LUNCHEON MEETING MINUTES April 23, 2019: Place Lab

 

President Rhonda then recapped several very successful recent events, including the Bike Build held April 20 at Bryant Elementary School in the Mission District. About thirty members of the Club and their guests and family members built 100 bikes for youth in the community. The event received local media coverage from two television stations, and Rhonda shared a video clip from coverage on KTVU-Fox2. See the article and video from the KTVU website.

 

Rhonda then announced several upcoming events, including:

President Rhonda then asked member Lynn Luckow (Development; LikeMinded.org) to share some information about RYLA camp. Lynn, who is serving as Camp Director once again this year, noted that this will be the largest camp ever, with close to 180 campers and 40 more on the waiting list. Campers will be assisted by 32 adult counselors, most of them Rotarians from the three counties in our District 5150 (Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo). The camp is funded by Rotary and is entirely free to the campers, high school sophomores and juniors who come from public and private high schools in the three counties. At camp, students will have the chance to learn about interpersonal skills, leadership techniques and teamwork. Lynn thanked David Dye (Management Consulting; Retired), Connor Krone (Student Investment Lab) and Eric Schmautz (Banking Management; Wells Fargo) for their hard work in making this year’s camp a reality. He also thanked John (Attorney; Dean Dispute Resolution) & Susan Dean (Nurse/Health Care Management; Retired) for volunteering to assist as counselors at camp. Lynn ended with a special “thank you” to Jim Patrick (Office Supplies; Patrick & Co.) who first started RYLA as Camp Enterprise.

 

This year’s District 5150 Global Scholarship winner is Camille Wasinger, who was sponsored by the SF Rotary Club thanks to Gary Dales (Fly Leasing). Camille will receive a $35,000 scholarship to continue her studies at Oxford University, where she is completing her Master’s degree in Philosophy.

 

Those members donating “Twenty for Twenty” included:

 

Today’s speaker was Brooke Ray Rivera, Director of Place Lab within the San Francisco Parks Alliance. Brooke discussed the importance of public spaces in San Francisco, and the process for adding additional spaces and improving existing spaces. She noted that the guiding principles for her organization when it comes to public spaces are: innovation, transparency and fun. Brooke discussed the role her group played in the open space development process for several community-funded open spaces, such as the popular Green Benefit Districts in the Dogpatch and Potrero Hill areas of San Francisco. She also updated us on several other public space projects in the early planning stages in the City. There were a number of audience questions concerning how the Green Benefit Districts are established by the community, and their funding through special property tax assessments.

 

President Rhonda thanked Brooke for her informative presentation, and announced that 100 children would be inoculated against polio in recognition of her presentation today.

 

Rhonda then took a moment to extend a special thanks to the members of the Speakers Committee for their hard work in bringing interesting and diverse speakers for our meetings: Flora Burke (Merrill Lynch), Gary Dales, JT Forbus (Accounting; Bogdan & Frasco), Scott Plakun (Management Consulting; The Plakun Group) Anita Stangl (Non-Profit Medical Services; Alliance for Smiles), and Bebo White (Computer Science; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory).

 

Today’s door prize winners are Sue Farlow (Retired), Evelyn Abad (Non-Profit Medical Services; Rotaplast International) and guest James Chang.