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President Benjamin Fisher presided over the hybrid (Zoom & In person) meeting at Hillel UCLA.
Benjamin reminded us the 2025/2026 Rotary theme this year is “United for Good”. Benjamin thanked PP Peter More for greeting, PP Steve Scherer for leading the pledge and breaking out in song along with PP Ron Lyster singing “God Bless America”.
PP Nancy McCreary shared for the Thought of the Day that clashing political beliefs should not separate us as human beings. Psychology experts claim our country is experiencing a major loneliness epidemic. Rotary offers a way forward with “love of truth” and civility in Rotary’s Four-Way test and our support of victims of natural disasters independent of political beliefs. We are blessed to be a part of the Rotary family.
There were 2 guests of Matthew Yuan in attendance to cheer him on while he gives his presentation (or heckle him).
PP Chris Bradford in attendance with his lovely wife, Sharon, introduced Hannah Ferguson our District’s chosen Scholarship Recipient who graduated from UCLA and is currently living/working in New York.
A recap of the district breakfast on Saturday August 2nd was shared with photos. The four Super Heroes who attended from the Club were PP Diane Good, PP Mark Rogo, PP Benjamin Fisher and PE Bob Simon.
PP Steve Day presented Chris Bradford with Paul Harris +5 and +6 pins and PP Tom Baron with the Paul Harris +6 pin. Congratulations gentlemen, well done!
Foundation Celebration raffle tickets will be available next Thursday’s meeting. Please be sure to purchase your tickets for the potential to win a lot of money!!
This Week in History included August 4, 1790 US Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton establishing the Revenue Marine Service which would become the US Coast Guard and, August 6, 1945 the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The speaker of the day, Matthew Yuan giving his craft talk was introduced briefly by Sam Bothol.
Matt divided his talk into 7 parts The Name, The World, Family, Learning, Work, Life, and Faith.
His name Matthew in the Bible is “Gift from God”, in Chinese is “Clouds of the World” and in Jewish is “Gift of the Torah”.
Matthew was born in Oklahoma and has lived in Oklahoma, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Boston and as of today in Los Angeles. He has had the experience of attending schools with students from many different countries and backgrounds. He is fluent in Chinese and, is now studying Hebrew. He has chosen to live in the USA.
Matthew has one younger sister. His great grandparents were communists and officials in the Chinese government. His parents continue to live in Asia and have never returned to the United States.
Matthew attended Babson College in Wellesley, MA which is rated one of the best colleges for entrepreneurship.
After working for Wayfair he founded his own companies including Burning Bush Ventures which assists other companies and entrepreneurs with software development, AI enablement and product management. He also founded DPPL and Sherlock.ai. He believes AI will change the world and is a big fan of it.
Matthew’s life interest include: music, surfing, camping, and rest. His belief is to live life abundantly.
He shared Psalm 90 as an ending thought and suggested we consider “What have you learned to gain a heart of wisdom?”
It was a wonderfully interesting presentation of a life full of energy and enthusiasm for what he has already learned and achieved and, what he hopes to achieve in the future. We are cheering his continued growth forward and looking forward to hearing more about it in the future. Thank you, Matthew!
The meeting was adjourned by President Benjamin with a minute to spare.
It was mentioned that WVRC member John O’Keefe had been hospitalized but is recovering.
Next meeting is Thursday, August 14th at Hillel UCLA. See you there!
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