President Chris Boland opened our Friday morning meeting for the last time this Rotary year! Kevin Polzin offered the following invocation to start our meeting.

“Good morning and welcome fellow Rotarian’s.  I am delighted to offer this morning’s invocation, that of the summer solstice.  For those who do not know, the summer solstice is the longest daylight hours of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.

 The word solstice, derived from the Latin “sol” meaning sun and “sistere” to cause to stand still.  At 8:54 AM the sun will seem to momentarily stop over Tropic of Cancer, and then our Earth begins to tip back the other way and from tomorrow on, the daylight hours get shorter.  

 It is a time to be silent, to be present and to become clear about what this summer, the Earth’s time of growth, will symbolize to each of us.  The sun itself is revered for its intense high energy, light, warmth and is symbolic of the light of the Creator.  It is pure life force.  We can use the summer solstice as a time to celebrate the return of light, and of course in the Northwest we always want more sun! Importantly, it reminds us of the bright light within each of us and our full human potential to do something positive in our communities.  

 So as the sun seems to stop for a fleeting moment today at 8:54 AM, I would ask each of you to pause momentarily as well.  Be still and Be present on this earth, ask yourself what and how will I contribute today?   How am I contributing with my family, friends and associates?  What am I using my internal light, my God’s force to create?   Later this evening, I hope you will bask and enjoy the elongated evening with a cold beverage of a full heart.  

 My prayer for each of you is a summer season full of growth and prosperity.”

Kevin then led the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag followed by Andrew Face who introduced visiting Rotarians and guests. Next Bob Holert, Director of Administration and Chair Program Committee, discussed committees under administration, specifically Reveille (the write up each week on the previous week’s meeting), Audio/Visual, Programs and Fellowship. He encouraged everyone to sign up for these committees, that every member has the right and responsibility to suggest interesting programs, and that Rotating the Wheels (leadership changeover) is Saturday, June 29 at Newport Yacht Club! Remember to buy your tickets and join your fellow Rotarians!

Steve Luplow is retiring from Ben Bridge Jewelers after 40 years and moving to Snohomish. Steve has been a phenomenal member of BBRC and a huge contributor in designing and working the Walk / Run course each year. He will be missed! Colleen Turner shared with us the fact that Howard and Judy Johnson gave a $5000 Scholarship to a graduating Bellevue School District student toward her college funding. Howard and Judy, thank you for your years of philanthropy and service to both our community and BBRC. Carmela Ramaglia, Sergeant of Arms, had a round of Happy Bucks ($) where members donate and share their good fortune. From the number of people who shared this week, there are a lot of good things happening to BBRC members and their families.

Bill Spencer, a member of BBRC for 22 years and Senior Director at Microsoft shared with us his latest project, Microsoft Teams. Bill has personally found this new tool used with Office 365 saves him an hour a day to locate information previously sent to him.

First however, Bill took us on a brief voyage down memory lane, starting with the original processing power he experienced, an IBM mainframe computer. Then came single PCs followed by PC networks with printers and file servers. Next, we went from “dumb” terminals to smart terminals, where the terminal could do a lot of the work and did not need to rely on a mainframe or server. During the last 10+ years, we have seen mobile computing, networking and the internet take over and more security problems raise their ugly heads. This necessitated enhanced datacenter security, to avoid viruses, malware, hacking, etc. And along came Amazon with AWS (Amazon Web Services) where you can outsource computing power.

 With the advent of cloud computing, companies moved the office to the cloud and the advent of renewal subscriptions for your software and software services. Microsoft has datacenters all over the world and separate datacenters for many areas of government – think IRS, Judicial, Congress, etc.

 With the advent of Microsoft Teams and cloud computing, all your data can be pulled together. This product (Teams) is now used by 91 Fortune 100 companies! It is the fasted growing product in Microsoft history. And the Teams product is available across platforms. It was designed to be more secure than email and it is also replacing Skype for Business. This app helps you quickly find attachments and information so you do not have to read all related emails to find a previously sent action item / attachment. It saves you time and is intuitive and faster than previously available apps. Say a person leaves your Team and a new one comes in. They can quickly get up to speed as all relevant information will be readily available. In the past when someone left everything they knew goes with them. Now that is not the case. In addition, outside people (Guests) can be invited to a meeting thru the Teams app as well.

Early in Bill’s presentation he asked how many people use Office 365 to raise their hands and there were a lot of hands in the air. And now Teams is an app that enhances the use of Office 365. If you like to save time, you should consider it!

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