Welcome to our Rotary E-Club of Houston!

Service Above Self

Anytime
Your own computer

Your place
Anywhere Worldwide, charter place in, TX 00000
United States of America

District Site

Venue Map

Collecting & Donating Books

Buy Pieces of this picturesque puzzle and you will be automatically entered to win 4 nights at the North Face Lodge in Lake City Colorado, courtesy of our current club president, Robin Charlesworth.

Pieces of the Puzzle can be purchased for $25/each or 5 for $100. All proceeds go to the Rotary E-Club of Houston and/or the Rotary Foundation.

~!~!~Raffle will be held on Facebook Live on March 31, 2019~!~!~

Proud Sponsors of the Rotary E-Club of Houston:

Dick Robie and Jeffrey Fattig CFP®, PPC, financial advisors at Retirement Planning & Wealth Management.

Call us today at

(877) 281-0023 for a complimentary, no-obligation, consultation with own of our advisors.

Life Designed, Wealth Defined

President

President Elect

Secretary

Treasurer

Community Service

Vocational Service

International Service

Isis Mejias

Next Generation Service

Membership

501-C-3

BINGO Chairperson

Newsletter Editor

Newsletter Editor

Immediate Past President

Wind Nguyen

Donate to the Club or other Club fundraiser

Buy Puzzle Pieces for Polio

MAY CALENDAR

May 2 - 5 District Conference

May 7. International Service Committee Meeting - 6:30 pm CST. Zoom meeting

May 11 Gardening with DG Carme Cuneo at Herman Park (see Rotary District 5890 website for details)

May 18 Board of Directors Meeting @ 9:00 am (open meeting - all may join - Zoom meeting

May 20 Zoom meeting - International Service (Honduras or Africa) - Zoom meeting

May 26 Rotary Alumni "Meet & Greet" @ Harold's in the Heights from 3:00 - 5:00 pm. (see article)

For all Rotary Join Zoom Meetings -

https://zoom.us/j/6215647957

Who are alumni?

You are an alum if you participated in any of the following programs:

Interact, Rotaract, Rotary Youth Exchange, New Generations Service Exchange, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards(RYLA), Rotary Peace Fellowships, Rotary Scholarships (funded by global grants or district grants), vocational training teams (members and leaders), Ambassadorial Scholarships, Grants for University Teachers, Group Study Exchange (members and leaders), and Rotary Volunteers.

Ruby Powers shared this idea with President Robin Charlesworth at District Conference and she began planning and connecting with friends who are fellow alumni. Please join this Meet and Greet and share about the excitement of belonging to the Rotary e-Club of Houston. Additionally, if you have other friends, business associates or family members who want to learn more about our club, please have them rsvp with our Evite so we will have a good head count, or contact Ruby Powers on WhatApp.

In our club we know of the following Alumni: PDG Ed Charlesworth - GSE Team Leader to Romania 2001; Marc Mori - Peace Scholar; Ruby Powers - Ambassadorial Scholar (Spain); Isis Meijas - Ambassadorial Scholar (Brazil); Past President Wind Nguyen - Rotaract; Cimela Kidonakis - Rotaract. If we have committed anyone it is not intentional. Please let us know if you should be added to this list.

Ruby Powers Interview on Red, White & Blue - Immigration on the Texas Border

Check out Ruby Powers, Immigration Attorney, and a member of our Rotary club, being interviewed May 17th on PBS' Red, White & Blue tv program. Great interview discussing the issues of Immigration and the Texas Border!

Rotarians - People of Action

Rotarians share a unique passion for taking action to improve their communities and the world. Where others see problems, we see solutions. This is our chance to show others how Rotarians see what’s possible in their communities and to highlight what we can achieve when more community leaders join Rotary.

This campaign brings the Rotary story to life in a way that narrows the gap between public awareness and understanding.
The People of Action campaign communicates the essence of Rotary and reflects our values, such as:

We build lifelong relationships.
We honor our commitments.
We connect diverse perspectives.
We apply our leadership and expertise to solve social issues.

It tells our story in our own voice, which is:

Smart — we are insightful and discerning.
Compassionate — we tackle community challenges with empathy and understanding.
Persevering — we find lasting solutions to systemic problems.
Inspiring — we encourage others to take action, conveying hope, enthusiasm, and passion.

As a Rotarian, you’re also a brand ambassador. You can tell the story of Rotary and how we are people of action in communities worldwide.

Who are We?

Although the Rotary year is not yet over and we have a number of prospective members we hope will join us in our humanitarian effort and providing service to others, I want to give you a synopsis of where our members reside. Our home Rotary District is 5890 which encompasses the Greater Houston area in Texas, USA. We have members who live in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, South Caroline, and Wyoming. That is 27% of out total membership which is currently at 52 active members. Another 6% live in other parts of Texas and outside of our Rotary district. We also have 8% who are living and/or working outside of the USA in Bosnia, Cameroon, Sweden, and United Arab Emirates. That is 41% do not live within the boundaries of our home district.

For this reason, our meetings are held online (Zoom meetings) and we send newsletters with programs (most often Ted Talks). Our zoom meetings are netting small numbers, and we hope to improve our offerings of these meetings online for you to view anytime 24/7. We have a very active SocialMedia presence with 1,566 Followers on Facebook. Our award-wining international service project "Hope for Venezuelan Refugees" is actively posting on Instagram, Blog, and WhatApp. We encourage our members to join the club WhatsApp group for short updates on members. It helps to get to know each other as well as providing information about service projects and meetings. Projects may also be viewed on My Rotary in My Club Showcase.

Below the banner on our webpage is an Attendance form. We are flexible on attendance, although we encourage all members to participate in some form of service monthly (which counts as attendance, and it may simply be a donation), and hope that all members will find a committee or project to provide club service. Some jobs are quite simple and require only a small amount of time, and of course, others are for dedicated champions. On the attendance form you may also record your service activity.

We want to keep everyone engaged and feeling important to our club. We have begun a new newsletter activity with is termed a "Scavenger Hunt" activity to promote sharing small things about where we live and to compare results with other members. We hope you will enjoy this exchange and participate in sharing.

Career Village

At CareerVillage.org we use crowdsourcing to provide personal career guidance to students at massive scale. We do this through an open access platform that anyone can use to ask a question related to a career. Our web platform matches the career questions students ask to our volunteer corps of over 15,000 working professionals with relevant expertise and a wealth of experiences to share. The advice students get is tailored for them, it’s reliable, and it’s encouraging and inspirational. The more students from different backgrounds use it, the more young people are exposed to careers they may never have dreamed existed.

To truly level the playing field, however, CV provides additional services through partners in communities in which the lack of resources (information, networking, mentoring, etc) is the largest and where students are underrepresented in their desired career, face discrimination in gaining access to their desired career, or face huge hurdles outside their control which block their ability to get into their desired career. We especially work to support youth in low-income communities, students who plan to become the first in their family to attend college, students who are first generation immigrants, young people of color, and young women interested in STEM careers. Working more intensively in communities traditionally lacking the most access reinforces the power of the CV website, enabling the most underserved youth to find new pathways, ask better questions, and forge more connections with peers and mentors using the website.

Our club has chosen Career Village as our banner Vocational Project this year. We have several members who have registered on their website (career village.org) and they receive questions from students weekly. On the website, simply select "Sign Up" and then select "Professional" to begin your journey of providing information and advice to students as they plan their future. They will need your email and additionally a LinkedIn. Next, you will set up your Professional Profile so screening will direct appropriate questions to you for advice. If you do not have time to answer three questions, then simply answer one. Sometimes you may choose to answer more questions, or you may simply pass and someone else may address the questions. Like our club, it is 100% flexible. We do have the benefit of a monthly report on the time spent with Career Village and ask that you please complete our Attendance form on the website so we may track the time donated by our members.

Special thanks to Nicole Wycislo, Vocational Director, for bringing us this online program!

Program: How Your Brain's Executive Function Works - And How to Improve It

You use your brain's executive function every day -- it's how you do things like pay attention, plan ahead and control impulses. Can you improve it to change for the better? With highlights from her research on child development, cognitive scientist Sabine Doebel explores the factors that affect executive function -- and how you can use it to break bad habits and achieve your goals.

Sabine Doebel conducts research with children in an effort to understand the nature of the mind, with much of her work focusing on how children develop the cognitive abilities that serve us so well as adults, like controlling impulses, thinking ahead, and staying on task.

Doebel is an incoming assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where she will direct the brand new Developing Minds Lab. She earned her PhD from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota and subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in Psychological Science, Cognition, Developmental Psychology and Child Development.

Doebel is also a passionate advocate of open science and has received funding from the National Science Foundation to help developmental scientists adopt transparency-enhancing practices that will allow them to build more easily on each other's work.

NEW - Scavenger Hunt for Our Members

New social activity for our club - As an e-club we often do not know each other or know much about each other. This is designed to build better friendships within our club we ask that you participate is a simple activity each month called "The Great e-Club of Houston Scavenger Hunt". We will see some similarities and some differences as we share a collage of the activity in the following newsletter. This is a new form of team-building united in service through Rotary.

Isabel Nordin will be the point person for this activity. Please email your photos to issanor@yahoo.com. She will arrange them for publication in the newsletters. Each month there will be a different small assignment.

This month we ask that you take a photo of a bird in your backyard. If you want to add anything interesting about the bird you may, but it is not necessary. Simply take the photo on your phone and send it to Isabel.

Registration for the RI Convention e-club Party!

Join us for a fun-filled Rotary e-Club party with clubs from all around the world! Please RSVP if you're going to Rotary International Convention 2019!

Where: Oma's Apotheke Restaurant, Hamburg Germany
When: June 3, 2019 6:30pm (18:30)
What: Food, Drinks, Music, Fun.

Ticket Includes: Dinner, Dessert, 2 Drinks
Organized by: Rotary E-Club of Houston - D. 5890 and Rotary E-Club 9920 Francophone.

All Rotary Clubs welcome! #RIcon19 #Rotary #FindingRotary

Rotary International Convention in Hamburg

The 110th Rotary International Convention 2019 will happen June 1-5 in Hamburg, Germany.

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

HAMBURG MESSE WI-FI ACCESS
Network: Rotary_Guest
Password: endpolionow

BADGE PICKUP AND ON-SITE REGISTRATION

Get your badge before you arrive at the convention venue. If you preregistered and paid in full, you can pick it up at the Hamburg Airport starting at 15:00 on Thursday, 30 May. Look for us in Terminal 1 or 2 at the baggage claim area. Be sure to have your photo ID and registration number. You can use your badge to travel on Hamburg’s public transit system beginning Friday, 31 May. On-site registration at the Hamburg Messe opens at 15:00 on Thursday, 30 May, in Hall A2. You can register additional guests, purchase tickets for Rotary events, pay any outstanding balances, and get your badge if you didn’t get it at the airport. The Registration booth is also where you can pick up all convention materials, including the program book, transportation guide, and convention tote bag, as well as interpretation equipment.

TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION

Rotary is giving every convention attendee complimentary rides on Hamburg’s easy-to-use and eco-friendly public transportation network, the HVV (Hamburger Verkehrsverbund). Use your convention badge as your ticket to travel on HVV’s extensive bus, rail, and ferry system. The badges are valid for the fare ring Hamburg AB (inside the gray circle on this map) and can be used Friday, 31 May, through Thursday, 6 June.

Learn more about the HVV and get help planning your travel in and around Hamburg. You can also download the HVV app to navigate Hamburg’s transit system on the go:
• In the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad
• On Google Play for Android

Rotary will not provide shuttle service between hotels and the convention center.

CURRENCY EXCHANGE

There will be no currency exchange services onsite at the Messe. At the airport, currency exchanges are open from 5:45 am to 8:45 pm (Monday through Sunday) in Terminal 1 & Monday through Sunday 8am till 9 pm in Terminal 2. Most hotels offer currency exchange services, however, the rate is not favorable

All airport ATMs are accessible Monday through Sunday and most of them are 24/7. There will be four ATMs at the Messe. Three are available at the central entrance and 1 is available in B4 by the east entrance.

MYTAXI APP

If you’re taking a taxi to or from the convention center, you can order your cab using the mytaxi app on your phone and support Rotary at the same time. Mytaxi, Europe’s leading ride-hailing app, is donating 100 percent of its proceeds to Rotary for all rides to and from the Hamburg Messe during the convention, 31 May-5 June. These proceeds will support Emotions-Training for Autism, the Bees Pasture Project, and the Haiti National Clean Water, Sanitation, and Health Strategy. Download the app before you arrive in Hamburg so you’re ready to travel conveniently and support Rotary:
• At the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad
• On Google Play for Android

Join the Rotary e-Club of Houston and Help Make A Difference!

Ready to join a great Rotary Club? Click on membership application on the left side of the homepage. Please complete all fields on the application and press submit. You will be contacted soon by Nicole Bianchi, Membership Director.

On the membership application you will be asked if you have attended two Rotary e-Club of Houston meetings on-line. Look for the Weekly Program and either view the video or read the article, then go to the tab for Weekly Meeting beneath the banner of the page and submit the attendance form to receive credit.

To pay your membership dues: By credit card, please click on the PayNow yellow link on the left side of the home page. Thank you!

Rotary's Four Way Test

Posted by Rotary International

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings.