This week’s meeting was entirely on Zoom, as the Club shifts to a schedule of one meeting per month on Zoom while the remaining meetings of the month will be in hybrid format (Anderson Room & Zoom). Since we were all on Zoom, the meeting was called to order by President Mark using a ‘virtual’ bell!

Maestro Tom Strode started us off with God Bless America! as our patriotic song of the day.

Collyer Smith, our inspirational speaker of the day, spoke of his experience with Ann Arbor’s Family Learning Institute which provides educational/reading support to local students including those with economic disadvantages.  Collyer told us about a student, for whom English was not their native language, who was feeling frustrated but continually cheered on by their tutor with encouraging statements such as ‘we will work through this’!  Three months later, the student video-taped themselves reading a book (outside in the snow, no less) and sent it to the FLI’s Board of Directors.  The student’s great achievement of now reading at grade level, made her mother so proud and confident that her daughter will continue to succeed and have a better shot at a successful life.  We should all remember that even with the smallest effort, we can make a powerful impact to the communities that we serve.

Marlena Struder got us all on track and ready for our invited speaker with a music video of Jack Johnson’s rendition of ‘Reduce/Reuse/Recycle’, reminding us that 3 is the magic number.

No birthdays to celebrate this week, so we went straight to Barb Eichmuller and Agnes Reading to introduce our new member Carolyn Hiatt, who hails from Hawaii.  A former teacher, Carolyn was very active in her local Rotary Club in Hawaii, even serving as Club President.   She has been involved in funding and opening an orphanage in Cambodia, and has a tradition of taking her grandchildren to Rotary International conventions.  Welcome to RCAA, Carolyn!

Sal Barbatano gave an update on the Golf/Tennis Outing and the continued need for volunteers for the September 14th event at Fox Hills in Plymouth.  This RCAA fundraiser generates funds that allow us to continue to financially support many of our community programs – so please sign up to volunteer if you can!  You can sign up using the link from our website.

President Mark stated that the minutes of the Aug 17 Board meeting will be in the newsletter and also posted on our website.

Norma Sarkar reminded us all that the Membership Committee is organizing, for the 4th Friday event this month, a tour of the Embrace our Differences art display on August 26th from 4 -5:30pm at Gallup Park. Click here for more info.

Greg Stejskal introduced our invited speaker of the day – Dan Ezekiel.  An Ann Arbor native, educated at both UM and EMU, a former science teacher in A2 Public Schools, he was dubbed ‘Dan the Science Man’.  A strong advocate of the environment, he was one of the founders of the initiative that started Ann Arbor’s curbside recycling pickup in 1978.

Dan presented information related to the Trash Talk Tour which is coming up on Sunday, September 18. But to start us off, Dan took a vote of how many of us recycle, and then a quiz question: if all ~100,000 people at a UM football game at the Big House threw their trash/solid waste onto the field, how long would it take to fill up the stadium?  Answer: between 3-6 months.  As far as recycling prowess, Ann Arbor ranks pretty high compared to other cities across the US; we recycle more than 50% of our waste!  Another fun fact: nature is our biggest recycler, all starting with rain water.  There’s no ‘new’ water on Earth – we start with rain water and it is recycled over and over as long as we don’t contaminate it.  Dan also spoke of the common stance of our linear economy – use an item once and throw it away!  Away = landfill.  One effort to reduce the amount of waste in landfills is called Project Drawdown (drawdown.org), which focuses on strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  We need to rethink, reduce, and redesign our use and consumption with an aspirational goal of Zero Waste.  We can all do our part in this effort, and Dan gave these examples:  using your own bag at the grocery store instead of using plastic, Michigan Stadium implementing a policy that no more than 25% of game day waste goes to the landfill, Zingerman’s has new takeout containers and you can bring back to them for reuse, and our local store By the Pound – where you can buy small amounts of goods/items instead of buying an unneeded large amount and throwing it in the trash later.  Dan asked us all to:

• come on the Trash Talk Tour on Sept 18 (trashtalktour.org)
• consider making one change in our own consumption pattern
• use your voice, become educated on recycling efforts because community efforts really do make a difference

Mark Foster gave our wrap up of the day with this quote: ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!’  And with that the ‘virtual bell’ was rung at 1:28pm.