Good afternoon my fellow Rotarians on a beautiful Monday. Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.
We had an excellent lunch meeting last Friday. Our speaker was Bill MacFadyen, founder and publisher of Noozhawk, the online local new source that probably has the most comprehensive local news in Santa Barbara. Bill talked about founding the outlet after the demise of the Santa Barbara News Press in the mid 2000s, and the challenges of publishing online news. His business model depends on a combination of ad revenues and voluntary subscriptions. Our community is fortunate that Bill has had the stamina and perseverance to make Noozhawk a success. Bill also talked a little about the growing influence that Artificial Intelligence will have on news reporting in the future, from reporting sports events and summarizing public meetings.
Kathleen Blake also made a short presentation to the club about the Paul Harris Foundation, Rotary International’s billion-dollar fund that finances the Polio eradication program, provides global grants all over the world, and provides funding for Rotary Scholarships internationally. She urged members to become Paul Harris Fellows, who are recognized by making $1000 contributions to RI. You can contribute by making small sustaining gifts to RI as part of your membership dues. I have made my contributions to RI this way over the years, and it’s an easy, painless way to contribute this important worldwide effort. For more information, contact Kathleen.
We were also happy to see Jim Carberry attend our meeting last Friday, after having spent a few days in rehabilitation recovering from a “mini-stroke.” Jim looks and feels great, and hopes to be able to regale us with a few Irish jokes very soon.
We mentioned at our meeting last week, that a celebration of Life for Anne Teller will be held on Saturday, April 12 at 10:00 AM. The location will be at the All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church, located at 83 Eucalyptus Lane in Montecito.
We do not have a meeting this week, so enjoy your Friday off from Rotary. Hope to see you on April 18.
Jim