Chair Barb Tubekis presided at the meeting where 8 members attended, and Marie and Fred tuned in on Zoom. The thought of the day was from Ralph Waldo Emerson about not always taking the path well known, but sometimes making a path of your own.
BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES: No birthdays were reported, and Jean Wright recently had her 30th Rotary anniversary; Markie Gekas had her 25th; and Kate Donegan her 2nd Rotary anniversary.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: There will be a Rotary Board meeting before our regular Club meeting next Thursday, Jan. 12th. The December 22nd impromptu luncheon meeting at the Little Honeycomb restaurant was such a success and well attended that it will be repeated in the future. Heidi and Barb reviewed the changes for our ‘Kids Against Hunger” packing activity which will be held in Matz Hall Feb. 25th.
HAPPY BUCKS: Liz contributed seeing new member John Zeddies present and wearing his Rotary pin.
FRED REPORTED IN FROM FLORIDA WITH SOME QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN BOTHERING HIM RECENTLY, SUCH AS: Why doesn’t the GPS tell senior drivers where AND WHY they are going to a certain location? Why is there no #1 pencil? Why are there A, C, D batteries but no B batteries? Why there is no parking on “parkways” and no driving on “driveways”? Why do people at a baseball game yell “heads up” when threatened with a foul ball when they should yell “duck”? And then the real puzzler as to why stores sell a “pair of underwear” as one item?
MAIN PRESENTATION: We were fortunate to be able to obtain a podcast featuring the most famous woman in the Rotary organization, Slyvia Whitlock, who just happened to be the first woman member of the Club back in 1986. Her story started in Jamaica where she was born and grew up. Eventually she came to the U.S. and became a school administrator in the Pasadena, California area where her male superintendent kept telling her how the local Rotary Club was doing so many good things for people. So Sylvia and a friend formed a club similar to a Rotary Club and started doing many Rotary-type activities but were denied a Rotary charter in 1976 at a Rotary Convention where a vote on this issue was taken and it was about 1000-34 against permitting women members.
Sylvia, her friends and legal counsel then decided to file a lawsuit which went through the California court system, then through the Federal court system and finally got to the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of whether Rotary membership was a “civil right” and whether women were being discriminated against when denied such membership. The Supreme Court eventually found that the type of work performed by Rotary made it a “public accommodation” and therefore it was illegal discrimination to deny women membership in Rotary and in 1986, women were granted Rotary membership rights, Soon Rotary made a Sylvia Whitlock badge which looks the same as the one made for Paul Harris. Since then, Sylvia and several other women have not only become active Rotary members but have been awarded several Rotary leadership honors, including an award named the “Sylvia Whitlock Award”.
The link for this podcast is Gaughen-Muller Peace Podcast.org. Or much of this information can be Googled on—Sylvia Whitlock First Female Rotary President. What an interesting story about an amazing woman who credits all her “spunk” to her grandmother’s teachings.
The meeting was adjourned by the recitation of Rotary’s 4 Way Test.
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