Club Business
President Dick O’Donnell convened the meeting. Sam Powell offered a prayer and led us in the pledge of allegiance to the US flag. Dick wished a happy birthday to Mary Thomas Gilbert and welcomed Mike Brown, our newest member and owner of the Acorn Inn in Elon. He also welcomed prospective member, Jason Richmond, who attended today via Zoom. Rick Moore, who recently received the “Hero Award” from our District Governor, began what should becomes a new tradition by passing it on to someone else. He gave it to Micah for his work in assembling an amazing team on the Membership Committee.
Announcements
- Our next Information Hour for prospective members will be held at BBW on Tuesday, October 27 from 11 until Noon. Micah encouraged everyone to invite people to attend.
- Bonnie is hoping we can have our next social event on November 4 at Red Oak Brewery, after she confirms. Details coming…
- Also, she is confirming plans for our annual Christmas luncheon and Dirty Santa gift exchange on Tuesday, December 8, at Alamance Country Club. Details coming…
Happy Dollars
None this week.
Member Spotlight
Sam Powell joined Rotary in 1986 in order to make new friends, keep up with what is happening in the community, and generally make a difference. He was born and raised in Alamance County, growing up in Elon. He graduated from Williams High School in 1970. He earned a bachelors degree in chemistry at VMI, a masters at Old Dominion, and his PhD at Loyola University in Chicago. After graduation, Sam lived in several locations, not planning to return to his home area. One day he received a call from his father asking him to come home to manage a family related business that was in decline. He explained to Sam that the family had provided for him all the years when he was growing up, and now it was time for him to step up and support the family. Sam took the helm at Branch Diagnostics, which had lost much of its revenue base. Over the years under his leadership it changed names to MedTox Scientific and developed a highly profitable workplace drug testing kit. It was sold to LabCorp in 2012, doing business in excess of $60 million a year. It is still in operation today.
Sam married Karen Gregory from Annandale, VA, with whom he had two children, Susan and Christopher. Susan has provided him with three grandsons. Christopher and his wife have given him two granddaughters. Sam is a Presbyterian. He has served on the NC State Board of Community Colleges for the last twelve years. He is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and chairman of the Textile Heritage Museum in Glencoe. He is a pilot and scuba diver and serves on the Alamance County Airport Authority.
Dr. Karen Pollard – How to Harness Your Brain Power during the Pandemic
Dr. Karen Pollard is a clinical psychologist and CEO of Brain Power Advisors in Greensboro, NC. She is also a member of the Crescent Rotary Club. Her topic addressed how the conditions associated with the current pandemic affects our brain function and how to improve our performance. She told us that stress affects what is called the “executive” or decision making function of the brain, draining away our energy. She encouraged us to increase our intentionality and become more organized. Here are her top five strategies.
- Time Track. Write down what you do during the day to identify patterns.
- Visualize. Each day think about what you plan to accomplish.
- Be flexible. Have multiple priorities that you can work on during blank times in your schedule.
- Do email triage. Identify how long you can go between receiving an urgent email and answering it. Check your mail at that interval. Scan your mail. Respond to urgent messages and leave the others for later.
- Stress reduction. Take time each day to do things to reduce stress, which will increase your performance. She took us through a deep breathing exercise.
Conclusion
Dick reminded us that we will meet via Zoom only next week. He closed the meeting by leading us in reciting the Four Way Test.