Greeters for today's meeting were George Lancaster and Erick Ries. President Josh Sprague called the meeting to order at 12:30 PM. After several announcements and thank yous the Invocation, the pledge of allegiance and the Four-Way test were given by Scott Blake.
Next Susan Stiles gave recognition to PHF members and indicated that pins would be mailed out to recent contributors. She also indicated that participation has particularly grown this past month. Our district goal to the annual fund is $100,000 and we are currently at about $70,000.
New member Lindsey Smaka gave her classification talk. She is a Chemistry teacher at Edina High School and is organizing a new program at EHS that is in conjunction with the Edina Rotary Club called Edina Rotary Global Scholars (ERGS). It will launch this next school year. Lindsey explained how the program will work and that she is working on the final design. So far 34 students have committed to the program.
Aashna Kumar, President of Youth Services Interact Club told us about one of the new funding projects that Interact is sponsoring. They have started a fundraiser to purchase supplies to help neighborhoods in Minneapolis recently affected by the rioting and looting. To donate please use Venmo and go to Interact of Edina.
Next, the speaker for the day Stevie Ray was introduced by Josh Sprague. Stevie has been an internationally recognized speaker and trainer for over 30 years. He specializes in helping organizations improve interaction skills, teamwork, innovative thinking, leadership and customer service. He is also executive director of Stevie Rays Improv Company of Minneapolis – a company that has provided training and entertainment since 1989. He is also a professional entertainer and a nationally syndicated columnist and author of 10 books.
Stevie’s discussion was based on “influencing others to get a better/positive outcome” He explained that there are two main approaches to persuasion. One is conclusion first and the other is conclusion last. He gave several examples of these two approaches and he used audience participation to illustrate his points. He went on to explain how the brain processes information and how it either accepts or rejects it and then went on to discuss the five steps of persuasion which are the hook, the problem, the solution, the details and the action. If all five steps are taken there is usually a better outcome.
Scott Neal thanked Stevie for bringing his program to us and Josh Sprague gave an update on some upcoming events before signing off.
