“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” ― Jawaharlal Nehru

Announcements

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

Ata announced that there will be a “New Member Orientation” evening meeting for all new club members the week of September 14th at Ata’s home. Further details to come.

Rod noted that additional volunteers are needed at the Habitat Rotary build on Saturday, September 12 and on Saturday, October 3.   Also, the Eastern Illinois Food Bank needs volunteers for a special re-pack on Friday September 11th starting at 10am. Work is broken up into 2 hour shifts and runs for 12 hours. See Rod for more information.

Allan noted that giving to the Rotary Foundation is a “win-win” donation. Matching donation amounts can be had from our club or through our Rotary District. See Allan for more information.

Jeff note that CASA will be having a Benefit Gala soon and he has tickets to sell for $20 each for a $3,000 travel package. See Jeff for additional information.

Ana Olguin, WILL Book Mentor project manager, announced that the Book Mentor project has an introductory meeting on September 8th. Several members of our club have volunteered for this activity over the years and volunteers are now needed. For more information contact Ana at Aolguin2@illinois.edu.

Program

Tom introduced Barry Pittendrigh, UIUC professor in the Department of Entomology. Dr. Pittendrigh was born and raised in western Canada and furthered his education with his Master’s at Purdue and his Doctorate at Wisconsin. Pittendright has been here at the U of I for the last seven years. Included among his many awards is the Kerns, Metcalf and Flint Endowed Chair in Insect Toxicology.

This morning’s presentation was an amazing program on Scientific Animations Without Borders, or SAWBO. Pittendrigh and Dr. Julia Bello Bravo co-manage this program that promotes agricultural, health and women’s empowerment knowledge for people of all literacy levels throughout the world.

SAWBO uses animation to present the information in a cost effective and efficient manner. The various topics are delivered throughout the world via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Google+.  The SAWBO team has capitalized on the widespread use of mobile devices to share their information broadly, even in the most remote locations of the world.   Pittendrigh noted that the peer-review content is  provided free to those who use it for educational purposes.

Launched in 2011, the topics of this animated information are wide ranging, including addressing Ebola, correcting club foot issues in young infants, removing arsenic from flour, and using charcoal filters for purifying water.   Clients such as governments, health organizations, and communities contact them for help with specific issues.  SAWBO’s team of University professors and graduate students work with experts from around the globe to create a script that is scientifically accurate.  The team then utilized native speakers to provide the voicing for each animation, thus allowing for local understanding as well as easy adaptability.   SAWBO is creating a multi-media encyclopedia of diverse knowledge in numerous languages and delivering it directly to the people in need.

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE

September 3rd – Sheila Dodd, Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity

September 10th – Dan Olson, Executive Director, Champaign County Forest Preserve Distrct

September 17th – Tom Ramage, President, Parkland College,  Update on Parkland’s Programs and Facilities

September 24th – Tyra Perry, new Head Coach of Women’s Softball, UIUC

October 1st – TBD

October 8th – Jessica DeYoung, Director of the C-U Special Recreation Program

October 15th – TBD

October 22nd – Mike DeLorenzo, Associate Chancellor, will discuss Willard Airport

October 29th – TBD

“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.” – Unknown

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(notes provided by the venerable Neal Chamberlain)

The meeting was called to order by Ex-President, Todd, and the invocation was provided by Laura.

Ed gave the Rotary Minute: He told of his days atDavenportCentralHigh School.  He explained that there was a certain drafting teacher who recognized his talents and encouraged him to pursue architecture.  He said in retrospect that he believes the confidence which this teacher had in his abilities prompted him to become an architect.  Ed noted he had a very fulfilling career, and thus far none of his buildings have unexpectedly fallen down.

Volunteers are needed for the Crisis Nursery 5k Relay, October 24, to help with food, water and clean up.

Rod asked for volunteers for the October 24 Habitat for Humanity build.

Jen reported that the contract for food next year will not include oatmeal provided in our meeting room.  No tears were shed over this loss.

CUSR needs volunteers to help with the Christmas party – plans are to have the party to be in the evening. Talk to Cary if you’re interested in helping out.

Bucket money for this month will go to Habitat for Humanity.

PROGRAM

Our speaker Erich Adickes, of Adickes Creative Services, was introduced by Mary.  Mary said that Erich considers himself to be a computer geek.  Erich obtained his education from Elmhurst College, Eastern Illinois University and Parkland College.  Erich also was an instructor at Champaign Schools(Computer Technology) and Parkland College(Introduction to Computers).

The title of Erich’s presentation was “There’s A Phone in My Camera”.  The objective of Erich ‘s presentation was to explain and emphasize that the majority of people now own and use smart phones.  But often these owners are unaware of the multiple capabilities of their phone.  He spoke of the cumbersome cameras that many people own and seldom use.  They never seem to have the camera when the have an opportunity to take a special picture.

With the camera in your phone you can take excellent pictures because it is small and you nearly always have it with you.  Modern smart phones have capabilities that were unavailable just a few years ago.  The cameras on today’s smart phones have many capabilities allowing for adjustment of light, focus, distance, movement and composition.

Erich explained the many apps are included in smart-phones today.  He has found that most smart-phone owners learn to use only two or three of these app capabilities right away.  But they are often not aware (for a long time) of how much more usage their phone would provide if they had more training.

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE

August 27th – Barry Pittendrigh, Department of Entomology, UIUC

September 3rd – Sheila Dodd, Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity

September 10th – Dan Olson, Executive Director, Champaign County Forest Preserve Distrct

September 17th – Tom Ramage, President, Parkland College,  Update on Parkland’s Programs and Facilities

September 24th – TBD

October 1st – TBD

October 8th – Jessica DeYoung, Director of the C-U Special Recreation Program

October 15th – TBD

October 22nd – Mike DeLorenzo, Associate Chancellor, will discuss Willard Airport

October 29th – TBD

“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.” ― Mother Teresa

Announcements

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

Robb noted that additional people are need for future Habitat building project and Eastern Illinois Food distributions. See Robb or Ron for more information.

Larry thanked all that helped and noted that the EIFB food distribution at Booker T. Washington STEM Academy last Saturday served over 110 families.

Laura noted that the raffle drawing for a new car at The Champaign Park District’s “Taste of Champaign” is just about here. Tickets are still available.

Molly thanked everyone who bought tickets and contributed to the recent CU Schools Foundation fundraisers.

Program

Rick Manner, Executive Director at the Urbana & Champaign Sanitary District (UCSD), presented historical, current and future information about the local sanitary district.  The original sewer line that runs to the sanitary plant on University Avenue in east Urbana was built in 1898 with additional main lines built in 1923, 1946 and 1956. These were built as Urbana and Champaign grew and the demand required it, including the 1956 main line to accommodate the Kraft plant in Champaign.

With the additional new plant now built in south west Champaign the main lines are now running to the west and east. These plants take in the sewage and through an all natural, five step process to clean it up. Through a series of screens that filter out the large debris, natural microbes that do the biological removals, secondary settling, nitrification towers and tertiary filtering, the effluent comes out 99.99% clean and is placed into streams. This process takes in sewage that contains particles at a rate of 200 parts per million and releases it at 4 parts per million which is suitable for the natural environment.

Manner also noted that current plans call for the Sanitary district to provide 6.3 million gallons a day to the new Cronus Chemical Plant in Tuscola.  Cronus will use this treated waste water for their chemical processes instead of using drinking water from our Mahomet Aquifer. This sale of treated waste water to Cronus will help the Sanitary District continue to maintain and update their facilities and sewer lines and provide additional natural water enhancements to the surrounding streams. Manner noted that only a fraction of UCSD’s effluent will be sold to Cronus and thus the downstream environmental systems should see no negative impacts.

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE

August 20th – Erich Adickes, Adickes Creative Services

August 27th – Barry Pittendrigh, Department of Entomology, UIUC

September 3rd – Sheila Dodd, Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity

September 10th – Dan Olson, Executive Director, Champaign County Forest Preserve Distrct

September 17th – TBD

September 24th – TBD

October 1st – TBD

October 8th – Jessica DeYoung, Director of the C-U Special Recreation Program

October 15th – TBD

October 22nd – Mike DeLorenzo, Associate Chancellor, will discuss Willard Airport

“Make space in your life for the things that matter, for family and friends, love and generosity, fun and joy. Without this, you will burn out in mid-career and wonder where your life went.”― Jonathan Sacks

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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

Rod thanked those who helped with the Rotary Habitat build last weekend and noted that help is still needed for the August 15 and September 12 Habitat house work.

Rod also noted that other volunteer opportunities are available at an Eastern Illinois Food Bank re-pack this Thursday evening (8/13) and for the Urbana Sweetcorn festival later this month. Contact Rod for more information.

Laura and Penn still have tickets available for the Champaign Park District’s New Car Raffle which will take place on the 22nd of August.

Cathy Rector, Assistant District Governor 6490 (area 7), invited new and old Rotarians to the upcoming Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI) program on August 15, 2015. It takes place in Decatur and sign up is easy and needs to be done by August 11. Sign up on line at http://www.hoa-rli.org/.

PROGRAM

Our new District Governor, Surinder S. Sethi and his wife, Narinder, were welcomed to our club this morning. DG Sethi thanked us for our club’s past performance with our community and International projects and our continued support in The Rotary Foundation. He also thanked Gary, Mary, Rubin, Ata and Chuck of our club for their contributions to the Rotary District activities and Rotary International projects.

Using this year’s Rotary theme of “Be a gift to the World,” Sethi emphasized how we all can share our gifts to make our community and the world a better place to live. Through the use of matching grants both District and globally, is a great way to provide service to those who are in need. Sethi talked about the Rotary Polio Plus project and how we are this close to eradicating polio.

DG Sethi gave examples from his past on how we all can have Rotary Moments and lose ourselves in the service to others. One example was on a past District 6490 project in which a water well was built in a small village in India.  He mentioned how a group from the District visited the village several years later and they were welcomed as heroes by the entire village. Sethi’s other Rotary moments included housing provided by Rotarians to his daughter’s friend in a time of need as well as his experience growing up with a brother who had polio.

DG Sethi encouraged all of us to “Be a gift to the world.”

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE

August 13th – Rick Manner, Executive Director of the Champaign-Urbana Sanitary District

August 20th – Jaymeet Attaway, part of the Rotary Group Study Exchange team that traveled to Denmark

August 27th – Barry Pittendrigh, Department of Entomology, UIUC

September 3rd – TBD

September 10th – Dan Olson, Executive Director, Champaign County Forest Preserve Distrct

September 17th – TBD

September 24th – TBD

October 1st – TBD

October 8th – Jessica DeYoung, Director of the C-U Special Recreation Program