Minutes Education Committee Meeting 27 August 2015

In attendance: David Reese, Janene Tompkins, Elizabeth Pritchett, Shannon Leskin, Sylvain Marguerat, Todd Taylor

First we were made aware of several members who were feeling unwell and we wish them a speedy recovery.

Another rich and interesting meeting. Great conversation around a variety of topics.

1. Regarding the organization of the Education Committee a. The group was overwhelmingly supportive of the idea of this committee and feels the work we have done is laudable and we should keep the effort going. b. Comments were made that some programs feel that this committee provided them a sense of belonging rather than trying to figure everything out on their own. c. Comments were made that we should look at the programs we support determine what we do really well and prioritize those and ensure that we focus on providing quality products. d. Our programs should be results driven. Define our desired outcomes (if we are partnering with someone such as a school, seek clearly articulated outcomes for what is deemed valuable to that partner). We may discover that something we thought would take a long time may actually only require a short amount of time and once completed, we are done till the next desire is articulated. e. We felt there would be merit and more buy in if we were to clearly articulate to the general membership what was available to do and what was expected in terms of time. For example, signing up for a block of time at Books on Break is clear and finite as opposed to the longer term commitment of a Reading Ranger. f. Todd is happy to continue as chairman of the committee. g. Discussion ensured as to how to best support Todd’s efforts. g.i. An idea was to create a sign up genius or Doodle poll to get people to sign up to take the minutes at the meetings. Spreading the task to various members would mean the work gets done, but it is not onerous on any one person. g.ii. A similar approach could be done for the write up submissions to the communication committee for release to media outlets. 2. We went through several of the programs and explained how they worked and how they fit into Rotary Goals. a. We discussed support and encouragement for new initiatives and programs such as Science Olympiad. Any new initiative would need to have a champion for the idea with the passion and desire to see it through. 3. Positive comments were made on the Education Committee’s program presentation to the club. a. It was discussed that we need to make it clear to members how they can get involved. b. Keep efforts and sign ups simple and manageable. 4. Youth Exchange leadership has uncovered some troubling truths about the YEX program, club expectations and budgets. They were encouraged to write up something to be presented to the board it should include the current reality and what we should consider as a club to support this program and especially the kids heading outbound and inbound. 5. Some interesting discussion centered around drugs in schools. Some ideas were offered related to prevention vice punishment. We felt that while this merited some discussion, we were not sure how Rotary could be involved. This is something we should examine in a different forum as it is important. 6. HOMEWORK: a. Please review the program specific portions of the club website. Many of the programs have had information added based on the presentation to the club. Please edit or let Todd know if anything needs to change. b. Look at our programs and try to prioritize the programs in order of importance to the club. This will aid us as we lobby for funding or should we get to a point where we need to make a judgement call on what to support. c. Once we look at what is important, how can we set up clear expectations and timeframes needed for each project or element of a project. Many projects such as Books on Break have a well designed and communicated plan. Some projects such as RYLA are not as clear. Example: If we have a flood of applications, what would our request be of the membership to support evaluations of the candidates? 7. Unfortunately the meeting ran long due to the quality of the discussions. Adjourned at 7. 8. We decided that the Last Thursday was still a good time for the majority of people, and that the preference would be to begin at 5:30 PM. We may offer a poll to canvass all the committee members for input. 9. Next meeting will be held 24 September 2015 beginning at 5:30PM at Todd’s office, Lucky Strike Building, 310 Blackwell Street, Durham.

Presented by Todd Taylor for the committee.