  |
|
February 15, 2024 |
With the traditional ringing of the bell we bring this meeting to order!
Club member's attendance is recorded by logging in.
Visiting Rotarians may complete a makeup form at the end of this meeting; YOUR donation for making up with us helps fund our service projects!
Visitors are always welcome to browse and register without obligation.
Our club offers the flexibility of ROTARY ON YOUR TIME!
and an opportunity to remain connected with Rotary!
Welcome to this week’s meeting of the eClub of the State of Jefferson.
I am Bob Gibson, President of the Rotary eClub of State of Jefferson. Welcome to this week’s meeting. I hope this finds you well.
This last Tuesday we had our second Coffee Chat at the new time, 12:00pm PST. There were eight of us in attendance. The conversation was lively and covered a wide range of topics. The structure is informal and allows us to get to know each other. I’m not forgetting about our central theme of “Rotary on Your Time.” And I appreciate the attendance when it fits your schedule.
I had an opportunity to meet Club member Roger Allen and his wife Molly for lunch. Roger reminded me of an important set of guidelines we have in Rotary, i.e., The 4-Way Test. He is a longtime Rotarian and has been in multiple clubs. Each of them has ended their meetings by reciting the 4-Way Test. I carry a Rotary “coin” that has the 4-Way Test inscribed on the back. In my days of HR and conflict resolution consulting, I found it to be helpful. When involved in a conference table discussion that is getting personal and contentious, I have placed the coin on the table and explained the importance of using the four directives as guideposts. It is always helpful.
The 4-Way Test
- Is it the truth?
- Is it fair to all concerned?
- Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
- Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
We are continuing to make progress on our service projects. Our work and support of efforts in Ukraine, Uganda, and our District Grant for the Navajo Nation are helping many people. These projects are the result of the passion and commitment of our club members.
Thank you for your interest in our Club and your commitment to “Service above Self.”
Enjoy the meeting.
If you have any questions or comments, I am available. My e-mail address is: bob@bluewaterphoto.net.
email president@StateOfJeffersonRotary.org
eClub Board Meeting
Thursday, February 15th, 8:00 AM
Weekly eClub "Coffee Chat" Zoom meetings
Tuesday mornings at 12:00 PM PDT
The meeting time for our Coffee Chat is changing in two weeks. Starting February 6, the Zoom meetings will be at 12:00 pm PST. The change will allow some members to attend, while not interrupting their working hours. I believe these “fellowship” meetings have been valuable. They are informal opportunities to get acquainted with our members. If it fits your schedule, I look forward to “seeing” you at the meetings.
February is Peace and Conflict Resolution Month
Rotary creates environments of peace
As a humanitarian organization, peace is a cornerstone of our mission. We believe when people work to create peace in their communities, that change can have a global effect.
By carrying out service projects and supporting peace fellowships and scholarships, our members take action to address the underlying causes of conflict, including poverty, discrimination, ethnic tension, lack of access to education, and unequal distribution of resources.
Our commitment to peacebuilding today answers new challenges: how we can make the greatest possible impact and how we can achieve our vision of lasting change. We are approaching the concept of peace with greater cohesion and inclusivity, broadening the scope of what we mean by peacebuilding, and finding more ways for people to get involved.
Rotary creates environments where peace can happen.
Rotary’s Four Roles in Promoting Peace, Rotary, and its members are:
Practitioners: Our work fighting disease, providing clean water and sanitation, improving the health of mothers and children, supporting education, and growing local economies directly builds the optimal conditions for peaceful societies.
Educators: Our Rotary Peace Centers have trained more than 1,700 peace fellows to become effective catalysts for peace through careers in government, education, and international organizations.
Mediators: Our members have negotiated humanitarian ceasefires in areas of conflict to allow polio vaccinators to reach children who are at risk.
Advocates: Our members have an integral role as respected, impartial participants during peace processes and in post-conflict reconstruction. We focus on creating communities and convening groups that are connected, inclusive, and resilient.
The Rotary Action Group for Peace gives Rotary members resources and support to advance peace efforts and turn ambitious ideas into life-changing realities.
New peace center in Turkey
Rotary clubs and districts have begun recruiting candidates for the next class of Rotary Peace Fellows, including for the newest Rotary Peace Center at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. The center was made possible by a US$15.5 million pledge from the Otto and Fran Walter Foundation and approved by Rotary Foundation Trustees in early 2023. The new center will offer experienced peacebuilders the opportunity to complete a one-year professional development certificate program, earning postgraduate diplomas in peace and development studies. Learn more about the new center at Bahçeşehir University and how to recruit candidates for a peace fellowship.
Global partners for peace
Linda Low, a graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, began meeting online with other Rotary Peace Fellow alumni in 2020. She was looking for connection during the isolation of the pandemic. The peace fellows discovered they shared a unique bond which allowed them to have meaningful conversations on a wide array of topics and contribute to each other’s work. The resulting Global Partners in Peace is now in its third year and providing a pathway for other alumni to join Rotary.
Doing Good in the World: The Rotary Foundation's Virtual Speaker Series is a webinar series for Rotary's strongest supporters, highlighting the difference you make through your generosity. Join Rotary leaders and subject matter experts as they share stories of impact and discuss the Rotary programs and initiatives that interest you most.
2.025 by 2025: World Fund and the Power of the Endowment
7 March 2024 | 10:00 CT
Live on Zoom
The World Fund supports Rotary’s highest priority activities around the globe and helps to ensure The Rotary Foundation’s ability to fund large-scale, sustainable projects with long-term positive impact. The World Fund’s unrestricted contributions ensure critical flexibility for use where it is needed most.
In March, join experts as they discuss how The Rotary Foundation uses World Fund to support its programs and quickly respond to the world’s most pressing challenges. Panelists will also discuss how World Fund and Rotary’s Endowment are connected today and into the future and how a fully funded Endowment will impact the strength of the World Fund in perpetuity.
Register today! Participation in the live session is limited and available to the first 1,000 registrants.
Calendar Year or “Rotary Year” – it can be confusing, especially when reporting statistics related to polio. GPEI, the CDC, and WHO report Polio case numbers using the calendar year; yet in Rotary we report dollars raised to End Polio using the Rotary year (July 1 through June 30).
It is useful to periodically assess where we are with both. Many of us involved in polio eradication efforts had high hopes the world would see the last child paralyzed by wild polio virus sometime in this calendar year, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened.
As of mid-December, 12 cases of wild poliovirus-causing paralysis were reported (6 in Afghanistan and 6 In Pakistan) and 129 environmental samples positive for wild polio virus were reported.
It can take up to a month or more to confirm that a person’s acute flaccid paralysis was caused by polio, so statistics for 2023 are not finalized. On the other hand, Rotarians in the Big West are being even more generous with their donations to Polio Plus during the first half of this Rotary year when compared with the same time period last year.
Thank you! Your support is more critical than ever in order to eradicate this horrible disease once and for all. We must stay the course
Chinle Planting Hope Literacy Project
Inchy’s Bookworm Vending Machine™ works by rewarding kids for good behavior, good grades, and good attendance. We believe that the combination of vending books and a personalized reward system could bridge the gap between literacy and engagement.
This program is a great way to prepare children for the future. Let's bring engagement and excitement to reading books again!
Book Vending Machine Success Story - Literacy Programs - Global Vending Group from Global Vending Group on Vimeo
Inchy the Bookworm - Inchys Impact through Book Vending Machines by Global Vending Group from Global Vending Group on Vimeo.
The history of the Paris Catacombs starts in the late eighteenth century, when major public health problems tied to the city’s cemeteries led to a decision to transfer their contents to an underground site.
Paris authorities chose an easily accessible site that was, at the time, located outside the capital: the former Tombe-Issoire quarries under the plain of Montrouge. In operation since at least the fifteenth century and then abandoned, these quarries were a small part of the labyrinth that extended under the city over approximately 800 hectares. Preparation of the site and the organization of bone transfers were entrusted to Charles Axel Guillaumot, an inspector at the Department of General Quarry Inspection. The mission of this department, which had been founded on April 4, 1777, by Louis XVI, was to consolidate the abandoned quarries following major collapses of the ground under Paris in the mid-eighteenth century.
The first evacuations were made from 1785 to 1787 and concerned the largest cemetery in Paris, the Saints-Innocents cemetery, which had been closed in 1780 after consecutive use for nearly ten centuries. The tombs, common graves and charnel house were emptied of their bones, which were transported at night to avoid hostile reactions from the Parisian population and the Church. The bones were dumped into two quarry wells and then distributed and piled into the galleries by the quarry workers. Transfers continued after the French Revolution until 1814, with the suppression of parochial cemeteries, such as Saint-Eustache, Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs and the Bernardins Convent, in the center of Paris. They were begun again in 1840, during urban renovation by Louis-Philippe and the Haussmannian reconfiguration of the city from 1859 to 1860. The site was consecrated as the “Paris Municipal Ossuary” on April 7, 1786, and, from that time forward, took on the mythical name of “Catacombs”, in reference to the Roman catacombs, which had fascinated the public since their discovery.
Starting in 1809, the Catacombs were opened to the public by appointment. A register was placed at the end of the circuit, where visitors could write their impressions. It was filled very rapidly because these visits had quickly become a success with both the French and foreigners. As the years passed, the ossuary became the resting place of many illustrious individuals. In 1787, the Count of Artois, the future Charles X, visited the site in the company of a group of court ladies; in 1814, Francis I, the Austrian emperor, took a tour there; and in 1860, Napoleon III descended into the catacombs with his son.
During the nineteenth century, visiting arrangements constantly changed, from total closing to monthly or quarterly openings. The Paris Catacombs are now open to everyone without requiring an authorization and welcome nearly 550,000 visitors yearly.
Chronology
– - 53 million years ago: end of sedimentation; Paris and the surrounding area are a vast swampy plain.
– - 47 million years ago: the sea covers the north of France, which had been flattened by erosion; start of formation of the Lutetian banks.
– First century A.D.: first open-pit quarries.
– Fourteenth century: first underground quarries.
– 1774: severe collapse of Rue Denfert-Rochereau; 300 meters were swallowed up.
– September 15, 1776: Louis XVI signs a decree that definitively prohibits extracting material from under public roads.
– April 4, 1777: Louis XVI creates the Department of General Quarry Inspection, which is in charge of protecting Parisian quarries.
– 1780: closing of the Saints-Innocents cemetery.
– April 7, 1786: benediction and consecration of the Tombe-Issoire quarries, which become the municipal ossuary known as the “Catacombs”.
– 1787-1814: transfer of bones from the parochial cemeteries of Paris.
– 1809: opening of the ossuary to the public.
– 1810-1814: rearrangement of the ossuary by Inspector Héricart de Thury.
– 1860: last bone deposits following urban development undertaken by Haussmann.
– 2002: attachment of the Catacombs to the Carnavalet Museum – History of Paris, which continues to promote the site.
– 2017: inauguration of the new exit and the bookstore-boutique.
– 2019: inauguration of the new entrance in the restored Ledoux house.
Cataphiles, or the Secret Life of the Catacombs
Only 1.5 km of the 300 km of tunnels that form the Paris Catacombs are filled with bones. The rest of the tunnels have been used for everything from subterranean mushroom farming to beer storage to serving as a bomb raid shelter and meeting place for the French Resistance during World War II.
Since 1955, it has been illegal to enter the Catacombs without permission, though explorers known as “cataphiles” descend into the darkness to explore the hidden world beneath Paris. A special branch of the Paris police, dubbed “cataflics” by locals, patrol beneath the city streets. In 2004, officers uncovered an illegal underground cinema and bar.
As a liminal space beneath the ever-changing city, a big part of the Paris Catacomb’s appeal is their remove from the bustle of the city above: “Since they’ve been opened to the public, people thought about the catacombs as a space out of time,” says Legacey.
The 18th century opened with an unprecedented amount of upheaval: “Everything changed, from names of streets to the way people measured time. Accelerating technology during the Industrial Revolution quickened the pace of change. As soon as you go underground, that’s all missing,” she says. “In the 21st century, cell phones don’t get reception down there. To descend into the Catacombs is to travel to the center of Paris and back in time.”
weekly@StateOfJeffersonRotary.org
How to Stop Facebook and Instagram From Spying on Your Internet Activity
A tool called “Your activity off Meta technologies” helps you manage how Facebook and Instagram look at your online activities.
Facebook and Instagram are known for tracking your online behavior—both on and off the platforms—in order to personalize your experience and send you targeted ads. Fortunately, parent company Meta offers ways for you to review and modify your privacy settings.
The Your Activity off Meta Technologies tool lets you remove or disconnect the information that Meta gathers about your online activities when you leave Facebook and Instagram. And Facebook’s Privacy Checkup tool allows you to determine how much or how little information you reveal, and to whom. Here's how to use these features.
What Is Your Activity Off Meta Technologies?
Meta doesn't just have access to your activity when you use Facebook and Instagram. It also knows what you do when you navigate away from its social apps and websites. To help you manage that information, Meta allows you to review and delete the data collected about you when you’re using other websites. You can also prevent your off-Meta activity from being saved with your account entirely, and even download the data to analyze it offline.
Your activity off Meta Technologies includes any information that websites, apps, and organizations share with Facebook or Instagram about your actions with them. This may be something as simple as visiting a specific website or app, or a more involved task such as searching for an item or purchasing a product. Facebook and Instagram then use this information to serve you targeted ads.
By capturing your activity and choices on supported websites, Facebook may show you coupons and promotions that may be more relevant to you. For example, you might buy a pair of shoes from an online clothing store. That store shares your activity and purchase with Facebook, which saves it to your account. Facebook then serves you an ad with a 10% off coupon on your next purchase from that store.
If you're uncomfortable with this type of tracking, especially since it occurs when you’re not on Facebook or Instagram, you can use Meta's built-in tool to manage this information.
Access Your Off-Meta Activity From Facebook or Instagram
To get started from Facebook, open the website or app. Select your profile icon in the upper or lower right. From there, go to Settings & privacy > Settings. Go down to the Settings & privacy pane to the Your Information section and select the Off-Facebook activity option, then hit Continue.
To reach your off-Meta activity on Instagram, open the app or website. In the app, tap the profile icon in the lower right and select the hamburger icon at the top. From there, head to Settings and privacy > Accounts Center > Your information and permissions > Your activity off Meta technologies.
On the website, click the More icon at the bottom of the left pane and select Settings. Go to Accounts Center > Your information and permissions > Your activity off Meta technologies.
Manage Your Your Off-Meta Activity
This will open Meta's Accounts Center page and launch a pop-up message regarding your activity off Meta technologies. If you wish to learn more about how the tool works, select the Learn more about activity off Meta technologies option.
If you have any recent activity on Facebook, select the Recent activity option. You can also choose Clear previous activity to remove all past activity or choose Disconnect specific activity to block only certain types of activity.
Return to the previous screen, and you can select Disconnect specific activity. Here, any activity that Facebook has collected from different apps and websites will no longer be saved. Select the Clear previous activity option and hit the Clear button to remove any activity for Facebook and Instagram.
Return to the Your activity off Meta technologies screen and select Manage future activity to turn off any future activity for Facebook and Instagram. Check the Disconnect future activity button, and select Continue. Confirm your action by choosing the Disconnect future activity button.
Download Off-Meta Information
You can review your Off-Meta activity by downloading the data. To do this from the Facebook website, click your profile icon at the top. From there, go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Accounts Center > Your information and permissions > Download your information.
From Instagram, click the More icon and select Settings. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Accounts Center > Your information and permissions > Download your information.
Click the Request a download button. Select the Facebook and Instagram profiles that you wish to download, then click Next.
At the next screen, choose how much information you would like to download. Choose Complete copy to download all the available information connected to your account or Select types of information if you just want selected types of information.
Scroll down to the Apps and websites off of Facebook section and check the Apps and websites off of Facebook button, then click Next.
At the next screen, choose the Select all link and click Next. After that, hit Select all again and click Next.
At the final screen, review the different file options and change any you wish, such as the date range, format, and media quality. When ready, click Submit report. Your download is then generated. You’ll receive an email confirming your request.
Another email will notify you when the download is ready. At the Download Your Information screen, click the Download button to save the information as a zip file on your computer.
Select the profiles for the files you want to download. Unzip the file and open it to review the information. From the extracted files, open the start_here.html file. From there, you can view whatever categories of information you downloaded.
Run the Facebook Privacy Checkup
Facebook also offers a Privacy Checkup tool to help you better secure and protect your account and data. To run the tool on the website, click your profile icon, go to Settings & Privacy, and select Privacy Checkup. At the Privacy Checkup window, click the first topic for Who can see what you share and then click Continue.
At the Profile Information window, review the settings for your phone number, email addresses, and birthday. Click the button next to each one, and choose whether to change it to Public, Friends, Only Me, or a specific Facebook list. You probably want this information to remain private or only visible to friends or a specific group. When done, click Next.
At the Posts and Stories window, set the option for who should see future posts. You’ll likely want to set this to Friends. The Limit Past Posts option changes past posts that were seen by the public or friends of friends to only friends. To do this, click the Limit button and click OK. Then click Next.
You can block specific people from seeing things you post, starting conversations with you, or trying to add you as a friend. To do this, click Add to Blocked list and type the name of the person or account you wish to block. From the list of suggestions, click the Block button for the correct person, then click Next.
Click Review Another Topic. Select How people can find you on Facebook and then click Continue. At the Friend Requests window, click the button if you wish to change who can send you friend requests. Click Next.
Decide who can look you up on Facebook by your phone number and email address and then click Next. At the Search Engines window, make sure to turn off the switch for Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? Click Next.
Click Review Another Topic. Select How to keep your account secure and then click Continue. At the Is Your Password Private window, click Change Password if you’re concerned that it was compromised or you want to change it to something more secure. Click Next.
At the Add an Extra Layer of Security to Your Account window, click the Get Started button to add two-factor authentication to protect your Facebook account. Follow the steps to set this up. You can choose SMS to receive a text message, select an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator, or use a physical security key.
At the Control Your Alerts window, turn on the switch for any alerts you wish to receive if you or someone else signs into your Facebook account from a new or different location. Then click Next.
Select Review Another Topic. Choose Your data settings on Facebook and click Continue. At the Apps and Websites window, remove apps you no longer use to prevent the developer from further accessing certain Facebook data about you, such as a list of your friends. For any such apps, click the Remove button. At the confirmation window, click the Remove button and click Next.
Click Your ad preferences on Facebook and click Continue. Read the first screen for this topic and click Next. Turn off the switch for any pieces of information that you don’t want Facebook to use to serve you targeted ads and then click Next.
At the Social Interactions window, choose who can see your social interactions alongside ads. Click Next, then click Review Another Topic, and you’re done.
weekly@StateOfJeffersonRotary.org
You are not authorised to post comments.