Dear Rotarians, While I am still disappointed at missing out on spending a week in Hawaii with tens of thousands of my new best friends at the 2020 annual RI convention, I am happy to let you know that the on-line version of the convention was awesome – and recorded – so you can all participate by logging onto riconvention.org and watching and listening to the sessions that most interest you. Similarly, the District 5300 Assembly that was forced on-line was recorded and is in the learning center. On our District’s website, you will also find the sessions, the slides and contact information for the right people to contact within our District 5300 for any information you might want. If you tune in to the RI Convention session that includes the pitch for the annual RI float in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, and if it peaks your interest, have I got good news for you. We have at least one experienced Rotary Rose Parade float decorator in our club who is willing to head up the effort for our participation on the float for the 2021 New Year’s parade. That is just one possible new project for us that you will find in those recorded sessions. You will hear that we are encouraged to keep doing the things that we have done well in the past and that are still needed. We are also encouraged to fill additional needs that we are aware of that we can address through our club or through a joint effort with neighboring clubs. You will also hear the sad news that the most recent round of surveys conducted by RI among non-Rotarians concerning their knowledge of Rotary produced the same old results. Rotary is still a well-kept secret and thought by some to be a lunch bunch for old white men. Despite RI’s best efforts to rebrand us as “People of Action”, that message is not getting out. That is particularly annoying when we look at how much our club does in addition to eating lunch together and enjoying fellowship. To borrow a phrase and alter it slightly for this application – tell our club’s story to whoever you can, whenever you can, in the best way that you can. Set the record straight. Speaking of surveys, our club will be doing an on-line survey of our members in an effort to be as certain as we can that we are giving you the experience that you imagined when you joined or decided to stay in our club. We are trying to achieve a higher than average response rate and so we will have a special drawing from among the names of those club members who respond to the survey. It will be a major award, even more valuable than the lamp in the movie “A Christmas Story”. Richard Jost President Las Vegas Rotary Club

Las Vegas Rotary Club Meeting: July 9, 2020

• President Richard Jost called the meeting to order.
• President Elect Mike Ballard gave the invocation.
• Rose Falocco was Sergeant at Arms.
• President Richard Jost played “When the Good Times Come Again” and led the Pledge of Allegiance.
• President Richard Jost announcements/reminders:
• July Birthday Table was celebrated.
• Please continue to RSVP to Shawn for the meetings at Lawrys as early and as far out as possible. Adding Zoom attendance as an option is under review. Facebook Live is still an option as well.
• Alpine Picnic will be held September 12th, 2020. RI has approved our Global Grant to help provide personal protective medical equipment in India.
• The District 5300 Assembly recorded their sessions which can be viewed on their website at district5300.org.
  Rotary Face Masks are available through Shawn as a club fundraiser.
• The weekly drawing began at $5,622 plus this week’s donations. Barbara Billitzer missed the Joker. Peter Samuolis won the Lawry Bucks.
• Rosalee Hedricks announced our newest member Alberto Angulo.
• Chase Carter introduced our speaker Dr. David Glenn Weismiller, who is Professor of Family Medicine at the new medical school of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. Weismiller gave us very interesting data on Covid-19. Including that all three types of Corona viruses that have developed in the past century have all been transmitted from animals to humans. He urged us to use reliable sources of information to stay up to date on what science has learned about this virus, such as John Hopkins. Social distancing slows transmission which occurs from airborne droplets. Testing captures a moment in time to see if you currently have a Covid-19 infection. For herd immunity we would need 90% or greater of the population to have been infected, we are currently at approximately 7-8%. There is a drug Remdesivir in trials that reduces hospitalization time on ventilation from 15-11 days which improves survivability. Prevention steps include using barriers, social distancing and good hand washing. For UNLV curbside testing info visit unlvmedicine.org or call (702) 583-4408.
• President Richard Jost adjourned the meeting.