Rotagram for Wednesday, January 6, 2021

President Ken opened the meeting right on time, “Welcome to the Rotary Club of Fullerton!”

“I have just returned from a two weeklong vacation that was close to heavenly. I didn’t watch the news; I didn’t read a single newspaper. I read a couple of novels and finished a chapter in the current book I’m writing. Took some long walks by the ocean. It was very peaceful!

And then I drove back to LA yesterday. BOOM! The dreary LA smog! LA traffic whizzing around me – I’m driving a steady 75 and I am being passed by people going 90 or more! Then the crazy news! Trump is still trying to decertify the election. There is action in Congress today over the election. People are still coming down with Covid – 21 million cases in the US with 358,000 deaths!

I spent last night musing over all of this chaos.

It’s the uncertainty of it all, isn’t it? What’s gonna happen? Will the country survive all this chaos? Will you and I survive Covid? Will our businesses survive? Everything seems like it is up in the air.

And yet, here we all are, meeting as usual on a Wednesday for Rotary. This month marks my 34th year doing the thing we all do on Wednesdays – coming to Rotary. The faces have changed some, the place changes from time to time, we meet by Zoom now – but all in all, we are doing what we have done for a long time.

Week by week, it seems rather insignificant, this thing we do. But on further reflection, it has enormous significance. What we are actually doing is creating certainty for ourselves and our loved ones. In the midst of the chaos and uproar around us, we meet as we have always met. We take a moment to remember our common values of Service Above Self. We reconnect with each other and reaffirm one another. In all of these ways, and many others, we ground ourselves. We fashion certainty amidst the chaos around us. And, I believe, we are much better for it. The certainty calms us. We in turn spread this calm to those we are close to, and it ripples out from there.”

“Take a moment and think, who do you know who needs a little bit of certainty in their life. Invite that person to join with us next Wednesday. Let’s spread the peace that we find here with each other. The world certainly needs it right now!”

Invocation and Pledge: Bill Hite led the pledge and Scott Dowds gave the invocation.

Guests: We had so many guests this week! Alexander and Jennet Lopez- who is looking to become a member of our club, Sally Williams, Jane Matthewson, Carolyn Eckert, Gloria Radde, and Chris Meyer all joined our meeting.

Club news:

1. The results for our Club elections: Joe Lins is our president elect-elect and will serve in our centennial year, 2021-22.

2. Monica Fernandez coordinated our Diaper Dump – our goal was 5,000 diapers and 8,000 were collected! “With this endeavor, paired with our face shield project, I think our club deserves a new nickname. What do you think of Tops and Bottoms?”

3. Two areas in the club need some extra help: Membership and Programs. We all know people who would be good Rotarians, but we need to put our heads together and find ways to invite them. Please contact me if you would like to help in this area. Second, Jim Williams needs some help in finding interesting programs. We have a wide array of interesting contacts. Give Jim a call with your ideas.

Finemaster: the wicked Dick (I’ve got the longest memory in town) Matthewson
• Joe Lins- Happy Birthday! That’s $5 for turning 65.
• Dan O- $5 for your daughter’s birthday!

• Susan O- Acknowledged Birthday is 1/7. Happy Birthday! $5

• Bill Mathey- Birthday on 1/8...it’s also Elvis Presley’s birthday. $5 for Bill and $5 for Elvis!

• Scott- 42nd wedding anniversary on 1/8 -update- Scott’s health is better each day, and he’s feeling great! $5 for his anniversary.

• Joyce is retiring in March! Major goals for retirement: Visit every presidential library and every state in America; only 6 left to go! $5 for thinking of retirement.

• Dan K’s Microphone was broken... club vote was $5 each “squawk” before the meeting... $20 total. Sorry Dan!

• Cathy had a rotary anniversary- 18 years in our club and 7 years in prior club. Total of 25 years! Dick owes $5 for not having the right info and $5 for Cathy’s anniversary.

Program Introduction:

Brought to us by Joe Lins, Brian Helleland, Chief Executive at St. Jude.

Just so everyone is aware, Brian has all the GOOD dirt on Joe Lins.

Program Highlights:

• Post-Thanksgiving Update- Over 100 new covid-19 patients. This puts St. Jude at the top 3 or 4 with the highest numbers of cases in orange county.

• So far, the predictability of surges have been pretty spot on through the pandemic.

• 120 covid-19 patients prior to thanksgiving then spiked to 220 and today 235 ... they’re expecting 125+ new cases post-Christmas and new year

• Redeploying nurses to help with covid-19 patience. Pulling nurses from other parts of the country to help in CA. Calling back retired or relocated staff with an expedited hiring/ on board.

• 10-12 covid-19 units throughout the hospital which is a significant amount to be dedicated

• Ventilators – today they have 58 and they try to stay 5-10 ventilators ahead

• Tents in the parking lot- 5 of the 6 smaller tents are used for emergency overflow. Currently only three are being used, a couple are used as registration/check in. Tents have 52 beds and 2 nursing stations.

• St. Jude has stayed on top of the waiver process, so everything they’ve done has been approved beforehand (conversions of rooms, tents, etc.)

• Vaccines- they went to sniffs and front-line people first – 2,600 health care providers at heritage medical group and St. Jude have been given the vaccine

• Such a high percentage of vaccines was given because staff have been redeployed to front line. Finance folks are taking out trash these days!

• Nominal side effects. Early spring general public getting vaccines. Yay!

• Questions of safety of vaccine: long term, not much information out there yet. Immediate concerns: Out of the 2,600 only one person had an issue and it was resolved within 30 minutes. Brian says, to be blunt, when people are worried about the vaccine I would say, just walk through some of the ICU units and see the ventilator patients and it wipes a lot of the concern over the vaccine.

• Main tank of oxygen typically filled once every 2 weeks and right now they are filling it every other day and most hospitals are dealing with the same issue. Oxygen is the main worry!

• Vaccine Series Duration: hope and intent is for it to be longer term not annual, the booster is the second shot (helps with long term) shot should cover variant strains as well.

Not shocking that our members had a bunch of questions for Brian. Thanks for staying past the end of the meeting to answer questions, Brain!!

President Ken has deemed Brian a nut just like us and gifted him can of nuts and tote bag to carry them.

Our closing quotes today came from several people on the internet:

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak;
courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
- Winston Churchill

“There is no certainty; there is only adventure.”
- Roberto Assagioli

“I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much.”
- Mother Teresa

With that, my friends, “Go out and be good people and great Rotarians!”

Meeting adjourned.