Provo Rotary Weekly Bulletins

October 28, 2016 At Rotary this week there was an All Clubs Luncheon held at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City for all of the clubs in the state of Utah. Many prominent figures attended, including governor Gary Herbert.  The General Secretary, (the full time man, John, in Chicago the last 5 years) made some most significant comments about the future & needed growth of Rotary International. Overall, it a great event and we were pleased that many Provo Rotarians could attend.

October 20, 2016 This week at Provo Rotary members Steve Tolley and Ruth Riley, both financial consultants, summarized what we know about the influence of presidential elections on the US economy.  In the long run, it makes little difference financially whether Republicans or Democrats win, but in recent history, the greatest growth has occurred under Gerald Ford, the second greatest under Barack Obama.  Withdrawing your investments during a presidential election to put them into cash could cause significant losses compared to just leaving them invested.  Wells Fargo predicts that Democrats will win the Presidency and the Senate this election but not the House.  Industrials, materials, IT, financial, pharmaceuticals, and consumer stables sectors will likely benefit. As for international trade, it will remain robust.

October 13, 2016 Bill Barret, a professor in the BYU computer science department, came to speak with us this week about how computer tools have revolutionized family history research. BYU has created tools that compare and even compete with many of the popular online family history programs. He has also helped with extensive research on compression, recognition, and extraction of digitized information contained in microfilm for family history research. If you'd like to read more about Bill Barret and his work, here is a link to his blog on the BYU website:   https://cs.byu.edu/ faculty/barrett .

October 6, 2016 At Provo Rotary this week our very own club member, Charlotte Clark, spoke with us about her employer, Squire. She informed us about the ins and outs of the Squire financial services offered as well as many of the fun things they do and how most of their employees volunteer in the community. We'd like to say thank you to Charlotte for sharing about her work with us and here is a link to the Squire webpage: www.squire.com.

September 29, 2016 This week at Rotary we heard from Cindy Jenkins and Danny Pragar about how to use the Rotary International website. Many club members started created their online profiles during the meeting and we hope to use this as a way to help get the Provo Rotary Club recognized on an international level. Thanks to all those who helped out that day.

September 22, 2016 This week at Provo Rotary Jill Jenkins came to speak with us from LDS Employment Services. There you can look for or get job training. It is possible to get a referral from an LDS in order to take courses at no cost as well. This is a great program for those with disabilities or for anyone. Jill also told us some about her life, specifically about her 9 month trip to Uganda for her PhD project. As there are few teachers and many students and few resources, it is difficult for the children to have books they can learn from outside of school. In order to help alleviate this issue, Jill worked with teachers to come up with a program where children write their own books. This way the children can take the books they write home in order to study. When Jill returned to the US she started a nonprofit called Children Writing Books to Read in order to help children in a similar situation to those in Uganda.

September 8, 2016 This week we were fortunate to receive an update on the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio (held last July) from our very own Don Savage. He gave a very thorough report. In addition, it was United Way Day of Caring and many Rotarians were able to participate as we helped build a storage facility at the Franklin Community Center in Provo. Please check out the Fellowship and Fun side of the blog to see more photos from United Way Day of Caring.

September 1, 2016 This week Shaun Michel, the Rotary District Governor, came to speak with us. We discussed some great things like how u se your time wisely at meetings in order to create relationships and inspire those who attend meetings. This is a good way to get out of your comfort zone (or get out of your bubble - see the bubble photos below) and do something good and increase the number of your relationships. It may not be convenient, but it will be a blessing to your life. In addition, Shaun told us about how he went to the Hopi Indian reservation and did service there with his family, which helped change his life in a number of ways. 

August 25, 2016 Ronnie Daniel, Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Association, Utah Chapter, noted that incidence of Alzheimer's disease is increasing dramatically while the other major diseases are all decreasing. 10% of Utah senior citizens have Alzheimer's, and women are twice as likely as men to develop it. Three caregivers are needed for every patient, are often stressed, and many die before the patient does. Alzheimer's costs Utah $205 million annually, but research could reduce those costs and be a good investment.  No cure is available, but preventive measures include exercise, cardio-vascular fitness, healthy diet, enough sleep, mental challenges, social interaction, and quitting smoking.  A short "Walk to end Alzheimer's" will be held at Riverwoods Mall on October 15 at 9:00 am.

August 18, 2016 This week Tracey Christensen from the Now I Can Foundation came to speak with Provo Rotary. It is a special therapy program for children with very special physical therapy needs. Many of the children suffer from cerebral palsy or other very debilitating maladies. The founder, Tracey, went to Poland for four weeks in order to provide intensive training for her daughter. The trip was a great success, however, because more trips to Poland did not seem reasonable, Tracey and her husband decided to bring the intensive treatment style here to the US. Now they have a full-fledged program. If you would like to find out more about the foundation or how you can get involved, visit their website: http://www.nowican.org/.

August 11, 2016 Utah pioneer historian, Tom Alexander, came and spoke with Provo Rotary this week. He shared many things about the pioneers concerning life after they entered the Salt Lake Valley. The pioneers thought the valley was  beautiful when they entered. There were groves of trees and plenty of land ready to be farmed and irrigated. Struggles came though because of hardships with the weather and shortages of food. Some of the farmers would sell their grain to emigrants passing through to California, but it would mean that others still in the valley could not buy bread so all were encouraged to only sell grain to those in the valley. Conditions improved after 1849 when most of the shortages ended.  Two local students were also awarded Rotary scholarships!  Lovely view from the Riverside Country Club

August 4, 2016 Ron Pugh, one of our very own Rotary members, spoke with us about his many humanitarian trips to deliver eye glasses and offer his optometrist skills to third world countries. Ron uses a special method to test eyes which take about thirty minutes. This way he can help hundreds of people every day and people line up to see him when he comes. He collects hundreds of pairs of used eye glasses as well in order to give them to those he helps. Here is a video of one of expeditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7h9RCgMTuA.

August 3, 2016 This summer Rotary members went to the South Franklin Community Center to help plant their community garden. Thank you to all those who came and for your hard work.

July 28, 2016 Steve Gibson s tarted the nonprofit, ACE (Academy for Creating Enterprise), when he and his wife moved to the Philippines. For their nonprofit they help returned missionaries in cultivating countries become successful entrepreneurs. The country of the Philippines has the fourth largest number of LDS members, which is a part of the reason why they chose to move their first. Now ACE has been established in the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Zimbabwe, and Cambodia. Steve and his wife love their work and if someone's life has been changed, it's because that person chose to change their life. Poverty dies in people as they change. 

July 21, 2016 This week Emily Stevens from the  AMAR Foundation came to speak with us. As she has visited Iraq, she let us know about the people there.  Many of the people she met were doctors, nurses, scientists, or one of many other highly educated professionals, but now they are refugees. The AMAR organization in Iraq is staffed mainly by individuals from Iraq. However, there are only certain locations in Iraq that are still safe. Those who find a refugee camp are lucky as many others are stuck on the side of the road or half finished construction sites. If you would like to know more about how you can help or about this organization, you can find their website here:  http://www.amarfoundation.org/en-us/. We were also excited to introduce our newest member, Anna Bates. 

July 14, 2016 Al Switzler, co-founder of Vitalsmarts, came to speak with us. As a part of his work now, post-retirement, Al works on what he cares for most in life, mainly poetry. In Al's terminology, petry is the thing that causes you to see an dfell beauty in your life. You use poetry to leverage your life and the more you have of it, the better your life will be. There are moments every day where you can choose to leverage your life. His closing wish to us was this:  may you and I find the poetry (leverage) that will help you seek, and see, and become your best you-joyful, growing, and grateful.  We had some great moments today! 

July 13, 2016 Adrian Escalante, Executive Director of Centro Hispano,  came from Argentina to Los Angeles as a child and grew up there. Later in life he moved to Orem, UT. While living here he discovered many interesting things, like that  most of the Hispanics who need help in Utah County are US citizens. Now he can turn his insights into real help for the community. An example of this is how the mission of Centro Hispano is to empower individuals. They want to hand out education not money. His vision is to take the concept of Centro Hispano that exists in Provo and move it to other areas. Some exciting news for Centro Hispano is that they just got an extension approved with additional funding. Here are a few of the programs they currently run: Employer resource center Adult language center  Youth educational center Financial resource center Legal support center Health and wellness center Information and referral center 

June 30, 2016 Today we had the change of leadership. The president who is leaving, David Rogers, summarized the highlights of his year leading Provo Rotary--recruiting Cindy Jenkins as secretary, planning a charity golf tournament with Rocky Mountain University of Health Care, supporting two Rotary foreign exchange students, and supporting Rotary International's Polio Plus fund with $1,248 from weekly fines.  David then swore in Don Jarvis and the new Board of Directors:  Al Cutler, Joey Hansen, Darrel Jakins, Ron Pugh, and Carol Walker, with President-elect Nate Beesley and President-elect-nominee Ruth Riley (excused).  Don introduced new Sergeant-at-Arms chair Ray Beckham, Program Chair Pete Pletsch, and Social Chair Vaughan Park, all of whom told of their plans to increase friendship, fun, and local service for the coming year.

June 23, 2016 Governor Gary Herbert came to speak with us at Rotary. One of the main topics he discussed was how individuals from other states call him in order to find out how we achieve our economic success in Utah. He stated that we have upward mobility in Utah that isn't found anywhere else in the country. This occurs because we have fewer regulations and more efficiency in our government systems. He wants Utah to continue on this successful road in the future.  To find out more about Governor Gary Herbert and his policies, go to this website: http://www.utah.gov/governor/.

June 16, 2016 Paul Warner came to visit us and tell us about the Freedom Festival. The past two events—Prayer Breakfast and Flag Retirement—have been very emotional and moving plus well attended.  The Festival is excited about Elder Christofferson being the speaker at the June 26 th   Patriotic Service in the Marriott Center at   7 pm .  Free to the public with doors opening at   6 pm . We talked about the Stadium of Fire and saw an overview of the past few years then talked of the costs and interesting personalities of the performers.  Tim McGraw will put on a good show and be on stage for about 70 minutes.  He recently won an award for his song, “Be humble and kind.” Our Gala honorees are special people this year and the 30 th  at the Utah Valley Convention Center is where they will be given the Freedom Award.  It starts at  6:30 pm . Go to  freedomfestival.org  for more information.  Thanks to the Rotar...