Agenda for On Line Meeting 2020
20 October 2020
6:30 PM PDT
- Welcome from President Barbara Gaughen-Muller
- Roll call and Introductions
- Inspirational/International Moment
- Current Announcements and News
- Program
- Comments and Questions
20 October 2020
Ann Lee Hussey, Polio Eradication Efforts
Ann Lee Hussey of South Berwick, Maine has made the eradication of polio and the alleviation of suffering by polio survivors her life’s work. Over the past several years she has actively participated in 30 volunteer NID (National Immunization Days) teams organizing and leading the last 26 teams herself, choosing to take those NIDs to places that do not often see westerners – Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Niger, Nigeria, Madagascar, Pakistan as well as less “touristy” destinations in Egypt and India – where the need is greatest and where the publicity and goodwill surrounding the trip are as critical as the immunizations themselves to help communicate the need for eradication.
She has shared her story and passion hundreds of times at numerous Zone Institutes, District Conferences, PETS and Foundation events, and at the International Assembly in 2017, 2018, and 2019 carrying the message of polio eradication around the Rotary world and beyond, raising money and creating new converts to the fight. She is determined that no child will needlessly have to suffer what she herself, a polio survivor, has been through. Her concern for polio survivors includes working to ensure mobility and dignity for those who survived the disease but did not have access to the kinds of surgeries and treatments that she was able to receive. And has led RI grants to this end.
Ann Lee has put a face on the subject of polio eradication, winning hearts and minds and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. A polio survivor herself, the story Ann Lee tells is personal, and so is her journey in the fight to eradicate polio.
But for all the immunizations Ann Lee has herself made possible through NIDs, she considers fundraising, public awareness and inspiring others her most critical accomplishments. To this end she shares the opportunities that Rotary offers individuals for personal and professional growth.
Ann Lee’s work has earned her the International Service Award for a Polio-Free World, the Rotary Service Above Self Award and she was honored as a White House Champion of Change for her humanitarianism and contributions to public service, aimed at improving people’s lives and making a better future around the globe. She was featured in the magazine Real Simple in June 2012. She was featured in a video in Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Annual Letter for February 2017. In March 2017, Rotary and The World Bank recognized her as a Woman of Action celebrating International Day of Women. Locally in her home state of Maine, she was honored at the Maine State Senate chamber for her remarkable achievements and included in Maine Magazine as one of the 50 Mainers of 2017 who have changed our world, improved our lives, and broadened our horizons.
Ann Lee is a member of the Rotary Club of Portland Sunrise in Maine and served District 7780 in many capacities including as Governor in 2010-2011. Currently, Ann Lee is serving as Council on Legislation Rep 2020-2023; Executive Director of the Polio Survivors Rotary Action Group,, as a Director on the PDGs Fellowship, as District 7780 PolioPlus Chair and as her club’s president for 2020-2021. She ended her term as Chair of the RAGs Council and Chair of The Fellowship of Rotarian Past District Governors as of June 2019. Outside Rotary, she serves as a trustee of York Hospital in York, Maine.
She served as an Advisor to Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee and as a member of the Global Polio Eradication Transition Management Group from 2015-2018. She has also served as Presidents’ Representative at several district conferences and represented Rotary at an Easter Seals Annual Convention. Previously she served as a member of the RI Rotarian Action Groups Committee, the Reach Out to Africa Initiative, and as Zone 32 Coordinator for Health and Hunger.
27 October 2020
Michael Collins, Exec. Director Americas for Institute for Economics & Peace
Ecological Threat Register – where will human migration be happening because of climate change?
Michael manages IEP relations with the US Government and the United Nations in New York, develops working partnerships with US-based civil society organizations, foundations, universities, businesses and think tanks and seeks new opportunities to build IEP’s presence, research portfolio and impact in North, Central and South America. An important part of this work includes expanding the use of the Positive Peace Framework as a training tool and evidence-based metric for development and peace-related policy and programming.
Before joining IEP, Michael oversaw educational, job creation and economic development programs in emerging nations affected by or prone to natural disasters where, as a practitioner, he frequently worked with communities affected by poverty and gang violence. As an expert trainer he partnered with governments to develop vocational training curricula, opened training centers and supervised training courses for hundreds of vulnerable youth and adults with low literacy levels.
Prior to pursuing a career in the non-profit sector, Michael studied electro-mechanical engineering and founded a construction company. He speaks English, Spanish and French.
3 November 2020
Geoff Cochran, The Rotary Foundation
What you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask! How do I give to help others? Can I give monthly or make one time gifts? May I leave something in my will? How is my gift used and can I direct the monies to be used where I am interested?
Geoff Cochran is an Annual Giving Officer with The Rotary Foundation, with a special focus on Zones 26 and 27. He is a part of a team within The Foundation’s staff who apply giving trends, data analysis and connections to empower Rotary leaders to acquire, retain and upgrade donors, fund more grants, and create a strong pipeline of philanthropic support for The Rotary Foundation.
Geoff comes to Rotary from a decades long career in nonprofit administration and management. He attended Loyola University Chicago from which he received a BA in History and subsequently followed that with a MS in Public Service Management from DePaul University. He lives in Evanston, IL with his family and is an active member of his community. In recent years, he served on the Mental Health Board for the City of Evanston and the Board of Directors of PEER Services, a local treatment center. He has worked in the nonprofit sector for 14 years, most recently as an Associate Officer with Club and District Support with Rotary International for over a year. Geoff is a staunch advocate in Rotary’s motto “Service Above Self.”
10 November 2020
Dr. Aylene Popka, Ethics and the Rotary 4 Way Test
Dr. Aylene Popka, well known in Riverside and San Bernardino counties for her programs on ethics with youth and adults, will guide us through an interactive variety of circumstances that compare our ethical tendencies with responses by a national average. She is director of Loma Linda University’s Master of Science program in field experience and counseling, an educational consultant and a former public relations representative for the Alvord Unified School District in Riverside.
17 November 2020
Sharon Tennison, Post Election Relations between Russia and the United States
President & Founder (1983 – to present), Center for Citizen Initiatives
Sharon Tennison organized a group to the USSR to “see the enemy” in 1983 and found no enemies there. She has continued taking Americans there and creating goodwill programs for 35 years. CCI’s citizen diplomacy concentrates on creating projects and multi-year programs to address basic needs; such as taking AA across Russia in the 1980s, shipping tons of vegetable seeds in the 1990s when the USSR food industry broke up and people were hungry, bringing over 6000 young Russian entrepreneurs to American companies for training in business ‘know-how’ and management plus a dozen other programs that helped Russians create a new life after communism. Today Tennison takes American travelers to Russia to dispel the misinformation appearing in our media. CCI’s core intention has always been to create peace and goodwill between the two nuclear superpowers to prevent Nuclear War.
Our world is a safer place today because of Sharon’s continued efforts to connect government, community, and business leaders from the United States, the former Soviet Union and Russia.
Sharon’s work has encouraged mutual understanding, educated Americans and Russians about each other, and sown seeds of democracy and a market economy throughout Russia’s eleven time zones.
24 November 2020
Randall Butler, Facilitator, Let’s Talk
Randy Butler has worked in various forms of conflict resolution, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding throughout his career. For 18 years, he practiced as a trial lawyer, first as an associate and then partner at the international law firm – Fulbright & Jaworski, L.L.P., and then as a partner at Cook, Butler & Doyle, LLP.
Since being trained as a mediator, in 1995, Randy has mediated over 2000 complex legal disputes involving major institutions in Houston TX and Fortune 500 companies. He has also consulted to help resolve congregational conflicts within several large churches and a synagogue. His passion for conflict transformation and peacebuilding took him to Croatia, where from 2002-2011, he co-facilitated and led ten multi-week leadership development workshops & peace gatherings involving 650 young leaders from all of the ethnic groups in the Balkans.
From 2007-2014 he designed and led fifteen Transformational Leadership Workshops attended by over 400 activists and leaders from Sudan, Darfur, and South Sudan. He has also led dialogues and workshops in the USA for over 1300 participants in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Cresskill NJ, Harrisburg PA, Omaha, Neb., San Diego, CA, New York, NY, and Boulder, CO.
Recognition of his work includes membership in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, “AV”-rating from Martindale-Hubbell since 1985, the 2010 Julie and Ben Rogers Ecumenism Award of the Anti-Defamation League – Southwest Region, the 2011 Garland R. Walker Inn of Court Award for Attorney Professionalism, and inclusion in U.S. News-Best Lawyers for Mediation & Arbitration.
In early 2019, Randy joined the Boulder Rotary Club and the Rotarian Action Group for Peace when he learned that Rotary International’s top priority after eradicating polio worldwide is peace building. He currently serves as Chair of the Boulder Rotary Peace Building Committee and as a member of the Rotary Dist. 5450 Peace Committee.
He and his wife, Katherine, have been married for 47 years. They have resided in Boulder CO for just over four years in close proximity to their two daughters, their husbands, and seven grandchildren.
1 December 2020
Helen Young, Documentary Film, “The Nuns, The Priests and The Bombs”
Helen Young is an Emmy award-winning writer and television news producer, a veteran of both
CBS and NBC News for 20 years. She has also written, produced and directed documentaries for
Al Roker Entertainment and MSNBC on topics ranging from illegal gun trafficking, the childhood
obesity epidemic and the U.S. space program. Her most recent film, “The Nuns, The Priests, and
The Bombs” is her first independently produced and funded documentary. Helen’s work as an
investigative journalist has garnered awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, United
Press International, the Red Cross and The National Commission on Working Women. As one of
Dan Rather’s producers on The CBS Evening News, Helen covered the O.J. Simpson murder trial,
the death of Princess Diana and the Oklahoma City Bombing. On Dateline NBC she covered the
Impeachment of President Clinton and the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Helen has an M.A. from
Columbia University and a B.A. from The City College of New York where she was elected to Phi
Beta Kappa.
The Nuns, The Priests, and The Bombs
Peace activists, including elderly Catholic nuns and priests, challenge the
security and legality of America’s nuclear weapons when they gain entry to
two top secret facilities: the “Fort Knox” of uranium in Tennessee and a
U.S. Navy Trident nuclear submarine base near Seattle. The film follows
the federal criminal cases against the activists who are driven by their deep
conviction that nuclear weapons are immoral. Through their dramatic, nonviolent protests, the activists seek to raise public consciousness on the
threat posed by nuclear weapons to humanity. The film also follows efforts
at the United Nations to negotiate the new Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons.
8 December 2020
Eva Haller
Hungarian-Born Eva Haller has been a fierce advocate for social justice since the age of thirteen, when she would sneak out with her brother, John, to assist distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets throughout Budapest. John’s death propelled Eva to be the activist she is today. From joining the Selma march with Dr. King, to traveling the world as a UNICEF volunteer, Eva has been at the heart of what matters.
She has engaged in and mentored countless organizations and is the recipient of many awards including: The Mandala Award for Humanitarian Achievement, The Inaugural Mentoring Award at Forbes Women’s Summit, and A Lifetime Achievement Award at the United Nations Population Fund. More recently, she received the Ban Ki-moon Mentorship Award.
A member of Synergos’ Global Philanthropists Circle, Eva participates in a community of international do-gooders who use their time and resources to fight poverty and injustice.
15 December 2020
Carolyn Jones, Past Rotary Trustee, “Racism, Social Justice, and Rotary”
A small town girl from Tarrytown, New York, Carolyn Jones graduated from Stanford University with distinction and received her LL.B. from Yale Law School. She practiced law for 31 years; was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alaska Attorney General’s Office for 23 years, and a supervising attorney in the office during the last seven years before her retirement in 1998.
Carolyn joined the Rotary Club of Anchorage East in 1987. From 1997-1998, she was the governor of R.I. District 5010. Carolyn completed a four-year term in 2009 as Rotary’s first female Trustee on the Board of Directors of The Rotary Foundation. Carolyn’s past Rotary activities are too numerous to mention and so she won’t. All in all, she has received a lot of awards and recognitions in her lifetime for which she is honored.
Carolyn has traveled to Russia 35 times in her service to Rotary – five of those trips as a Rotary Volunteer. Her story “The Children of Russia” was published in the July 2002 issue of the Rotarian and in “Chicken Soup For The Volunteers’ Soul.”
Carolyn has 2 adult daughters, Nina and Carrie, but no grandchildren. She loves to fish for salmon; hike Alaska’s many trails; watch American football and baseball games; see the world; and count the stars in the bottom of her champagne glass.
22 December 2020
29 December 2020
