Weekly Meeting Speakers

Dr. Raymond Shields, President of the E-Club invites you to join us online Tuesday evening at 6:30pm Pacific time.

Agenda for On Line Meeting 2026-27

6:30 PM PDT

  1. Welcome from President and call to order
  2. Roll call and Introductions
  3. Current Announcements and News
  4. Program
  5. Comments and Questions

11 August 2026  

RI Director, Marty Helman, Otto and Fran Walter Rotary Peace Center

Marty Helman spent her career as a writer for business executives and as a magazine editor at McGraw Hill and the American Management Association. Later, she served as president of the Otto and Fran Walter Foundation, a nonprofit that has helped build schools in developing nations, provided scholarships for at-risk youth, and supplied humanitarian aid to Holocaust survivors, among other initiatives. The Walter Foundation partnered with The Rotary Foundation to fund the Rotary Peace Center at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Türkiye, which opened in 2025.

Marty and her late spouse, Frank, joined the Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor in 2003. She has served Rotary as Rotary Foundation trustee and as chair of the Fund Development and Peace Major Gifts Initiative committees. She chaired a working group designed to increase corporate gifts to The Rotary Foundation, and she served on a task force with a goal to better align Foundation grant policies with 21st century needs. She was a member of the teams that selected the sites for the Rotary Peace Centers at Bahçeşehir University and at Symbiosis International University in Pune, India.

Marty is a popular speaker on the topics of the Rotary Peace Centers, The Rotary Foundation, and growth. She  is a recipient of The Rotary Foundation’s Distinguished Service Award.

A keen fundraiser for The Rotary Foundation, Helman initiated an effort to support the Sakuji Tanaka Rotary Peace Fellowship, which raised US$1 million for the Rotary Peace Centers.

Marty is a member of the Arch Klumph Society, the Paul Harris Society, and PolioPlus Society. She and Frank were charter members of the Legacy Society of The Rotary Foundation.

18 August 2026

Lisa D. Parker, Co-Founder of Peace Day Philly

Lisa is a Philadelphia native and social worker by training who has worked in various social services, anti-bullying, educational, cross-cultural, mental health, and refugee public health programs across Philadelphia. She has experience in program development, implementation and evaluation, and has also been involved in the creative arts, theatre for social change and non profit development and programming. 

A graduate of Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, Lisa has steered Peace Day Philly from a grassroots initiative in early 2011 through becoming a non-profit organization in late 2013 to becoming a model for a citywide Peace Day initiative. Please view Peace Day Philly’s website at www.peacedayphilly.org. Lisa has been a United Nations NGO Representative for Peace Day Philly since 2018, and previous to that was a UN NGO Representative for the World Peace Prayer Society.

SInce 2024, Lisa has also worked as Coordinator for Education and Outreach for NAMI Main Line PA (an affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness). In this role, she does community outreach, teaches mental health education courses, develops mental health programming, including for youth, and speaks at universities and to community groups about mental illness and mental health.

25 August 2026

Club Assembly

1 September 2026

Steve Goldsmith, Genocide Convention – Curbing Influence of Weapon Makers

Steve, a graduate of the University of Chicago began his career as an activist in the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960’s, In the last 25 years, he has worked with a youth services organization that provides effective mediation/restorative justice programs for keeping inner city kids on a success track.

Rotarian since 2004.

  • Past President Hawthorne/Lennox/LAX RC 06/07,
  • Past District 5280 Peace Chair 2015-16,
  • Presenter at RI Conventions, San Paulo and Atlanta, Presidential Peace Conference, Ontario California 2016.
  • Team Leader Vocational Training Team-International Training Institute Jakarta 2016.
  • Featured in Rotarian Magazine August 2017.

In 2006 he retired as Executive Director of Centinela Youth Services, but continues to work part-time as a Consultant for CYS and as a consultant trainer in the field of conflict resolution and mediation. Has developed & implemented training for hundreds of community mediators.

Steve was Chair of Mediators Beyond Borders International 4th Congress in Los Angeles and Chair and Director of the 6th Congress held Istanbul, Turkey. The Congress was attended by nearly 250 mediators and peace builders from over 40 countries and was broadcast worldwide over the internet.

Operations Facilitator, MBBI-RI Working Group and working with District 5280 Peace Committee to implement a Rotarian “Peace Conversation Facilitator” Training Program 2018.

Since 2013, Steve has lead a highly successful MBBI effort to develop partnership work with Rotary International on a Club, District and RI leadership level. He has coordinated the submission by MBBI of a request for Partnership with Rotary International in process of consideration.

Helped initiate Youth – Police Dialog with the San Pedro Rotary Club in response to the events following the George Floyd murder. This program now in 4th year now also includes Wilmington RC.

So, Steve Goldsmith’s interest and involvement in peacebuilding and conflict resolution spans more than 50 years.

8 September 2026

District Governor, Richard Lemire – Official Visit

Richard Lemire was invited by Lyle Millage to join the Beaumont Rotary Club in 1982, and served as its president three years later. In 1987 he founded and was the charter president of the Riverside East Rotary Club, which was Rotary’s 23,000th club.

Richard retired from the Fair Housing Council of Riverside County in 2021, where he worked with fellow Riverside East Rotarian Rose Mayes. He has work experience in both the private and public sectors.

Richard was introduced to District 5330 activities in 1986 when he served on the first RYLA committee. He chaired the RYLA committee from 1988 to 1992. His other District positions include 4 Way Test Speech Contest Chair, 1996 Russia International Peace Conference Representative, Community Service Chair, President’s Advance Chair, District Secretary, District 5330 Foundation Secretary, Foundation Gala Chair, Assistant Governor, District Administrator, Emerging Rotary Leaders Graduate, and Aide to RI General Secretary John Hewko. He is also the District 5330 Historian. He is a lifetime resident of Riverside, California.

Five Fun Facts:

  1. Was on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on September 4, 1975, singing on the “Stump the Band” segment.
  2. He is a Season Ticket holder for the San Diego Padres, with field level seats in Row One.
  3. He has attended the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York every year since 2010.
  4. He sat in the fifth row at the dedication of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library next to Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, and also attended President Nixon’s funeral at the Nixon Library in 1994.
  5. He is the Golf Review Columnist for Inland Empire Magazine.

15 September 2026

Larry Sagen, We Are Your Children

Larry Sagen has spent a lifetime bringing people together to uplift children and youth. For more than fifty years, he has served as a teacher, coach, mentor, family therapist, nonprofit founder, community organizer, and lifelong youth advocate. Among his proudest achievements is founding the International Youth Hall of Fame, which helped 16 communities honor more than 3,500 young people through a “pay it forward” model of leadership, service, and compassion. A lifelong poet and lyric writer, Larry has written works for moments of national celebration, including Freedom Got a Facelift for the 1986 rededication of the Statue of Liberty, and Listen to the Children for an opening ceremony of the 1990 Goodwill Games. He treasures collaborations that bring words of hope to life through music.

In November 2025, after being diagnosed with cancer, Larry was moved to write “We Are Your Children” as a gift to America’s children in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday. Larry holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota and an M.S.W. in Family Therapy from Washington University in St. Louis. Married for 41 years, he is a proud stepfather, father-in-law, and grandfather.

22 September 2026

Club Assembly

29 September 2026

Dr. Joyce Kaufman

Joyce P. Kaufman is professor emerita of political science and founding director of the Center for Engagement with Communities at Whittier College. She currently is the Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program and the Program on Preventing Youth Violence of the Institute of World Affairs in Washington, D.C. She is the author of NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict, and the Atlantic Alliance (2002) and numerous articles and papers on U.S. foreign and security policy. She is also the author of A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy (6th edition, 2026) and Introduction to International Relations: Theory and Practice (3rd edition, 2022). With Kristen Williams, she is coauthor of Women at War, Women Building Peace: Challenging Gender Norms (2013), Women and War: Gender Identity and Activism in Times of Conflict (2010), and Women, the State, and War: A Comparative Perspective on Citizenship and Nationalism (2007). As part of the program on Preventing Youth Violence, she created and directs a program, “Teaching Children Conflict Resolution Skills as an Alternative to Violence: Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Skills for Children Ages 6-11,” which was piloted and implemented in Washington, D.C. between 2023 and 2025, and is now being piloted as part of summer programs for Boys & Girls Clubs in Hawaii and Southern California. Joyce P. Kaufman received her B.A. and M.A. from New York University and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.