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Upcoming Programs
Each week we ask a community leader to come speak to the club.  Guests are Welcome !! If you would like to speak at a future meeting, email us at RotaryofNorristown@gmail.com. Include your contract info and a brief description of your topic.
NOTE:
The club meets at the Hyatt in person the 1st & 3rd Thursdays 12 noon
and virtually on Zoom at noon on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays. Link below.
For more in contact rotaryofnorristown@gmail.com or leave a message at
at (484) 994-2349
The club will donate a wine basket in support of the Spring Fling for the Foundation fundraiser, those wishing to donate....please bring a bottle of your favorite red or white wine to the next in person meeting on March 16.
Please Help the Ronald McDonald House
The Board has decided to ask our members to collect aluminum can zip tabs or 'pop tabs'. These can be found on not only soda cans but all sorts of canned drinks. The local chapter of the Ronald McDonald House still collects them to turn in for recycling and proceeds go to help local families by paying family expenses to stay will their child is in the hospital. Start a jar, they add up.
According to the RMHC:"We collect tabs instead of entire aluminum cans because it’s easier and more hygienic to store the tabs than cans. There is also a higher concentration of aluminum in the tab itself, so those little tabs can really add up!" Tabs bring on average about .75 per pound. and they have collected more than 350 tons of them. At the end of the year we will accumulate our collections and donate them to the Ronald McDonald House. Please see Vanessa Cossari for more information
New ParaDragonBoat Club
Robin Parker visited the meeting and announced a new local sports group forming, focused on fun for those physically disabled, who are interested in Dragon Boating. Similar clubs exist today for individuals with full upper body use interested in competing and getting some exercise. Robin has spoken to the Norristown Borough who support her cause so the group is forming at Riverfront Park. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact Robin Parker at (610) 724-7925 or you can email her at number2@gmail.com.
No Meeting on March 30th
While March 30th is the 5th Thursday of the month, the club will not meet at the Hyatt hotel that week. Instead the club is pursuing possibly hosting an open house. Stay tuned for details.
Garden Work / Earth Day Planned April 22nd
President Sunanda is encouraging all club members to get out and participate on Sat April 22nd, (the first Garden Work Day). Additionally, Diane Helm has contacted the Girl Scouts who also indicated interest in helping this Spring at some of the other workdays.
Our speaker this week was Kathi Evans from Touching Lives Ministry who spoke primarily about providing aid to villages in Kenya primarily in the village of Sanjweru in the western part of Kenya just off the shores of Lake Victoria.
Mark and Kathi Evans founded the Touching Lives Ministries organization on June 9, 2009. Kathi, an obstetrical nurse, knew her calling develop a medical delivery program for those lacking access to good medical care. "Touching Lives, Inc. is a Christian ministry committed to supporting communities worldwide through improved health care, education, spiritual and economic development." The ministry is two-fold serving both domestically and internationally.
They serve to prep and equip American short term mission teams to serve internationally. Internationally they build and open medical facilities in regions with no quality medical care.
Kathi indicated that their community of Sanjweru has unreliable power from the Kenya Power Company (there is only one, providing 210v service). They are planning to add solar power making Kenya Power their backup. Phase one is underway at a cost of about $500,000.
Their medicare facility includes a small laundry and a small kitchen for patients. They will only keep patients overnight at a building cost of about $400.000. Construction is delayed while they raise that funding. One of their primary goals assure a healthy community they must provide a reliable source of clean water. This is not an easy task in Africa and particularly Uganda which is experiencing a 2 year plus drought. Fortunately their specific location is floating on top of Lake Victoria. A bore hole was drilled in 2012 and it will probably never run dry. But the hospital needs clean water and while currently they are selling it at a reduced rate to the local villagers one day that bore hole as the medical facility grows will be insufficient and they will need to dedicate all the water from the bore hole to the hospital only and they will not be able to sell water to the villagers. They need a donor when that happens to drill a second well off site and start the Sanjweru power Company. The villagers are already planning running water in their homes and have materials collecteed. In addition to their medical facility, and as part of building their living infrastructure they needed to construct basic things like a morgue with a lime pit.
They seek support from others. They need help and would love to have partners.
This week we welcomed two new members to Rotary. Dr Yolanda Williams (Asst Superintendent) and Christopher Dormer (Superintendent) from the Norristown Area School District. We are very excited to build on the club's talent and growing leadership skills and make a large impact in the community through projects. Congratulations to our new members.
Club membership is on the rise during President Sunanda's ' Each One Bring One' Campaign.
Membership is up 16% (the club membership is 34% female) since the beginning of the Rotary year including March. Thanks to our current members and in part, to some simple followup, tracking, communication tools and process providing clear, consistent and timely, coordinated, outreach communication with potential Rotarians. Make no mistake, social media is great for awareness but the number one source of new members is still references from current members. It's so important.
Our Club is on track to meeting or surpassing our membership goals this year. If each member does their part and brings a visitor or potential member, membership will rise. Today, tools are better, social media is better, process is better, and the "Message" is way better (thanks to the District Public Image Committee, much good and sharing has come out of that group). Everyone must do your part. Fortunately, a "World Class" organization like Rotary is so easy to talk about.
President Sunanda has officially kicked off the 'Each One, Bring One' member campaign.
Rotary Clubs need to continue to grow in order to enhance our ability to dedicate resources to solving a community or global issue.
This year, President Sunanda is asking every Club member to bring a visitor, spouse, family, friend or acquaintance to our meeting and introduce them to Rotary.
If everyone brought a guest it would double our meeting size, and if half of the visitors discovered Rotary and became a member, the club would grow by 50%.
Please think about it this week and identify someone you would like to introduce to Rotary. Bring them to a meeting and tell them why you joined.
Is some of your expected gmail missing from the Inbox?
Aside from regular spam filtering, sometimes Google also takes a guess at your incoming gmail and pre-categorizes it in order to cut down on spam. The Tabs 'Social' and 'Promotions' capture some of your email instead. Well, Google doesn't always get it right.
Fortunately, even though that is the default setting, you can change the setting and control your pre-categorization completely and get all your mail back in the old inbox. YOU can select select the problem email in 'Promotions' and drag it to the inbox, OR.... A more reliable way is to control your own categories or simply have none at all. If you uncheck the 'Social" and 'Promotions' categories in settings, your future email will not appear in those virtual folders but rather in your old inbox as expected.
Here's what you do to fix it. Go to your inbox settings link. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/inbox Uncheck the boxes 'Social' and 'Promotions', AND CLICK SAVE From now on it will appear in the old inbox as expected.
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