Combatting Senior Adult Loneliness & Isolation Through an Online Community
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF Jan 29, 2024
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Combatting Senior Adult Loneliness & Isolation Through an Online Community
Speaker: Steven "Shags" Shagrin
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page. Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time. Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
To properly attend this meeting, please:
Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Message from our President
Greetings Members and Friends of Rotary e-Club of Silicon Valley. As President of our Club, I want to welcome you all today.
WEEKLY FUNNY WITH SHAGS
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
The PERFECT Birthday Present!
Mary Jane: "Your husband's birthday is coming up. What are you getting him?"
Wife: "Oh, 100 of his favorite cigars."
Mary Jane: "What did you pay for them?"
Wife: "Nothing! For the last few months, I have taken one or two from his box daily. He has not noticed and will be delighted with my ability to get the kind he always smokes."
INSPIRATION
Every week we share a short video highlighting innovation, education, entrepreneurship, or whatever we think might inspire you to see the world in new ways.
What's happening in space exploration this year? If that's a question you've asked yourself, this promo video from NASA will provide one answer.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
Is It Possible to Lose Weight Fast?
Hei Man Chan shares how different forms of dieting affect your body.
Club News
Members
Club Elections are coming soon! Let us know if you are interested in serving our club as an Officer or Board member. We will elect a President-Elect for 2025-2026, Club Secretary, and General Board Members. We also need several Committee Chairs and Member volunteers. If you have thought that your ideas and commitment could have an impact on the future of our club, then this is the right avenue for you to express your talent and time. As a member of the board, you help determine the club's direction and the experience members will have. As a club officer, your leadership will have a direct influence over the direction the club takes during your term. Without volunteering for Club Service, you are missing an opportunity to participate fully in the Rotary experience, and our club cannot grow and function properly without members’ participation at the Board and Committee Chair Levels. If interested, please contact President Nick, President-Elect Mike, or Past-President Rushton no later than January 29th.
Is your latest information posted on our ClubRunner Members site at: https://portal.clubrunner.ca/8370/Page/ShowHomePage. After logging in, please be sure to access the MyClubRunner tab, and select My Profile. Please update your personal information here, which automatically updates our club directory.
Your Service Hours reporting will now take you directly to your ClubRunner Login and Entry for Volunteer Hours. From this point forward, your Service Hours will report to Rotary from ClubRunner.
TRF and EREY - There’s still time to consider your gift to Rotary for the annual TRF Fund. There are several ways to give: outright payment (Check or Credit Card), monthly payments billed to your credit card, allocation to several funds, etc. Our TRF Chair, Phil Dean will be in touch with us soon regarding your pledge and methods for collecting. Our Club is striving to be designated as “Every Year, Every Rotarian”. Your gift matters, either a small amount or a large amount (that is up to you - we will never tell you how much to give). A portion of our Annual fundgiving will come back to us for our DDF usage.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: 29 JANUARY 2024
Microcredit - In Cuzco, Peru Rotarians contributed US$10,000 to a partnering association, Asociacion MIDE, which provided small loans to 288 low-income women. In six months these women improved their businesses and living standards, lifting them out of extreme poverty. While local Rotarians had the opportunity to work together to develop the project and approve the system of loans, the participants learned to use, administer, and benefit from financial credit. In the process, the women improved their self-esteem as they acquired entirely new roles of financial responsibility for their families.
The educational, humanitarian, and PolioPlus Programs are the monuments of the Rotary Foundation and Rotarians should be proud to yell it from the rooftops. We will eradicate polio, hunger, and poverty. We will help the world find peace. By supporting the Rotary Foundation with an annual gift you help build these immortal monuments of Rotary.
Only if Every Rotarian Every Year makes a gift to the Annual Fund we will be able to continue to do the great work of The Rotary Foundation.
This is just one of the many examples of how the Foundation’s humanitarian grant programs can make positive changes for children.
Here is why EREY is important to our Club: Did you know that Rotary conveys a special honor to each Club that achieves 100% member participation contributing to TRF? The award is called Every Rotarian, Every Year (EREY). This year, we ask that you consider a pledge to the TRF Annual Fund in November of at least $25 which will qualify your participation and count towards our Club achieving this honor. Also, please note that the District will have two drawings to encourage donations to the Annual Fund. For the first drawing, each Club will get a chance in the drawing based on their total giving. The more each Club donates the better the chance of winning. The prize is significant as it is $5000 in DDF, worth $9000 when used in a Global Grant. To support smaller Clubs and promote EREY, there is a second drawing where each EREY Club has an equal chance at a prize of $2500 in DDF, worth $4500 when used in a Global Grant. As you may remember, District 5170 had a record-setting year in 2021-22, with over $1 million to the Annual Fund, followed by almost $1 million in 2022-23.
Your generosity is always voluntary and very much appreciated. This year why not help our Club achieve the EREY honor, perhaps, as a result, we will have a shot at some extra DDF funds to continue funding our great service and work as Rotarians.
Remember, to achieve EREY, each Club member needs to make a contribution of at least $25.00 to the Annual Fund. We are happy to accept your check or credit card for the Annual Fund.
District 5170
Read the latest news from District 5170 - https://rotarydistrict5170.org
SERVICE REPORT
Tell us about the service you’ve done recently for the Club or in your community. Also, post here if you attended another Rotary Club meeting this week
Click here to post your Service Hours directly to ClubRunner
SERVICE PROJECT OPPORTUNITIES
For upcoming club projects in District 5170, check out the District 5170 website. Also, if you have some time available for projects, be sure to let your local area Rotary Club know that you are available to volunteer for their upcoming projects.
HAPPY DOLLARS: Do Good by Sharing Something Good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use.
PROGRAM: Combatting Senior Adult Loneliness & Isolation Through an Online Community
SPEAKER: Steven "Shags" Shagrin
Every week we bring you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub or Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
Shags will share with us how he came to create a fully-functioning online community platform for several hundred senior adults who were about to lose an existing platform that brought them together during COVID protocols. Within 24 hours of learning that sponsorship of a current community platform would be ending, a new one was put together by volunteers. Within 72 hours, over 100 members joined. Within a month, it was a federally and state-recognized 501(c)(3) organization with nearly 140 members.
The speed and success of the effort speak to a widespread challenge - the current unspoken epidemic of senior adult loneliness and isolation, which is impacting the lives of many individuals across the globe.
Shags is a long-time legacy Rotarian who has been involved in community building and service for most of his life. He served on the boards and as an officer of many local professional and select national organizations during his working years, and is a two-time Rotary Club Past President, once in Ohio ('89-'90) and once in California ('08-'09).
Shags is semi-retired, so when he became Medicare eligible in 2021, he joined an online community for senior adults dealing with loneliness and COVID isolation and looking to connect with others around common interests. It was sponsored and funded by his Medicare Supplemental Insurance plan. While over 30,000 people had also joined, only 250 or so were considered " active," defined as those visiting the community more than once a month, so the sponsor shut it down. The community members were crushed, so Shags sprung into action to create an online space for the connections to continue. This is how ThePlayground Senior Circle, a non-profit online adult senior community, came to life.
Members and guests, please welcome member Shags Shagrin!
To learn more, go to:
Important Announcement - “Weekly Rotarian” Full Meeting Podcasts
Announcing: Our main program speakers are now available as audio podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week they are available on Spotify, Google, and Apple podcasts.
Or you can simply click below for this week’s speaker:
And our original podcast, featuring Some of the best of our previous speakers is still available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts
UPCOMING PROGRAM RECORDING SCHEDULE
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
THE ATTENDANCE SURVEY
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done.
We have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeup.
Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.
For all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
Important: Once you submit the Attendance Survey below, please make sure you see the confirmation message. If you get an error message instead, please try the 'submit' button again, and if that doesn't work, please refresh the page and fill out the form again. Thanks!
