Photo Credit: By Amos Meron, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21183205

Next Week – Meeting On Zoom: Due to the surge in the delta variant of COVID-19, our club is moving back to virtual meetings on Zoom. The meeting will begin at 12 p.m.

Direct Link For Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/183084884
Meeting ID: 183 084 884

A Message From President Bryce Baker on the change back to Zoom:

With the ongoing surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19 I have made the decision to move our meetings back to Zoom for the time being.

This isn’t the decision I wanted to make. I would love nothing more than to return to normal with all of you, singing, embracing, and eating together. But the world is not ready for normal yet. Delta spreads so much more easily than past variants, and this last week we’ve had a higher number of cases in our community than ever before. Masks are being required even for outdoor events and the CDC is recommending against all large gatherings. We must do our part to halt the spread further and keep our community members as safe as possible. Club leadership will continue to monitor the situation, and we will reinstate our in-person meetings again as soon as it is safe to do so.

As always I appreciate your feedback and questions, and I look forward to seeing you at our home away from home on Zoom this Wednesday.

Steak Sale Ends Soon: Orders are due this Monday for our Steak Sale, which benefits our club’s many service outreaches and our Scholarship Program. We are offering packs of two Columbia Empire Meats sirloin steaks for $15 per pack. Over the past year-plus, this fundraiser has brought in over $13,000 at a critical time with the club unable to hold the Concours d’Elegance or the Steak Feed.

All orders are due by Monday, August 30 to President Bryce Baker.

Steak pick-up will be on Thursday, September 3, 4-6 p.m., at Jeff Duyck’s warehouse on 19th Avenue between Main and Ash Streets. Please bring payment for steaks when you come to pick up your orders.

Rotaract Liaison Needed: The club is looking for a member that could act as our liaison with the Pacific University Rotaract Club. If you are interested or would like to learn more about the role, please contact President Bryce.

ShelterBox HERO Club: Once again, our club has been recognized by ShelterBox USA as a ShelterBox Bronze Level HERO Club! The recognition signifies our club’s continued commitment to donate $1,000 per year to ShelterBox over a three-year period. We are truly grateful for the commitment of our members to continue to give to ShelterBox’s ongoing disaster relief efforts all over the world.

ShelterBox is an official Rotary partner. You can learn more about what the organization is doing around the world by Visiting The ShelterBox Website. Our own ShelterBox ambassadors, Jeannine Murrell and Pamelajean Myers, gave a program to the club on the organization in June which can be Viewed Here.

Haiti Relief Efforts: ShelterBox is looking for donations to help with relief for those affected by the recent 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti. Donations can be directed to the ShelterBox USA website. Additionally, there is a relief fund that has been established by Rotary District 7020, which includes the majority of the clubs in the Caribbean. Click Here To Donate To The Relief Fund

Service Opportunities Upcoming: Be watching over the next two weeks for information on a service opportunity as we begin a partner project with West Tuality Habitat for Humanity!

Online Dues Payments: Our club is now equipped to take dues payments online! We can now process credit card or debit card payments for quarterly dues. Information on how to pay online was sent out with the quarterly billing that went out earlier in July.

With the transition to billing with Quickbooks, some members may not have received their quarterly invoice. If you did not, please contact treasurer Lucas Welliver at 971-241-7426 or lucaswelliver@gmail.com.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry continues. Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials.

The Food Pantry is open on Mondays from 2- 4 p.m. Donations are accepted on-site on Mondays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

For information on the Food Pantry, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Additionally, Rotarian Gwen Hullinger has put together an Amazon wish list of items that can be purchased and donated. Click Here To View That List.

Rotary Phone Tree: Keep up the good work on the Rotary phone tree, helping to check in our members and keep them up to date on the happenings in the club. If you have questions about the phone tree, or if your information on the Phone Tree is not correct, contact Paul Waterstreet.

The goal of the phone tree is to reach out and check on every member of the club to make sure they are doing all right and to provide updates on club announcements and activities (Hint: You have a great list to draw from here). The plan is for the tree to be activated every Tuesday. The idea is that for each person to call the next one on the list. The last person on the list should call the team captain to make sure the list is complete.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May 2020 are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Around District 5100
District 5100 Membership Committee Update (by Kathy Stromvig): So here we are on the verge of a new Rotary year – looking at ways we will be gathering for work, our social interactions with people, where to travel, and especially what our Rotary world will look like.

More than likely, we will continue to Zoom (maybe twice a month); have in-person meetings (twice a month); service projects, happy hours, fundraising – but how will all this look?

Like most districts around the country, District 5100 also had a decline in membership this past Rotary Year.

With that in mind, all our clubs will need to look long and hard at the areas of attraction, engagement, and retention, and particularly, on how to re-engage struggling clubs. Working together is important, not just within your own club, but with other clubs as well – even across the country. There are plenty of membership success stories out there – find those success stories and share them.

Did someone mention hybrid meetings (what are they?). How tech-savvy is your club; what equipment do you have to pull these off? If you are not sure how to proceed, contact the newly created District 5100 Technology & Communications committee. The chair of the committee is Daniel Spalding. He is very qualified and will help with questions or clarification related to developing your club’s video and sound production. Daniel’s can be contacted at 503-270-6504 or dsspalding@gmail.com. Putting your hybrid meetings together properly will enhance retention and impress members.

The District membership team is available to guide clubs to more successful membership results. Something new this year is we plan to host open forums (the first one will be September 15 from 6 to 7 p.m.) for clubs to Zoom in and hear the latest and greatest success stories, as well as ask the committee questions. We’re also prepared to be your club’s program, just let us know when and where we can join you. We’ve done a couple of them already and would like to do more.

For some added helpful information on member attraction, member engagement or retention, check out the Zones 26 & 27 Hybrid Meeting Resource Website.

Save The Date: District 5100 Rotary One Conference: Mark your calendars for May 19-22 as District 5100 will present its first combined Spring Training Event and annual conference in Seaside. The combined conference will provide Rotary training opportunities, inspirational speakers and a celebration of what is hoped to be a great year in District 5100.

Around Rotary International
African Region Marks One Year Since Being Certified Wild Polio-Free: Rotary joined its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to mark the first anniversary of a historic public health milestone: the World Health Organization’s African region being certified free of wild polio.

The anniversary was celebrated on 25 August during a WHO Regional Committee for Africa meeting, which also addressed current challenges to eradicating polio and new tactics to achieve a polio-free world.

Africa’s milestone has already benefited children’s health and public health across the continent. The infrastructure and innovations that helped the African region become free of wild polio are playing an important role in the COVID-19 pandemic response and are available to use in future public health emergencies. Polio workers also now conduct other routine immunizations, deliver medicines, and provide other health care services.

The achievement in Africa is the result of a decades-long effort by millions of Rotary members, health workers, government officials, religious leaders, and parents. Since 1996, when wild polio paralyzed an estimated 75,000 children across Africa, health workers have administered more than 9 billion doses of oral vaccine, preventing 1.8 million wild polio cases.

Rotary members have contributed nearly $920 million toward eradicating the virus in the region, advocated for support from their governments, mobilized communities around National Immunization Days, and conducted events to raise funds and public awareness.

Five of the WHO’s six regions, representing more than 90% of the world’s population, are now free of the wild poliovirus.

Africa’s success in eliminating wild polio proves that the virus can be eliminated under complex circumstances and provides a blueprint for eradicating wild polio in the last two countries where it’s endemic: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dr. Tunji Funsho, chair of Rotary’s Nigeria PolioPlus Committee, says the certification of the African region is a monumental public health achievement, but the ultimate goal of global eradication remains.

“Our job is not done,” says Funsho, a member of the Rotary Club of Lekki Phase 1, Nigeria. “Africa still has a vital role to play in ending polio globally and must continue to reach children everywhere with polio vaccines.”

“We also face a final hurdle in ridding Africa of all forms of polio,” he adds, citing outbreaks of the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) variant. These outbreaks, he says, “continue to harm under-immunized communities across the region and paralyze children.”

Health officials confirmed 609 cases of cVDPV2 across 20 countries in Africa in 2020, a sharp increase from a year earlier. One factor in the increase in polio transmission was the unprecedented pause in polio vaccination campaigns from March through July 2020 in more than 30 countries in order to protect communities from COVID-19. According to the WHO and UNICEF, 23 million children missed out on basic vaccines in 2020, including polio vaccinations.

Although the African region’s anniversary is evidence of what can be achieved, the two countries where wild polio remains endemic are evidence that as long as polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere.

The GPEI’s new 2022-26 polio eradication strategy aims to overcome the remaining hurdles and finish the job by introducing innovative tools and tactics to reach more children with vaccines. The strategy includes the broadening distribution of a new vaccine to address outbreaks of cVDPV2. This novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) protects children against polio while being more genetically stable and less likely to regain strength and cause the vaccine-derived polio. It has already been introduced in several African countries, including Benin, Chad, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone.

The new strategy will expand the regional rapid response teams that quickly start work in areas with outbreaks. Health workers will also have more access to electronic surveillance technologies, which expedite the detection of cVDPV2.

The program will broaden an initiative that has helped more than 250,000 health workers access digital payments for their work in as little as two days. And the program calls for digitization with real-time data and automated dashboards that will help health workers plan more effective campaigns.

Last Week’s Program: Daniel Kittelson, Hagg Lake
At last Wednesday’s meeting, which was held at Rogers Park, we welcomed Daniel Kittelson, who is the recreation program specialist for Washington County Parks. Daniel’s presentation was on the recreational opportunities at Hagg Lake.

Daniel is in his third year and was the first recreation specialist hired by Washington County Park. His previous experience included working as the director of parks and recreation for the City of The Dalles.

The presentation opened with some facts and figures about Hagg Lake. The lake was created by Scoggins Creek Dam, which was constructed between 1972 and 1975 by the Army Corps of Engineers. The dam was primarily built for irrigation and for drinking water for the local area. Approximately one percent of the water in the lake is purchased by the City of Lake Oswego. While the park surrounding the park is maintained by the county, the dam and lake itself are maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The lake was named in memory of Henry Hagg, who spent five years campaigning with Congress for the construction of the dam. He passed away not long after congressional approval of the project.

Scoggins Valley Park, which surrounds Hagg Lake has 14 miles of trails with 37 trailheads. There are two boat ramps, Boat Ramp C and at the Eagle Point Recreation Area, allowing for the launch of boats. Improve recreation areas around the lake include one at Boat Ramp C, Sain Creek and Eagle Point. Last year, despite the pandemic, Scoggins Valley Park had 1.25 million visitors.

Washington County Parks has nine staff members working at Hagg Lake, which includes park rangers and maintenance staff.

Daniel’s role as the recreation specialist is to reach out to communities in Western Washington County and encourage use of the lake. While part of his role is promotion, part of it is also developing programming to enhance user’s experiences at the lake.

Among some of the programs that have been added at the lake include talks about the flora and fauna around the lake and the pre-history of the area before construction of the dam, a Habit Trails program (identifying the tracks of different animals that are at home at the lake), birding talks and a geocaching program.

Other projects have included rehabilitation of the disc golf course at the lake and the addition of a lake concert series. The 2019 concert, which featured an Eagles tribute band, drew 1,200 people. The 2020 and 2021 concerts were canceled due to the pandemic.

With COVID-19 shutting down in-person enrichment programs, Daniel and the park staff have been challenged to provide programming virtually. Among their efforts included the Tackle Box Talks video series with local fisherman Mark Davis and safety videos featuring Barley, the Hillsboro Hops mascot. The videos and other programming can be accessed through the Hagg Lake Facebook Page.

Also new to the lake this year is Scoggins Valley Outfitters, located at Boat Ramp C. Operated by the county, Scoggins Valley Outfitters has 28 kayaks (14 solo, 14 tandem) and six stand-up paddleboards available for rental from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Future improvements at Hagg Lake include the long-planned camping area, which should be constructed in the next two years. The campground, which will have spaces for dry camping and full hookups, will be located near the dam and the Eagle Point Recreation area.

Club Calendar
Mon., Aug. 30: Steak Sale Orders Due To President Bryce

Wed., Sept. 1: Weekly Meeting, Noon
University Center, Pacific University
Program: Keith Buckley, Pacific University Athletics

Thurs., Sept. 2: Executive Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
Via Zoom

Wed., Sept. 7: Weekly Meeting, Noon
University Center, Pacific University
Program: Sarah Phillips, Pacific University College of Arts & Sciences

Thurs., Sept. 8: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.

Wed., Sept. 15: Monthly Evening Meeting, 6:30 p.m.
Location & Program To Be Announced