 Good morning and welcome to another edition of Hawaii Rotary People of Action. We're so happy that you joined us today right here on Think Tech Hawaii. We have a great show for you today. Our guest is actually live from Kauai, Ted Feigle, and he will join us here momentarily, live from Kauai learning all about what is happening in Rotary on Kauai. So we'd like to welcome you now, Ted Feigle. Good morning, Janet. How are you today? I'm great. It is so lovely to have you live from Kauai. This is the first time I've done a remote show and it's working. So welcome and we're so happy that you're joining us today. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I look forward to our conversation. That's fantastic. I like your Rotary shirt too. So what we're going to do is we're going to try and help people understand how important Rotary is on Kauai. How much you have helped the community and I know that you're the past president and also current assistant governor. You're the perfect person for us to talk to today to learn all about all the wonderful clubs and the people in those clubs on Kauai. I'd like to start out by asking you your Rotary story. Help me please how you got involved with Rotary and why it is one of your passions. So I got involved with Rotary because I relocated to the island of Kauai about four and a half years ago. And I was looking for a way to get involved in the community, to be able to give back to the community, to meet new people on the island. And in talking with some people as a newcomer, they said, oh, maybe you should check out Rotary. They do some great things on Kauai. So I did. I went and checked out the Rotary Club of Pleasant Beach and felt like that was a really great gift for being able to get to know people, get to know the island, and to really be involved in the community and to have a positive impact in the local community. So I joined Rotary four and a half years ago. This year I'm actually currently serving as president of my club, Rotary Club of Pleasant Beach. And this next fiscal year I'll be moving into the role of assistant governor for the island of Kauai. Fantastic. I had that wrong. I forgot your current president and future assistant governor. I understand that there are many clubs on Kauai and they're located from Honolay to Honopipepe. Give us an idea, a lay of the land if you will, how many people are involved in Rotary on Kauai? Tell us about some of the clubs, how many there are and where they're located. Yeah. On Kauai we have around 200 people currently involved in Rotary. And those 200 people are in, around our island. If we start on the north shore we have Kauai Honolay Bay. We do a wonderful variety of projects. They were instrumental in ticking off the project island wide of installing beach rescue tubes all around our island. The data that we have so far we know of more than 150 people who have been rescued with those tubes over the past few years. And that's just the people that we know of. I think there are even more than that, 150. Honolay also has been very instrumental in white flood relief in this past year as we had really bad flooding on the north shore about a year ago. And we're still in refogria from this. Honolay has really spearheaded a lot of efforts in that area. And they also have a wonderful project going on at the Honolay Aged Cultural Park. Where they've done fundraising and built with your Vivo. They're putting together a park within the agricultural part. And they're really doing wonderful things in the community. It's a very active club. If we move around towards the east shore, we have the Rotary Club of Kauai. And they meet on Wednesdays at lunchtime in the middle of Kapa'a. And they're also very active in the community. They recently built a wheelchair ramp for a person in the community who found themselves faced with a situation that they couldn't get in and out of their house without that wheelchair ramp. They also do a huge fundraiser every year that's called Taste of Kauai. That's coming up fairly soon on June 2nd this year. And that brings in a big crowd from all over the island for a fun afternoon of music and food and fellowship. And that raises funds to support projects throughout the year. And supporting youth activities, supporting nonprofits, etc. I'm continuing along the shore. Next is the Rotary Club. They meet in Lihue. They meet on Fridays at noon. They're the original club that was on Kauai. That's their name Rotary Club of Kauai. They're also involved in numerous projects. For example, they present every year a community activity that's called the Lights on Rice Grades. It really is something that our island looks forward to every year. It happens in the December timeframe and it's a lot of fun. They've also been involved in clean-up efforts in the Lihue area and supporting other nonprofits and activities around the island. They also put together an annual running race, the Old Blower Mill and Sugar Mill Run that brings in people from the mainland to come and participate and support our community. Moving on around to the south shore, then you come to my home club, which is the Rotary Club of Kui Kui Beach. Rotary Club of Kui Kui Beach is about 38 years old now. And we also have a number of community projects that we do throughout the year. In December, we had a Christmas party for about 100 children who were clients of child and family services. We have a visit from Santa Claus. We have a bento breakfast and we show a movie at the Waimea Theater. It's a whole morning of fun and is really heartwarming. We had one of our young participants this year as she was opening her gift from Santa, turned to one of our Rotary elves and said to them, this is the best day I have ever had. And so those are the kinds of things that really warm your heart and keep us going to do more and more of those kinds of projects. We also partner with Hawaii Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity is actually a global partner of Rotary International. And on Kauai, one of our community issues is affordable housing. And the Kauai Habitat organization has been very productive and very instrumental in helping us to address that issue for our island. And to provide more affordable housing for our residents. So we partner with them. We did a whole day where we got a big group of Rotarians together and went to the work site and worked on three different houses for a day alongside those homeowners. And it's a great program where homeowners are investing their time and effort along with volunteers from our Rotary Club as well as other organizations. We also have been involved in sponsoring and participating in the Kauai Walk to Prevent Suicide. It's another issue on our island where we have a fairly high rate of suicide. And so getting out the awareness of what kind of scope is available and what are the support systems both to prevent suicide as well as to support the survivors of suicide. So those have been a few of the key projects recently. In addition to those community projects, we have some youth activities which many of our Rotary Clubs around the island do, for example, to meet with third graders in the local schools and to get to them with a dictionary. And we spend some time with each of those classes to help them look up words in the dictionary, understand how to use the dictionary as a resource as they're continuing to improve their reading skills. And then finally, moving around the island to West Kauai. The West Kauai Club meets in Waimea on Tuesday evenings at 5.30. And they actually today are sponsoring Rotary Track Meet for youth on our annual project that they do. They've also been involved in planting trees and cleanup efforts at Kauai Park and also a club that's very involved in the local community and giving projects back to the community with a heavy focus on youth activities. They also spearhead for us our what we call Rotary Youth Leadership Awards where we bring high school students together from all over the island. And we spend a weekend camping with them and going through some leadership development programs with them as part of their learning and developing as young leaders. Fantastic. My goodness, the Rotary Clubs on Kauai are very busy with all of the different avenues of service that Rotary promotes. Helping the youth, helping with education, literacy, and obviously the beach projects are phenomenal with over 150 rescues to date. How many lives those beach, those rescue tubes have saved is just phenomenal. And I understand that it is now started on Kauai and it is growing to other neighbor islands. We'll get back to a few more questions later about specific community projects. But right now, Ted, we're going to shift into a little bit more about what a Rotarian can expect when they attend a Rotary Club and also what the role of president is. You're currently the president of your club in Poipu and if people out there are watching and they want to get more information about joining Rotary on Kauai, how do they go about that? What would you recommend they do to get in touch with you as well as what can they expect when they walk into their very first Rotary meeting? Sure. Getting involved in Rotary really happens at the individual club level and so it's good if you have an interest in Rotary to look at what are the clubs in your area that might be doing things that you're interested in participating in and then to reach out to us, you could go to RotaryinHawaii.org and put in your interest and you'd be connected with a Rotary Club in Hawaii in your area or on Kauai, you could do a Google search on Rotary Kauai and on that first page of Google search results, you will find the results for the five different Rotary clubs and you can see from the different websites what are some of the projects that we're doing, what are the meeting times and see ones that you might be interested to learn more about. It's easy to either call or email us with the contact information that you'll find there and we'll get a response very quickly from one of us to follow up and invite you to a project with us or to come to one of our regular meetings to begin to get a sense of what it is we do and who are the people involved in that club and whether that's a good fit for you and what you'd like to accomplish in the community and give back to the community as well. Fantastic. We do need to prepare to go for a little break. I definitely want you to share with us that email address or that website address for your club so people can easily reach you or the phone number even. So we're going to take a short break. Pay the bills and we'll be right back live from Kauai with Ted Fegel, a Rotary club president at Poipu Beach, to learn more all about Rotary on Kauai. Aloha. I'm Yukari Kunisue, the host of Konnichiwa, Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech Kauai. Konnichiwa, Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and is streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's going to scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechKauai.com 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons, and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up, and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keep the news safe. Aloha. Welcome back to Rotary in Hawaii. We're happy to have you here today. We are live from Kauai with club president Ted Fegel from Poipu. Live, welcome back Ted. Thanks. So we're going to dive into a little bit more. We've learned a lot about the projects that are happening all over the island of Kauai. The wonderful service projects that your members, your 200 members are participating in on a regular basis. Some are happening today. What we're going to learn about more is some leadership opportunities. I, for one, have enjoyed the networking aspect of Rotary, and I know that as a business professional, getting to know people in the community can be a huge benefit to your business and growing a business. So please tell us about the leadership opportunities. For instance, in your club, you're the club president. How did you ascend to the presidency? How does one get involved in leadership positions in a Rotary club such as yours? Yeah, that's a great point. People join Rotary for a variety of reasons. That's often for making friends and having fellowship. It's also for working on projects and having an impact in the local community. Some people join Rotary for the business networking, which is an important aspect of Rotary. Rotary started as a group of business people who did meet with each other and learned about each other's professions, and then that led to doing business with these others. And some people also joined Rotary to have an in, because as individual clubs, we do network, collaborate with other clubs all around the world to have even larger significant impact on projects. And so any of those reasons are valid reasons for being interested in or joining Rotary. And different people have different priorities around those reasons, but those are all pretty common reasons why people say, oh yeah, I joined Rotary because of one of those. And people stay in Rotary for those same kinds of reasons. And I know personally I've experienced for my small business on Kauai, being part of Rotary and the networking both with my own club members as well as members of other clubs around the island has had a positive impact on my business, both from business development aspect, but also word of mouth and networking. And in Rotary, one of the things that we stand for is high ethical standards in business. And I personally have found that that's been very valuable for people to know that I'm part of Rotary and that that's part of what I stand for. And that's made it very attractive for people to talk to me about their business needs and to pursue with me whether I might be of some assistance. And I hear some more stories from other Rotarians on our island as well as across the way. So it's a great opportunity to do that kind of broad networking with people. That is very point, very, very important. Rotarians across Hawaii enjoy reciting actually the four-way test. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Is it fair to build goodwill and better friendship? Is it fair to, you know... What's the fourth one? I would have it in front of me. It would be beneficial to all concerned. We'll be beneficial to all concerned. Thank you. I've only been in Rotary 12 years, so forgive me. This four-way test is something that Rotarians actually live by. Those of us in business can feel very comfortable contacting another Rotarian because we have those plaques on our walls at every meeting. Not in a cult style, in a collaborative style that we all believe in these values of Rotary that we've learned, that we've honed, if you will, in Rotary by doing business with each other. And as Rotarians, I can also say we give the best service to each other because we see each other every single week. And so it's really a great opportunity when you're in Rotary to connect with those vendors, those clients, those associates to further succeed in business. Also, let's talk about leadership roles. In Rotary, when I joined, I became the public relations chair. There is any number of 10 to 20 leadership positions. Can you just name off a few that your club, either that you have fulfilled as a volunteer in your club, or leadership positions that need to be filled in every Rotary club, such as public relations chair, president, et cetera? Right. Well, like you've been, I actually was very early on in my club to take on the public relations or public image chairperson role. So I actually served in that role for three years in my club, as well as participating in many projects and fundraisers of the club. And it was at the end of that three years that I finally consented to move into the president role. I've been asked a couple of times before that. So there's always opportunity to move into leadership roles. Besides the president of the club, we have other club officers like vice president, secretary, treasurer. And then we have avenues of service, chairpeople. So in Rotary, we focus on different types of service, both in the community and internationally. So we have a chairperson for community service, a chairperson for youth services, a chairperson for international service, and also a chairperson for vocational services. Going back to our roots and our discussion about being a group of business people who originally got together to form Rotary. So there's opportunity to step into any of those roles. We also have a membership chairperson who helps organize and lead us to recruit new members into Rotary. And we also, in Rotary, we have this tremendous resource that is called the Rotary Foundation. And Rotarians all around the world make contributions, donations to the Rotary Foundation. And those donations are then aggregated and given back to individual clubs to execute projects in their country and their region, in their community. And it's really a huge asset for Rotary that we're able to not only collaborate with our time, but also with our donations and to really increase our impact by collaborating together. Exactly. And we just are enjoying a lot of the photographs you shared with us from your different clubs across the island. Ted, these pictures are different community service projects. We saw the Rescue Tube. There's a lot of work outdoors, possibly Habitat for Humanity. Let's learn a little bit more about your club and its specific community grant program. Can you elaborate on what that is for us? Yeah. So our club, besides our service project, we're involved in scholarships and then a community grant program. And our community grant program is looking at how do we impact the community by partnering with other nonprofit organizations so that we can have a positive impact on community issues above and beyond what we could do by ourselves. So out of our fundraising each year, we allocate a certain amount that we then invite nonprofits from around Hawaii to apply for a sort of mini-grant to partner with us for a specific project. Many of those projects are things like after-school activities for young people or hunger programs like a lunch program or a food pantry program. So it's a way of partnering with nonprofits to extend our reach and be able to provide services in the community by working together. In addition to those community grants that we do, we also provide a number of scholarships and our focus is primarily on Hawaii Community College. So we partner with the college and we focus in three different areas. We have a quite a long history of providing scholarships for the nursing program like Hawaii Community College as well as for the culinary arts program. So helping young people on our island get the skills to go into the workforce around our island. And then we added last year a set of scholarships for the skilled trades program. So young people who want to become auto-mechanics or plumbers or electronics technicians, but they also have the resources to get the edge in the skills to go into those professions as well. That's phenomenal. The work that the Rotary Clubs on Kauai accomplishing is extending throughout the entire community. Really quickly, we have a few seconds left. Ted, where and when do you meet? So the Rotary Club of Kupu Beach, my home club, meets on Wednesday morning on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of the morning at 7.15 a.m. That's at the Kibana Bar and Grill at Kupu Beach Athletic Club. On the first week of the month, we instead of having a breakfast meeting have an after-work calcana activity, a social hour that happens on Thursday at 5.30. Fantastic. And then we have a fifth Wednesday in the month we actually go to Oxford for a vocational student. It's been wonderful getting to know all about the Rotary Clubs on Kauai. You're the perfect ambassador to share that with us today. Good luck with the rest of your Rotary Year and we'll be seeing you at our district conference in a couple of months right here at the Convention Center. Mahalo for joining us today. Ed Begel, Club President of Rotary Club of Kupu Beach has been a wealth of information. Check them out online for more information. Thank you again for joining us today on Think Kauai. It's been my pleasure. Janet Sheffer, Rotary People of Action, signing out. Mahalo.