February 20, 2013 Newsletter

By John Hammer

Charlotte Shelburne Rotary

Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 7:15 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

Welcome

President Adam Bartsch opened the meeting with the Pledge. Kris Engstrom gave the devotional, as she is so often wont.

Guests: Paul Ugalde of the Population Media Center – Speaker

              Cecilia Angelone, Office Manager, Population Media Center

              Megan Hanley, Guest and daughter of Debbie Hanley

              Mikie Marcotte, Guest and grandson of Gary Marcotte

Quote for the Day: “You have to have women involved …if you want to improve lives around the world.” Spoken by Cecilia Angelone during the presentation.

The Word for the Day: Find the word below and the definition at the bottom.

Upcoming:

February 27 – Laurie Mumley of Autism Support

March 6 – Mike Gilligan of UVM Hockey

March 13 – Club Assembly

March 20 – Lexie Kaknes of Vermont Healthcare Initiative

April 13 – Rotary Leadership Institute

June 6:  District Governor Change of Guard at Shelburne Farms Coach Barn. (Our club will play a key role in this event.)

Announcements

Williston Rotary Ski-Ride Challenge

John Beale rose to announce the Williston Rotary Club’s 18th Annual Ride Ski Challenge to be held on March 8th.  There are teams of four.  Our Club has three members (Beale, Crandall, and Bowen) and John is soliciting a fourth.  There is also room for a second team, if there are members who wish to participate (See him or Trafton Crandall).  The evening at Bolton includes a rather easy course, dinner and fellowship starting at 6PM.  Our Club has won the Rotary Team Cup for several years in a row.

Shelburne Farms Maple Open House

Shelburne Farms Maple Open House will be held this year on March 23.  They will be looking for parking help.  Bill Root will be soliciting names at a future meeting.

Shelburne Selectboard Candidate Debate

Tod Whitaker announced that there will be a debate between Bob Lake and Allison Cramer for the open Selectboard Seat in Shelburne in Room Two of the Town Offices next Tuesday (February 26). 

Club Set-up Duties

Dave Rice circulated a sign-up sheet at the last meeting for assigning club set-up and breakdown (banners) duties for the rest of the calendar year.  It will be circulated for the next few meetings.

Jim Spad’s Humor Jim has returned from his surgery and appears to be moving quite well. His humor today was censored.

Sergeant at Arms

Rick was back in full form noting that on this date, 50 years ago, John Glenn circled the earth aboard the spacecraft Friendship 7 thus today’s lucky number is seven. He set out to fine anyone who was born on a year ending in seven or who has a 7 in their age.

Fines

Terry Kennaugh – Off to Sanibel for three months.

Robert Maynes – Had a great visit in Maine with his grandkids.

Terrell Titus – Just back from two wonderful weeks in Florida.

Colleen Haag – Glad to be back after an extended absence

Jim Spadaccini- Thanks to his wife Paula and the great nurses at Fletcher Allen after his operation. Really happy to be back.

Sam Feitelberg – Wished the best of health to all.

Linda Barker – Celebrating her son’s birthday.

Kris Engstrom – Thanks for a great Valentine’s Day and welcome back to Jim Spad and Colleen

Roz Graham – Glad to be back “in battery” again.

Denny Bowen – Had a great week at the Trapp Family Lodge and was happy to complete a ten-mile cross-country loipe* with his grandchildren last Saturday.

Michael Clapp – For his absent friend John Dupee who has birthday tomorrow. Michael is happy to have a birthday coming up and has managed for another year to stay younger than him for another year.

Chris Davis – Happy to see snow for John Hammer and encouraged all to attend Town Meeting this year, especially in Charlotte, to see “Democracy in Action.”

Linda Chi – Happy to see Jim Spad back.

Debbie Hanley – It’s been a while.  She was happy to have brought her daughter, Megan, as a guest.  Just returned from the very best skiing she has ever had a Jackson Hole.

Fritz Horton – Glad to see Jim Spad back.

Dave Jonah – Happy to be just back from a good trip to Puerto Rico.

Howard Seaver – Great to see Jim Spad back.

Mikie Marcotte – Really, really happy to have had sausage for breakfast today.  Thanks William!

Howard Seaver drew the Nine of Spades.  Rollover the $277.00 pot.

Speaker – Paul Ugalde of World Population Center

Image

Paul Ugalde and Cecilia Angelone, both from Population Media Center (PMC) located here in Shelburne, spoke about what the PMC was doing. The mission of the PMC is ‘to work with mass media and other organizations worldwide to bring about the stabilization of human population numbers at a level that can be sustained by the world’s natural resources, to lessen the harmful impact of humanity on the earth’s environment, and to help large numbers of disadvantaged people live better and move out of poverty.’

The PMC, under Bill Ryerson, has been at work since 1998 and has done work in 45 developing nations. They use entertainment programming on radio and television to encourage delayed parenthood, consistent use of effective methods of contraception, and safer sexual behaviors as well as to empower women to play equal roles in family decisions and in society.

They produce a TV program in Spanish in the US on MTV Trace called Ultimo Año and they are also looking for a cable distributor to air a new program for Hispanics in Los Angeles entitled East Los High, about the problems facing high school students in East LA. There is a particularly high rate of teen pregnancies among Latino teenagers.  PM uses the Sabido method that features characters that evolve into role models for the audience, encouraging them to modify their behavior.  “After parents, TV is the biggest role model for teenagers.”  The Sabido method uses positive and negative characters as well as ‘transitional characters’ who are in the middle and who are the ones who change for the better or worse, thus providing more realistic role models.  There is nothing subtle about the actions that are portrayed.   The series that will be aired twice a week for 35 weeks.  Since they can’t yet find cable distributors as yet, Paul thinks that perhaps the show will start on the web.

Paul noted, that the PMC is about “behavior change.”  They never tell people what to do, but provide role models which suggest better outcomes for problematic situations. Organizations and governments in target countries seek out PMC to present the programs that feel are necessary for their pouplations.  The PMC has always been a strong presence  in Africa. The first program, their flagship, was in Ethiopia.  It, and most of the African programs was based on radio programs, as that is the media outlet that most Africans have access to. Much of the work in Africa seeks to empower women. Cecilia pointed out that, “You have to have women involved …if you want to improve lives around the world.”

The standard program lasts three years.  After the local government solicits the program, the program is produced using locals.  Before airing, there is a baseline survey to ascertain the level of cultural awareness on the particular issue being addressed.  After a year of airing, they do another survey at organizations such as clinics to ascertain the rate of change.  It should be noted that the messages start out very subtly and become more intense with time so that they are not too culturally disturbing.  Then there is a survey at the end of the project where attitudes are measured.  These surveys are very sophisticated, using multivariate regression analysis** to really determine the success rate.

Funding generally comes from UN organizations, though there has been some from foreign governments and private individuals.  Very little has come from the U.S. government.

* Definition: Loipe, n. – Specialty term from the German meaning cross-country ski circuit or run.

** For the prize: Multivariate regression is defined by the General Linear Model 

Y = Xb + E

where is a  data matrix containing the response variables, is a (n x q) data matrix containing the factors, b is a (q x p) data matrix containing the factor coefficients (model parameters), and is a (n x p) data matrix containing the noise terms.