Our weekly meetings continue successfully, thanks to Zoom! Prior to the start of the meeting, many members were online to share updates and socialize. Eric Lipson shared all the great work being done by our club and UM to deliver medical and homemade masks to the community.
At 12:30 p.m., President Rosemarie Rowney welcomed everyone. Prior to the ringing of the bell, Lauren Heinonen covered a PowerPoint presentation on Zoom etiquette. A quick online poll showed most members join on their laptop with screen and microphone, and most have been on Zoom some or many times. One member reported this was their first time.
John White range the bell at 12:39 p.m., and we sang the national anthem with Tom Strode at the piano.
Barbara Eichmuller provided the inspiration, sharing the Peace Poem, author unknown. The message on the importance of safety, health, and literacy to personal peace aligns to our “service above self.”
President Rosemarie reminded us it’s important to keep moving to stay healthy! It’s also International Dance Day, another good way to keep moving. Steve Pierce led us all in the Happy Wanderer in front of a beautiful vista of mountains as inspiration.
President Rosemarie welcomed guests William Hampton and John Hilton, editor of the Observer. Rotary has an ad on page 24 of the Observer this week, everyone was encouraged to take a look. She next thanked all the helpers for today’s meeting, and announced birthdays.
News items shared:
- Ann Arbor Rotarian Christie Bacon’s husband John U. Bacon was preparing for his first Boston Marathon this year, which was cancelled. Instead, he ran a one-person marathon through Ann Arbor which he wrote about for the Washington Post. Click here to find a link to it.
- “We Can Do It” Happy Hour will take place (virtually) on Friday, May 8th from 5:00-6:00 p.m.
- Janet McPeek passed away suddenly, she was a past District Governor and a leader for the Rochester, MI Rotary, and will be missed.
Lori Walters reported the site for voting for the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor to receive the “Best of Washtenaw Nonprofits” had issues and was not working. She asked everyone to revisit the Harpoon and click on that link to vote so we can win! https://www.ecurrent.com/2020-best-of-washtenaw/#//
Norma Sakar reported for the Disaster Response Committee. On May 1st, the COVID response campaign opens to raise money for front line workers’ PPE and human service agencies that are delivering basic needs assistance. Our goal is $75,000. An anonymous donor will match dollar-to-dollar up to $50,000 after the first $50,000 has been raised. Norma reports we are very close! An email will go out to everyone on May 1st, please make a gift to this great effort.
Peg Talburtt reported on Community Allocations.
- All 44 applicants for funding were given the opportunity to revise their applications to reflect COVID needs. These will are being reviewed and the Committee will meet on May 11th.
- Our golf outing is scheduled for September 8th at Fox Hills; Jack Harbaugh will be speaking. Adjustments to this event will be made as per the Governor’s COVID recommendations.
- The Hire Michigan Vets website – hiremivets.org – is listing job opportunities.
- Rotary Fighting Hunger’s March Food Drive doubled its goal! $26,000 was raised, the link is still open to raise extra funds during COVID.
President Rosemarie then introduced Dennis Powers to introduce our speaker for the day.
Dennis introduced Michael Cox, Chief of Police for Ann Arbor. Chief Cox comes to Ann Arbor from the Boston Police, where he had spent 30 years. In January 1995, when responding to a false report that a police officer had been shot, fellow officers attacked and beat Officer Cox, who is African-American, believing him to be a suspect. When they realized he was an officer, they ran away. Officer Cox sued the Boston Police Department, and advocated for more transparency and training to avoid future incidences, and forcing Boston to address a long-ignored problem.
Chief Cox shared his vision to improve the Ann Arbor Police’s community relations. He is using the findings from an effort under President Obama to improve community policing, which created a blueprint for community engagement to share across the county. His priorities for Ann Arbor include:
- Improving police department transparency
- Assuring the police is able to work with any person or any group
- Open up community meetings
- Receive continuous feedback from the community on how they’re doing
- Be “outward facing”
- Evaluate different needs of different communities to assure they’re not “over policing or under policing”
During COVID, being present to members of the community is difficult. They are doing smaller Zoom meetings to both avoid Zoom “bombings” and to provide forums for citizens to share. Information on these meetings will be on their website this week. Their goal is to make them community-based and neighborhood-specific.
Sadly, due to technical difficulties and the audio connection being too poor, Chief Cox wasn’t able to complete his presentation. President Rosemarie thanked him and asked if we could reschedule for a future time, as this is an important topic, and we are greatly interested in his vision for Ann Arbor. She assured the members she would do a practice run with next week’s speaker to avoid this issue.
Next week’s speaker will be Abbey Edwards, the former president of Rotaract. Abbey is a graduate of UM and spent time in Peru as a member of the Peace Corps.
President Rosemarie closed the meeting and encouraged everyone to stay positive and keep moving.
