Updates and Announcements
 
Evening Meetings: There will be no evening meeting on Wednesday November 24th for the Thanksgiving Holiday. The next evening meeting is Wednesday December 8th at 5:30 PM at Our Lady of the Pine Catholic Church. 
 
285 Backpack Project: A Sign-Up Genius will be going out for volunteers to assist with things like transporting food from the food bank in Denver and packing bags. 
 
Conifer Town Hall Meeting: The town hall meeting took place last Wednesday. A recording will be posted here: http://coniferareacouncil.org/town-hall-meetings/ 
 
License Plate Petition: Our District is working with District 5440 and 5470 to get 3,000 electronic signatures so a specialty Rotary license plate will be considered by the State Legislature.  Signing the petition does not require you to purchase a license plate. To sign the petition, please visit: https://www.rotary5470.org/Stories/co-rotary-license-plate-petition 
 
November 30th: The month of November has 5 Tuesdays, so we will NOT have a meeting on Tuesday, November 30.
 
Home & Garden Show: To be held on April 9th and 10th at Conifer HS. Vendor  registration has started, and we’ve had some vendors signed up, and some vendors from years past. We have a presenting sponsor, and we have room for other sponsors and lots of room for more vendors. There are cards and handouts to give to potential vendors to help get the word out!
 
Sponsoring a family for the holidays: We would like to help sponsor 5 or 6 families for Christmas again. We will be trying to help those who need assistance and  some lifting up during the holiday season. This will include fundraising of donations like we did last year to buy gifts as well as Christmas trees and ornaments/decorations. More info will be coming soon. 
 
 
Upcoming Events:
 
Tues. Dec. 7 | 7:00 to 8:00 pm
Presented by the PR Committee via Zoom
 
December 2 from 630-730 via Zoom…presented by our very own Arana Hagan!
 
 
Save the Dates! More information will be available soon...
 
  -  Sat. Jan. 29, 2022 - 7:00 to 8:30 pm via Zoom
      Celebrate Rotary's unwavering commitment to Polio Eradication
      Be inspired by Rotary President Shekhar Mehta
  -  April 29 & 30, 2022 - in person
     District Conference at The Hangar at Stanley Marketplace
     Exciting new venue with House of Friendship
 
Warren Miller Screening: A screening of this year's Warren Miller film "Winter Starts Now" will be held to raise money for the Conifer High School Interact Club. This will take place on December 11th at 6PM located at the Snowpack Taproom. For more info, and to buy tickets, go to https://rotaryconifer.org/. 
 
Club Social: On Friday, December 3, Diana Phelps will be holding a social at 6pm at her home.  Please bring a dish to share and a beverage of your choice!



 
Meeting Program: Dean McCall - Risk, Opportunity, and Space
  • Dean presented about what’s being discovered in space and how we address it. A copy of his presentation can be found by clicking here
  • Risk is a potential problem with consequences that may or may not manifest
    • what might go wrong, how likely, how much will it hurt
  • What can we do with risk?
    • Avoid
    • Transfer
    • Control
    • Or accept
  • Opportunity is a potential enhancement with consequences that may or may not manifest
    • what might go right, how likely, how much will it help
  • What can we do with opportunity?
    • Enhance
    • Share
    • Exploit
    • Or Ignore
  • Risk and opportunity management is the process of identifying program risk and opportunities, assessing potential action, implementing action plans, and monitoring. 
  • Risk and opportunity applies:
    • to fate of human race
      • near earth objects
      • earth sciences
      • technologies purposed into sociological cornerstones
    • to space missions themselves
      • human safety
      • return on investment (ROI)
    • to scientific pursuit
      • quantum physics
      • energy
      • cosmological evolution
  • An example of risk is that there is lots of activity with asteroids going on all the time that we’re not aware of. The night sky is pretty active. 
  • NASA has a map of 27,000 near earth objects (NEO’s) and that is  thought to be about 10-12% of the neos out there. We don’t know what’s coming, all we can do is track them, see where they’re going, predict where they’re going to go, and try to understand which ones are most likely to get near or impact earth.
  • It’s in our best interest to understand what’s going on and what’s bound to happen.
  • So what do we do?
    • survey the sky
    • get asteroid data
    • test potential solutions 
    • conduct simulations 
  • An example of an opportunity is the Psyche Mission: In 2022 a launch of asteroid 16 Psyche will occur to study what appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet between mars and jupiter. 
    • way to better understand earth’s core without digging
    • possible vast quantities of gold, platinum, diamond worth quadrillions.
    • too far to bring back samples, but there are over ten asteroids that could be captured and brought to near-earth orbit with existing technology. 
  • Dean’s linked presentation covers a lot more fascinating information on things like solar system exploration, star birth, stellar cannibalism, and a James Web Space Telescope update. 
  • Thank you Dean for an informative and very  interesting talk!
 
 
Guests: Lori Carpenter, welcome!