Our 1.2 million-member organization started with the vision of one man—Paul P. Harris. The Chicago attorney formed one of the world’s first service organizations, the Rotary Club of Chicago, on 23 February 1905 as a place where professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful, lifelong friendships. Rotary’s name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings among the offices of each member.
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In the Beginning...
On this warmup to summer, President Betsy rang in her penultimate meeting, basking in the warmth of an appreciative membership. Betsy, you have served with grace and dignity over this past year. Through the pandemic, associated membership retention, change in meeting venue, implementation of a Zoom hybrid meeting format, presiding over our record fundraiser (Taste of Ojai), and a host of challenges this past Rotary year. Hats off to you and your Board, the committee chairs, and our stalwart members who make our Club vibrant and engaging. We look forward to our incoming Co-Presidents, Kay and Marty, who have hit the ground running to ensure our continued dedication to "Service Above Self".
Thanks to...
Fern Barishman, our Greeter
Suzanne Scar for leading the Pledge of Allegiance
Marty Babayco for the Invocation
Deirdre Daly for managing the front desk
Bob Davis for Fining
Carl Gross for Reminder Editor and Photography
Dave Brubaker, Suzanne Scar, and Andy Gilman for Room Setup
On this day in history...
On this day in history in 1880, American politician, Jeannette Rankin was born. She was a women's rights advocate and the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the US House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940.
Announcements
Andy Gilman announced the meetings for the remainder of this year:
6/17/2022-Andy Gilman - Rhythm from Around the World
6/24/2022-President Betsy's Demotion Party
Kathy Yee read letters from our 2 students who attended RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards). This program is truly a life changing event in these young peoples' experiences.
Sean McDermott recapped his trip to the Rotary International Convention June 4th-8th in Houston. He was drawn to House of Friendship where he found a fellowship of beer drinkers that have a modified "4 way test".
Marty and Kay gave us a preview of their vision for the upcoming year. They have spent many hours with our membership, organizing and refining the Club to adapt and thrive in the coming year.
Confessions and Fining-Bob Davis
Bob took the podium to less than thunderous applause.
The bulk of the monetary extractions were from confessions:
Betsy, Terry Beckett (Wedding Anniversary), Don Reed (Grandson NCAA track and field star), Cheree Edwards (Music Festival High Tea), Bill Weirick, and Andy Gilman paid their assessments.
Chris, a native of the Ojai Valley, is the executive director of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council (OVFSC). The Ojai Valley was ground zero for the 2017 Thomas Fire and the impact of, and the hard lessons learned from, this uncontrollable wildland fire prompted the OVFSC to undertake the development of a long-term, community-focused, community-driven Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy for the Ojai Valley and surrounding communities. Chris joined the OVFSC in 2019 to assist the Council in the Risk Mitigation Strategy initiative.
Chris has a broad, diverse background of law, business, education, and environmental and community service. He has over 40 years of legal experience including the areas of strategic legal planning and consultation, business law (litigation, transactional, organizational development, and reorganization), nonprofit organizations, environmental, agriculture and natural resource management, international law, construction and real estate/land use. He has 25 years of direct litigation experience at both the federal and state level, with jury and non-jury trials, judicial and non-judicial arbitration, administrative proceedings, mediation, and appeals.
When Chris is not working on wildfire risk mitigation, he maintains a part-time practice of law, with an emphasis on providing general counsel to select non-profit and for-profit organizations, including those involved in regenerative agriculture. Chris is also Of Counsel with the Hoban Law Group, a national and international law firm focused on industrial hemp, and headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Chris’ practice areas with the Hoban Law Group include Corporate Counsel/Securities, Business/Commercial Transactions, Real Estate/Land Use, and Environmental Law.
The Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council (OVFSC) was founded in 2000 and over the last twenty years has successfully managed over 26 federally funded grants totaling over $1.3 Million. The OVFSC has also received state, local and private grants and community donations to fund its work. The projects funded by these grants and donation include:
- Extensive, and effective, vegetation management projects, focusing on high fire hazards.
- Created Countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) in 2010
- Elementary, Junior High and High School level wildfire safety education programs throughout the greater Ojai Valley Area.
- Wildfire safety programs for:
- Agriculture (farmers and ranchers)
- Homeowners
- Other landowners
- Landscape Professionals
- In-home presentations in cooperation with the US Forest Service and VC Fire Dept.
- Produced videos for wildfire preparedness which are available on our website. Other online wildfire safety resources include Home Wildfire Safety Survey, Emergency Supplies Checklist and Family Safety Plan.
- Bi-annual Wildfire Safety Fair.
The OVFSC has built effective partnerships with many agencies, organizations and other community partners.
The 2017 Thomas Fire, and the California wildfires since, showed that we needed a level of community capacity to be better prepared for, respond to and recovery from the threat of wildfire. This has resulted in a new focus for the OVFSC—to develop a comprehensive, community-based, community-driven wildfire risk mitigation strategy. This process was begun in 2019 with the preparation of the Road Map.
Click HERE to learn more about the Road Map and the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy.
The 2017 Thomas Fire demonstrated that the Ojai Valley community was inadequately prepared for such a fast-moving, erratic wind-driven wildfire. While wildfire is inevitable and necessary, the wildfires of 2017-2020 represent an increased risk from wildfires. The nature of the Thomas Fire led to the public safety agencies being quickly overwhelmed and hampered by single points of failure in critical systems. After the Thomas Fire, the OVFSC was approached by key stakeholders, including the County of Ventura, Ventura Fire Protection District, City of Ojai and its Advisory Board, to lead the preparation and implementation of a comprehensive wildfire safety strategy for the Ojai Valley to create the community-level response capacity needed for such catastrophic fires.
The OVFSC accepted the challenge and initiated the process to develop and implement a sustainable, holistic, community-base Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy for the Ojai Valley area. The first step was to prepare a Road Map for development, implementation and funding of this important initiative.
An overarching goal of the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy is to develop a culture of wildfire safety and resiliency in the Ojai Valley; to become a truly fire-adapted community in a fire-dependent ecosystem. A “fire-adapted community” can be defined as:
A knowledgeable and engaged community in which the awareness and actions of residents regarding infrastructure, buildings, landscaping, and surrounding ecosystem lessens the need of extensive protection actions and enables the community to safely accept fire as part of the surrounding landscape.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group, U.S. Forest Service
A truly fire-adapted community is overall a more sustainable and resilient community. Many of the capacities being developed for the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy also increase the sustainability and resiliency of the Ojai Valley community as a whole. The OVFSC has joined with other agencies and organizations to collaborate and coordinate the development of these resilience strategies.
Source: Ojai Valley FireSafe Council website.
Mr. Danch went on to describe some of their activities:
Fire Scale Risk Mapping
Home Hardening Program
Evacuation Assessment
Study of Debris Flow
Data Management Strategies
and Transportation Modeling to name a few.
Mr. Danch urged us to attend the remainder of the 2022 Virtual Wildfire Speaker Series. It is free to the community of Ventura County. For more information and help contact andyspyrka.vcrcd@gmail.com or call 805-764-5135.
The Zoom link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82402705288 (Meeting ID: 824 0270 5288)
Thank-You, Chris for a great presentation and for working with your group to protect and enhance our quality of life in the Valley.
Final Thoughts
President Betsy closed the meeting with a quote from Plato and her love of music:
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."
You are invited to visit us at an upcoming meeting.
