Opening traditions

Pledge-Carol Danforth-Futterer

Invocation- Will Abbott

Song- Bob Muschek

Introductions

Randy McFarland introduced visiting Rotarians J.T. Warring and Aung Ling of LA 5 Rotary Club as well as Johanna Solomon, today’s speaker. Next, Mr. Warring spoke for a few minutes about his and Rotary’s involvement in 36 water projects in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and told his there are 6 more planned for next spring at the cost of $9000 each. He was appointed by president elect to start a Rotary Club in Myanmar I which now has 45 members.

Announcements

Marty Burbank announced that the YWCA ‘Chocolate Fantasy’ event will be honoring as ‘Outstanding Businessperson of the Year’ our own Theresa Harvey, who directs our greatly successful Fullerton Chamber of Commerce!

Dick Mathewson was pleased to announce that the Reading by 9 program will continue this year, on Tuesdays 3-4PM starting Octover 7 for 21 sessions. This is for Rotarians who want to help 3rd to 6th grade students get up to speed on their reading skills. This could make a big difference in the lives of students who are on the cusp of reading success, so please consider committing to help students become contributing members of our society.

Zoot Velasco was proud to announce that our RYPEN has 19 new members!

Sandy Hayes would like to see more signups for the upcoming Fall Fellowship Luncheons… a great way to get to know fellow members.

Bob Radde shared that Joe Felz, city manager, will be next week’s speaker.

Dick Daybell invited more members to join the exciting upcoming dinner and tour aboard the Battleship Iowa.

Drawing-Franki Berry inadvertently doubled her chances of pulling a red chip out of the bag, but they were both white, but she still scored a hangable bottle of Tequila!

Recognitions

Rich Crane and Dan Ouweleen arranged for a few “We’re This close” to beating polio” snapshots for the hot social media, Instagram. Birthdays- Sandy Hayes and Griff Duncan’s wife, Jan. Dean Heiser was welcomed back and Jim Williams mentioned that Vern Andrews was an accomplished baseball player. Joe Lins expressed appreciation for Rick Crane.

Program

Johanna Soloman is a recipient of a Rotary Global Grant Scholarship and today she presented “My Year in Israel”. Johanna has a great educational background in conflict resolution with a BS In Human Development, MA in Counseling Psychology and went to UCI for Political Psychology and is a candidate for a PhD. at UCI. She is also involved with our local Orange County Human Relations as a volunteer mediator.

Johanna has an interest in working towards resolving tensions between conflicting people and is interested to learn and how a facilitator can help resolve conflicts. She was pleased to have worked with a leader in the field, Daniel Bar-tal.

Johanna told us of principal factors that impact peoples willingness to get involved with addressing conflicts. Anxiety, Fear, Guilt Worry Shame perpetuates the conflicts in the Middle East. She shared why people do and don’t join in efforts to improve communications amongst conflicting peoples. Barriers include an existing culture of conflict, fear of losing identity, emotions like fear, and physical and practical walls.

Reasons why people do get involved in working towards resolving conflicts include desire to relate with others, they learn to identify their own positions and better understand others perspectives, and sometimes business connections can be enhanced through conflict resolution efforts.She is interested in an aspect called the Non-Zero Sum Identity, which shifts the focus of research from an overarching identity to identification with specific “in” and “out” groups.

She examines the role of psychological needs in relation to gender during such programs, finding distinct differences between the psychological development of men and women during contact based programming.

Her current research focuses on similar issues within Israel, looking at two possible barriers to peace that manifest on the inter-group level. One line of current work examines why individuals engage (or not) in inter-group contact. This work looks at both political factors such as party or religious identification as well as psychological motivations for such interactions. The second line of work with Daniel Bar-Tal examines an understudied component of the culture that develops during multi-generational conflicts.

Specifically, how a proliferation of conflictive symbols leads to routinization and normalization of the conflict in Israel. (Like guns being carried around everywhere) Both these lines of research will eventually begin to look at the possibilities for empirical interventions, such as contact programs, in addressing these barriers to conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Johanna serves as a resource for some of the many groups and organizations dedicated to supporting peace and resolution of conflict in Israel and Palestine.

Johanna’s webpage: www.Johannasolomon.com

We are all proud of Johanna’s efforts to research how much needed peace can be achieved by better understanding human psychology and we wish her the best in making the world a safer and harmonious place.

Joe Lins let members start leaving early so they wouldn’t have to suffer more hearing damage from his exuberant bell ringing. He was unable to create a crack in the bell to match the Liberty Bell.