Stay tuned for further opportunities for service at the garden, and feel free to visit, it’s a great place for a picnic lunch.

PROGRAM
Because Tom Ulen’s speaker canceled at the last minute, he gave a presentation on “Happiness, What it is and How to Get it.”   Tom explained that not only psychologists but also economists have been studying this question.   U of I Professor Ed Diener and Professor Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania have studied this question and the impact on both economics and law.
They have devised a survey to measure happiness on a scale of 1-10, www.worldvaluessurvey.org.  At the same time, they collect socioeconomic and demographic date to see if they can make correlations.  The findings show that most people are happy, with the Danish having the best scores.  Americans are 8th with an average score of 7.8.
A relationship between income and happiness is shown with incomes up to about $75,000.  Beyond that, income is not related to happiness.  Other contributing factors are marriage, friends, having a job and some sort of spiritual aspect to one’s life.  Younger and older respondents are happier than those in middle age.
They attribute our general happiness to our ability to adapt to an event, usually within 6 months of the event. Exceptions to our ability to adapt within 6 months are losing a job, a child or spouse or winning the lottery.
Tom recommended “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, Then You’re Not Spending It Right”, Dunn, Gilbert and Watson, and www.ted.com/talks and dangilbert asks why are we happy.html, for more information.

 

Apr 12th

Apr 19th

Apr 26th

May 3rd

Introductions

Coletta Ackermann Harold Adams Curt Anderson Oktay Baran

Invocation

Barb Lintner BJ Lytle Ben Mast John McDaniel

Greeters

Coletta Ackermann Harold Adams Curt Anderson Oktay Baran
Benny Lapid Han Liang Barb Lintner BJ Lytle

Song Leader

Paul Conforti Ata Durukan Patrice Grant Mary Hodson

Notetaker

Conforti

Perry

Penwell

Hodson