Highlights from July 9 Zoom Meeting

Dan Coons opened the meeting introducing himself as the new Mesa West Club President and indicating he felt full of thanks for all the wonderful leaders who preceded him.  He was especially thankful for a couple of people with the same nickname - AJ - Awesome Jim and Amazing Jeanie.  He was also very thankful for the support of his wife Colleen. 

 

Dan told of a time when he was seven or eight years old.  His dad signed him up to play in a baseball league.  He played for the Springfield Termite Control team.  They had one kid who had a fast ball, and they had a good catcher.  They were pretty much the only ones who scored points as well as keep their opposing team from scoring.  They won city, state and third place nationally.  Four years ago Dan moved his Rotary membership to Mesa West to become part of our team.  He indicated he may not be the best player, but he really knows how to pick a team.

 

Dan asked Ray Smith to offer the invocation to get the meeting started. 

 

President Dan told about something he had learned about on the District President's call Wednesday evening, July 8.  Step Up for Rotary - a fundraising idea organized and managed by District 5495 - is an on-line program where individual Rotarians or groups of Rotarians can sign up to raise money for The Rotary Foundation for Polio Plus or the Annual Fund, Interact Ambassadors, or their own club.  See more details in a separate article in this newsletter.

 

Dan acknowledged that in 2019-20 Past President Jim typically told an accounting joke.  Dan said he didn't have any accounting jokes, but he did tell a story about shopping for a Barbie doll last Christmas.  He saw a traditional Barbie that was $19.95, a Barbie in a business suit which was also $19.95, and a Barbie dressed in a sports outfit for the same price.  Then he saw one more Barbie priced at $149.  Amazed at the difference in price, he asked a clerk what the difference was and was told that was "Divorced Barbie" she came with Ken's Car, Ken's house and lots of other stuff.

 

Shelly Romine made an announcement about the Food Distribution project at the United Food Bank July 29.  She has six volunteers and still needs six more.  See  more information in a separate article.  Warren William has donated a beautiful scarf made by Son Hee to auction with the proceeds of the auction supporting this community service project.  Bob Zarling announced that the community he lives in would be donating cases of water for the project.  Bob will be leaving town before the project, but Shelly or Dan will pick up the water from Bob before he leaves. Pam Cohen showed a Mesa West apron for use at community events.  She recently found a box of them at her house.  Since the meeting, Donna Goetzenberger arranged to purchase two of these aprons for a total of $50 to support the project.

 

Assistant Governor Lee Holmes announced that Rotary Leadership Academy is accepting applications for people interested in increasing their Rotary knowledge.  It is all being done online at this time so there is no cost.  CLICK HERE to view information available on the District website.

 

Bob Zarling and Lee Holmes are both planning to participate in another trip to South Africa in March, 2021.  More information to come about that.

 

Colton Cagle was introduced to present our program.  His first introduction to Rotary was through the Interact Club Mesa West sponsors at Westwood High School.  He attended RYLA.  In the summer of 2018, Colton traveled to Kenya as an Interact Ambassador delivering mobility devices.  He served as Interact District Governor in 2018-19.  In 2019-20, Colton studied in The Netherlands as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student.  He would prefer to tell all about his exchange when the club is again able to hold in-person meetings.  Instead, for this Zoom meeting, he wanted to make it a story time about the craziness surrounding his coming home.  The alarm started with the first case of COVID-19 in Selberg - then it started to spread.  His school was shut down the last two weeks he was there.  All planned Youth Exchange events were cancelled.  His coordinator in The Netherlands at first allowed the students to decide for themselves whether to go home or stay in place.  A few decided to go home.   

 

Colton received a text that he was to go to a meeting at the home of his first host family.  His current hosts were apprehensive, and thought it would be best if Colton went home.  He had a short train ride (about 45 minutes) to get to the meeting.  His mom warned him via text that they were likely gong to require him to leave.  While enroute, Colton communicated with Donna Goetzenberger (a member of Mesa West Rotary and current Youth Exchange Chair for District 5495).  Colton said Donna was wonderful and noted it was very early morning in Arizona when they were communicating.  Both of his host dads were at the meeting.  They were both very stubborn - which was not surprising - as stubbornness is a common trait in the Dutch culture.  Colton felt like he handled himself well.  They respected his argument.  Colton was told the last host family had dropped out.  He was told he could work with the lead coordinator to try to find a new host family himself.  Colton contacted everyone he could imagine and at the last minute did find a family which was willing to host him.  A lot of host families were contacting the lead coordinator (Donna's equivalent in The Netherlands).  The decision was made that all Rotary Youth Exchange Students in The Netherlands would be sent home.  

 

Colton found the news of having to leave devastating, but he knew he had put up a good fight, knew he had made a valiant effort and he is okay with that.  Like most Youth Exchange students, Colton admitted he had a rough patch with homesickness in the middle of his school term, but he said he came out of that and was thriving.  Many of the kids had a few days to get ready to leave.  Because Colton was in the hub, his flight was booked for the next morning.  He had twelve hours to pack his "whole life."  His closest friends came over to say goodbye while he was packing.  Coming home was very emotional.  He was very happy to see his family - especially his mom, but because of the speed with which he had to leave, he did not feel he had "closure."  He is safe, happy, and healthy and knows he is fortunate.  Most exchange students have culture shock when they arrive in their host country.  He said for him the reverse culture shock of coming home was very rough.  He coped by pretending he was somewhere else.  He has good friends here too and some of them are going through the same thing.

 

Colton has found through his experience in the Dutch culture, that is it good to express how he feels.  He tries to look on the positive - and look for solutions for challenging things in our lives.  It is important to know that we don't need to fake it and pretend all is well when it doesn't feel that way at all.  When Colton was first home, he took the quarantine very serious.  He didn't leave home for two months.  He has seen his best friend in person only once.  Facetime helps.  He enjoyed having time to think about his future.  He enjoyed choosing his own entertainment - specifically mentioning Barbara Streisand.  

 

In June, Colton went back to work at Starbucks.  It has been nice to have something consistent and familiar.  He is starting to save money for college.  He was accepted into a school in Iowa but has decided to stay in state and will be starting in January.  At Starbucks he sees a lot of people and is part of their lives.  He has noticed customers are less friendly than before his exchange.  He believes most people are frustrated and scared.  He sees his job as an opportunity to be kind and show kindness.  When he starts school in January, Colton will transition into Rotaract.  He is "here to stay" with his Rotary connection.  He knows at this time that Rotaract clubs in our District is not as connected as he experienced in Interact.  He would like to see that District connection evolve because it would allow bigger projects.

 

In response to a question from Ed Koeneman, Colton explained that the superficial way clerks greet customers in the US would seem fake in the Dutch culture.  There, store staff are more distant which might seem harsh to us first, but allows customers to look around in peace.  Colton would like to take what he learned about saying what you mean and meaning what you say and marry that frankness with kindness.  He also wants to learn to take better advantage of opportunities to listen.

 

Following Colton's presentation, Dan announced that Wendell Jones would appreciate speaker suggestions for our Zoom meetings.  Dan's first mistake was noted - he had forgotten happy bucks.  Maybe that was strategic, because there were lots of happy bucks to wrap up the meeting.

 

By the time the meeting closed, the bids for Son Hee's scarf had reached $50.  Bidding will continue through our July 23 meeting.