THE LAMORINDAN 5/15

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Gary Fulcher came up with a mini shaggy-dog story. It seems as though in a publication called the ABC Book of Rotary, there is a section on how Rotary members address each other worldwide. In the U.S. it is informal, usually first names. European Rotarians tend to be more formal, using titles such as Dr., Mr., etc. Asians like to give new members nicknames, which could take several forms. So Gary was discussing this with his dog Charlie on the way to today's Rotary meeting. Charlie thought about nicknames for a minute, then suggested that Paul Bettelheim,Gary's membership sponsor, and also Charlie's veterinarian, be officially nicknamed "Snipper!"

GUESTS AND VISITING ROTARIANS

Mike Heller - Lafayette noon club
Bill Eames - Lafayette noon club
John Sherry - President, Lafayette noon club
John Moulthrop - Concord/Clayton Sunrise Club
Jim Uffelman
Sharon Rossi - More to follow
Dominic Porrino
Joe Bettencourt guest Krysten Laine
Connie Linneman - John's wife
Glenda Fillinger - Queen of the Club
Sara Brown - Ron's significantly better half

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARY and THE OCCASIONAL MISCUE

David Waal, a new member who seems to keep on giving every week. His daughter became sweet 16 this week hence $16 coughed up.
Tom and Pat Black celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, and Pat's 39+ birthday in Santa Fe this past week. $50 worth of celebration to the club.
Rich Shearer paid a $20 penalty for his UCLA rant/cheer and promptly countered by offering to pay $40. Brad Davis insisted that Rich thought 40 was less than 20. You think?

IF YOU ARE IN THE THREE QUARTER CENTURY CLUB AND LIVE IN ORINDA THIS IS FOR YOU

Incoming President John Fazel reminded us that workers are welcome to help out with this special luncheon held every year and sponsored by Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary, the Orinda Community Church and Prudential California Realty. It is on Wednesday, June 10 from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM at the Orinda Community Church, 10 Irwin Way, Orinda. Guest speaker is the very entertaining ghost of Mark Twain (McAvoy Layne). John is handling reservations at 324-2017 until June 3rd. Even if all members of this club are way too young to qualify as a member of the Three-Quarter Century Club, you can still make the event as a volunteer worker at the luncheon. John will happily enlist your services.

John also passed around an Authorization/Consent form to be executed by all club members who plan on taking our incoming exchange student on any kind of an outing while he is with us during the next school year. This form is to be completed and mailed to the individual named on the form. If you have questions check with John.

SHARON ROSSI NEW MEMBER INDUCTION

George Chaffey did his usual eloquent introduction of Sharon as the newest Rotarian in the world. Sharon's sponsor is cousin Dan Garfin, himself inducted just a few weeks ago. Sharon is a graduate of UCLA (which caused the aforementioned eruption of Mr. Shearer) She is a lawyer and an employment litigation specialist. She is also a competitive tap dancer, which is excellent training for future presidential service at Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary! Finally, it needs to be said that Sharon is the niece of Paul Bettelheim, who also happens to be the uncle of Dan Garfin. President Pat affirmed that it is not necessary to be related to Paul in order to join our club as proven by Gary Fulcher, who is also a Bettelheim disciple. In any case, Sharon, you are a most welcome addition to our intrepid crew of do-gooders.

THE RETURN OF THE FILLINGERS

Ex-Pres. Paul Fillinger and wife Glenda were back from a month's sojourn in China. Paul was a man of remarkably few words, although he insisted he is now fluent in Mandarin. He brought with him a banner from the Beijing Rotary Club, whose membership is entirely made up of ex-pats working in China. This is because the Chinese government is still not ready to accept that Rotary is a non-threatening organization for their citizens to belong to. If the Chinese ever send an emissary to one of our typical meetings, they likely will be convinced that their concerns are well founded. It is highly likely that Paul will be called upon to describe the wonderful work being performed for children by the Alliance for Smiles group in the cities he and Glenda visited as participants in this humanitarian effort.

BETTELHEIM CONTINUES TO HEADLINE THE NEWS!

Rod Ford-Smith announced that the auction item he had made available to Rotary for a four night stay over the May 31st weekend at the Highlands Inn in Carmel was won by the ubiquitous Dr. Bettelheim. This fantastic bargain was picked off by Paul for the modest sum of $500. The proceeds are to be split evenly between Rod's charity group and the club. Thanks to both.

CONCERT AT THE LAFAYETTE RESERVOIR

John Sherry was present to remind everyone that the annual concert at the Reservoir sponsored by the Lafayette Rotary lunch club is coming up shortly. This is always a very successful fund raiser to benefit the Stanley and Acalanes music programs in addition to being a delightfully entertaining event. Be there!

THE PROGRAM

Our guest speaker, Pascal Kaplan, is co-founder and CEO of iCohere, Inc., a software company. iCohere helps businesses and organizations develop their eLearning and online community building capabilities and expertise. Among the 200+ client base are the National Institute of Health, U.C. Berkeley and AT&T.

Before becoming involved with technology Pascal served for six years as dean of the School of Liberal Arts at John F. Kennedy University (JFKU) in Pleasant Hill. In this role he launched the school's Graduate School of Holistic Studies, which became the first accredited program in the country to offer degree programs in Consciousness Studies, Holistic Health Education and Transpersonal Psychology.

Following his tenure at JFKU he spent two years consulting a Bank of America Executive Committee that developed and implemented a values initiative for the bank's 90,000 employees. Currently, Pascal serves on the board of directors of several non-profit organizations, and continues to teach courses in Transformational Studies at JFKU on a part time basis. He earned an M.A. and a Ph.D., both in theology, from Harvard.

Pascal's theme for the morning was titled "Preparing for a New Humanity" in the 21st Century. These, he posits, are the four characteristics of a new humanity:

1.     Service - above ego and self interest
2.     Inclusiveness - freed of narrow group identity
3.     Collaboration - honoring individual strength
4.     Integral knowledge - synthesizing science and spirituality

These attributes represent a leap from intellectual thinking to intuitional sensing. Pascal compared the above traits to the Rotary Four Way Test, and found we are well positioned to ride this new wave, which will be aiding humanity in this century!

Pascal reviewed the timeline of social communications capability. It began with cave painting c. 15,000 B.C. Next break-through was the introduction of cuneiform writing (pictograms) some 17,000 years later. After the invention of the printing press in 1440, followed by the telephone in 1876, we arrived at the Internet in 1993. The Internet, said Pascal, is the primary enabler for service organizations to extend the effectiveness and impact of their work through online community building and use of collaborative tools. Too, it is the great leveler of the worldwide-melting pot, as aptly illustrated by a cartoon featuring two dogs operating a computer with the caption "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog!" In other words, the Internet has created an environment where it is possible to honor one another without superficial prejudices or controlling supervision.

Having reached the traditionalist stage in the e-mail adoptive curve, the stage was set for the newest thing--collaborative community platforms. Collaborative communications are on the rise in corporations, associations and small groups, whereas solitary activity is ebbing. It is projected that by 2015 individual communications activity will be reduced to 10%, while different time and place collaborative activities by many people will be greater than 50%. Collaborative platforms provide for real-time, face-to-face communications for such activities as education (teaching) and meeting needs (health and economics).

Pascal referenced World Vision and the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) as examples of how collaborative community platforms can benefit large, geographically dispersed organizations. World Vision is a non-denominational organization, designed to serve people world wide. It has a staff of 33,000 in 100 countries. Its daunting challenge is to feed six million children daily! iCohere, devised a collaborative website which allowed worldwide connection to all World Vision locations, enabled in many instances by lap tops using gps coordinates for routing to satellites. This allowed for real-time participation throughout the organization in the daily activities of the onsite meeting taking place in Thailand with 125 people who were present in the room. 5,000 emails were received overnight from the field in response to each day's program.

The ASAE serves 10,000 associations with an aggregate of over 28 million members. The organization is taking full advantage of whole systems engagement provided by iCohere with the use of streaming video for team meetings, webinars, online communications, committee meetings and eLearning breakout sessions.

Fascinating stuff, Pascal! You are a sterling ambassador for the best-is-yet-to-come in new wave communications capabilities for the greater good of humanity. Thank you!

CALENDAR OF EVENTS