RCK President Chris Lambert introduced Jason Browne, who presented the first part of our program. Jason is a public speaker and social media influencer who is on a cross country trip to raise awareness about millions of people displaced by disasters worldwide. He is speaking largely on behalf of ShelterBox, which has provided durable tents, solar lights, repair kits, water distillation kits, cookware and other necessities in more than 100 countries around the world. Jason is a Rotarian and past President of the Rotary Club of the State College Downtown, Pennsylvania. He became particularly impressed with Rotary’s involvement with ShelterBox on a trip to Peru where Rotarians expedite governmental approval for ShelterBox to go into disaster ravaged areas. He indicated that worldwide 114,000,000 people do not have shelter. His goal on his whirlwind trip is to raise money for ShelterBox and to increase awareness of ShelterBox and its response to human shelter needs. He was most enthusiastic and energetic about promoting ShelterBox as part of the solution to shelter needs worldwide.
The second part of our program consisted of RCK members President-Elect Shannon Holland, Susan Dakak, Rushton Johnson, and past President Ed Anderson, speaking about the most recent Rotary International Convention in Singapore and next year’s RI Convention in Calgary.
Singapore was Shannon’s eighth RI Convention. She briefly described Singapore, a wealthy, highly developed, multi-cultural equatorial city-state. Susan indicated that her two points of emphasis were that she had a great time at the Convention, and she wants the four RCK members who went to Singapore to become forty at next year’s Convention at Calgary. She ran into several fellow Rotarians from Arab countries and connected with them in connection with her personal idea for a school based peace project. Rushton reported that he went to the Convention to see the fullness of the diversity of Rotary, and to make connections with Rotarians from around the world. He noted that a point of emphasis for Rotary is that RI is presently losing about as many members as it gains each year. RI is going to try to improve on that.
Ed talked primarily about the upcoming Calgary Convention and distributed registration forms. He described the various events that comprise the several days of an RI Convention. He and Shannon both urged RCK members to seriously consider going to Calgary. Shannon noted that RCK member Lina Shatara, owner/manager of Travel Corner International, is putting together some post-convention events for interested RCK members.