Stories

1. Cardboard to Sahuarita Food Bank on 4/16 at 1:30. We will meet the VV club there for group pictures.  
2. Day of service at GV Food Bank from 8am to noon on 4/17.  Will meet from 7am to 7:45am for anyone interested in some coffee before we start.

  In lieu of our meeting this week, the “Planning for my 13th Year” program award ceremony starts at 10:00 Tuesday, 4.16.24, in the Sahuarita Schools auditorium/theatre, lasting an hour. The students will be presented a certificate, a letter from Rotary that acknowledges their completion of the program, a Paul Harris 4-Way Test Medallion, and a tote with the 7 Habits of Effective Teens book and workbook. 

    Pat Pease, who wrote and secured the grant for this program, says “We are trying to improve and expand the program for next year, requiring more mentors.There will also be more extensive training done for the mentors, starting in June. Training will include time for vetting and fingerprinting required by the school for new mentors.

    Anyone wanting more information about becoming a mentor or about this program can contact Pat Pease at gvrotary@yahoo.com.

   He said his goal is to inspire people to “look up” and realize what wonders there are in the skies above us. He photographs Nebula, where stars are born. Imagine, he said, a photon which lands on his camera lens that took five thousand years to get there. “What was going on in our world 5,000 years ago,” he asked.

   Some of the nebula he photographed are millions of light years away. 

He spoke of Wolf-Rayet stars, which are a rare heterogeneous set of stars with unusual spectra showing prominent broad emission lines of ionized helium and highly ionized nitrogen or carbon.

   Following his program, club member and past president Bob Shevlin commented that the presentation was “out of this world.” 

Don Peterson (L) & Ken Frahm (R)

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Our Rotary club is doing a lot of things right when it comes to fundraising, says Philanthropist Tim Joannides, but with a few tweaks we could be bringing in much more money for charities we support.

     We do not have a committee dedicated solely to fundraising, as he pointed out. That is key, in his mind, to further enhance our fundraising efforts.

     We also don’t select our charities before any given fundraising event. Doing so would allow us to gain more volunteers and tell people attending our fundraisers up front where the money is going. Joannides’ club sends out applications, much as our Foundation sometimes does, to select 3-5 charities who would best benefit from our fundraising events.

     As long time club member Bill McGibbon pointed out, the best time to concentrate our fundraising efforts is during “Snowbird” months, which are the months January through April. 

    Joannides also urged the club to get creative with naming our events. Perhaps “Oktoberfest” (everybody does one, he said) and “Spaghetti Fest” could be improved on? Perhaps a contest of some kind?

    At the very least, he prompted us to think about how we could improve on what we have been doing for some time. 

Philanthropist Tim Joannides

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Tom Dutton was born and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. He says he's always had deep ties to his community. As a devoted family man,  Tom is blessed to be married with three wonderful daughters who bring immense joy and fulfillment to his life. Tom's upbringing instilled in him the core values of hard work, dedication, and service to others, principles that have guided him throughout my career (and reflect those of Rotary). Prior to embarking on his healthcare career, he proudly served in the United States Air Force, where he honed his leadership skills and embraced a strong sense of duty and responsibility. His military experience taught him the vital importance of teamwork, integrity, and perseverance, qualities that he continues to uphold in both his personal and professional endeavors.

Currently serving as the Administrator at Emblem Hospice Green Valley, Tom's primary focus revolves around managing hospice services, ensuring compassionate patient care, and upholding regulatory compliance. Drawing from a robust background in revenue cycle management and stakeholder engagement, he has a proven track record of optimizing operations and nurturing organizational growth. 

New member Tom Dutton

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PP Bob Shevlin interviewed long-time Valle Verde Rotarian Gary Friedman about his life, saying Friedman is from Cincinnati, Ohio. Gary related that he had worked for several years “selling steel” and moved from there to Florida when he “retired” the first time, having gone back to work selling flooring. He did that for ten years then at the suggestion of a cousin, visited Quail Creek, spent a weekend there and signed up for a home, later moving here.

   He outlined some of his Rotary activities like the Mexico 🇲🇽 Microcredit program in Hermosillo, where small loans are given to usually one-person businesses, mainly women, to help them ramp up their home-based (usually) businesses.

   Responding to a question, Gary related that he and his dog Ruby visit area schools and get the kids to read to Ruby, a therapy dog. Ruby also visits a local senior center, raising spirits there.jk

   At the end of his talk, Friedman related an accident he and his wife were involved in several years ago which changed his life. He was in a Green Valley Fire Department bucket truck 100 feet in the air when it broke and slammed them down 40 feet. “Imagine being in an elevator and it falls in seconds four floors, smacking the ground” and you might realize what they went through. He and his wife suffered many broken bones, never regaining the use of some limbs.

    An inspiring talk from a role model of a Rotarian.

Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is a mental practice that's all about quieting your mind, reducing stress, and increasing self-awareness, according to our speaker on Feb. 27, 2024, Bob Dillon, a local certified TM instructor. It's a form of meditation that involves silently repeating a mantra for 15-20 minutes, twice per day, while sitting comfortably with your eyes closed.

TM has been practiced for over 50 years and has been studied extensively. Some research suggests that it can help with conditions like anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. Anyone can learn and practice TM according to Dillon.

Transcendental Meditation is typically taught in a structured course over several days, where a certified teacher like Dillon will guide you through the process and provide you with your own personalized mantra. His home is the local TM center and he offers free classes for veterans and their spouses.

If you're ready to dive in, you might want to start by visiting the official TM website (tm.org) to learn more. TM definitely offers a unique approach to meditation, with its use of mantras and a structured program. Some people find that TM is easier to stick with compared to other meditation techniques, because it's simple and doesn't require a lot of mental effort.The key to any meditation practice is consistency, so it's important to find a method that works for you and that you enjoy doing. 

photo by Bill McGibbon

PP Bob Shevlin introduced Roni Palacios, Manager, Bon Voyage Travel of Green Valley. PP Dick Roberts went to her wedding years ago. Popular travel destinations now; Antartica, Alaska, Italy, Portugal, the Galápagos Islands. River cruises remain popular, she said. Her travel agency doesn’t charge fees except for booking airline travel. They also. Sell travel insurance, which she recommends for anyone traveling.

   Most unusual trip? Easter Island, an island off the coast of Chile known for its carved statues. Roni brought with her one of her newer associates, Brian Trujillo. Her office has four travel agents, she said, with a combined experience of over 100 years.

“It was so well organized and seamless. There are many ways one should look at this event (besides numbers). It brought a whole lot of Rotarians together working for the benefit of the community.  It’s not often we do an “All hands on deck”,  but this is one of them.  Our new members joined with members from other clubs as well as having our Rotary District well represented (DG,  DG-Elect and DG nominee, were all here). This truly is a community -  high profile event.  From having the Mayor attend to the Fire Chief,  it is ever so important to be a visible part of improving our community.”

* I don’t think we should charge extra for the soft drinks. We also had a few requests for beer, too.  

* The wine servings were too small 

* Take tickets at the front of the line instead of at the door .. helps inventory management

* Sell raffle tickets table to table … $400 total too low.   

Judge Ray Carroll, who majored in philosophy at Regis University in Colorado, became a Pima County District 4 Supervisor in 1997, serving (as a Republican in spite of being from Chicago) until retiring in 2017. Later that same year he became Presiding Judge in the County’s District 7 and was certified by the AZ Supreme Court in April 2018. He’s had 100’s of hours of training in not letting politics interfere with the job of judging.

Judge Carroll told us distracted driving is the #1 killer of teens with over 4000 deaths in the last year. Distractions include alcohol, of course, along with texting. He highly recommended the GVC Safety Briefing Forum coming up Monday, March 2, from 1:30 PM to 3 PM at the GVR West Center. Part of the presentation is a movie made for just $15,000 with a phone. There was quite a lot of discussion with the Club, tales of horrible driving from the senior citizens in Green Valley (none of us, of course) on La Cañada, and we all remember drivers missing the brake and going through the walls of local buildings. In speaking of penalties, he said the only thing (fine) under $100 these days is a parking ticket. 

Makerspace Presentation (Rotary Club of Green Valley and Rotary District 5500 Matching Grant Project)

Jerry Kriebel volunteered to share his career with the Makerspace Club at a local school. The presentation included quite a bit of science, with details like the electron beam used to sterilize medical equipment can punch a hole in ¼ inch stainless steel in a fraction of a second. He described other methods -- gas and gamma rays – and the advantages and drawbacks of each. Pat Pease used a chemical dye and UV light to show how easily contagion can spread, and Michael modeled an epidemic with the MIT Scratch program.