The University Sunrise Rotary Club hosts an annual event at Magnuson Park called the Big Taste. The Big Taste is where we discover the latest wines, beers, ciders, and spirits from the Pacific Northwest. We sampled new favorites from great Northwest Wineries, Distilleries, Cideries, & Breweries! Over 500 people attend and it is one of the most fun events of the year.

The event is a benefit. This year, the recipient will be chosen from among four nominated organizations. Each organization has made an application to the Club and will talk to us about what they are trying to accomplish.

You are invited to join us to hear more about them.

This Thursday, September 1, we will hear from the Friends of Magnuson Park and We HEART Seattle. Next Thursday, September 8, we will hear from Outdoors for All and Mainstay The Club will then vote to determine the partner/recipient.

Join us!

Sheila has been working with the Bukobero community in Uganda since 2018 to build a health center and they are now ready to break ground. Sheila is submitting a District Grant this year which will be for the sanitation system for the health center and has asked for support from the University Sunrise Foundation.

Find Sheila’s slides here.

“When our resources become scarce, we fight over them. In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace.”

– Wangari Maathai, of Kenya, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize

The University Sunrise Rotary Club program this week will feature the University of Washington’s Cliff Mass discussing weather and climate.  Join us!

The Zoom connection opens at 7 a.m. and the meeting will run from 730 a.m. until 830 a.m.

No reservation is required: just click here Thursday morning!

Cliff Mass is a University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences.

He is a meteorologist who specializes in weather prediction and modeling. A particular emphasis of his research has been the weather features of the western United States. The Seattle Times has called him the “closest thing to a celebrity scientist in Seattle,” and he is the author of The Weather of the Pacific Northwest—one of the best-selling books from the University of Washington Press. He also writes a popular blog about meteorological phenomena, among other weather-related musings, and he has a regular weather segment on one of the local NPR affiliates. Model simulations have been key tools for him and his group, which now runs the most extensive local high-resolution prediction system in the United States. He has received the Max Eaton Award from the American Meteorological Society, of which he is also a Fellow.

Here are Dr. Bender’s slides:

In this talk, Dr. Emily Bender will describe the ways in which so-called “AI” technology is over-sold and over-hyped, both by the companies (and sometimes academic researchers) creating it and journalists reporting on it.  She will illustrate how to tell when journalists aren’t asking the right questions and talk about the questions that she thinks we all should be asking instead.

Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics and Adjunct Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School at the University of Washington, where she has been on the faculty since 2003.  Her research includes multilingual grammar engineering, the interaction of linguistics and language technology, and how to incorporate considerations of societal impacts into the design of language technology.

Jon Fehrenbach is a retired engineer, having been a structural engineer and engineering manager at Boeing until his retirement in June 2014. Jon received his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering, and his Master’s Degree in Engineering, both from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. In a 35-year career at Boeing, Jon worked in airframe structures engineering on numerous programs on both the commercial side (727, 737, 777, 787 Programs) and the military side (B-2 Stealth Bomber, Joint Strike Fighter Proposal, F-22 Fighter Program). He specialized in the design of advanced carbon-fiber reinforced composites for airframe primary structure.

After retiring, Jon completed Docent training at the Museum of Flight and now works as a volunteer Docent at the Museum, chairs the Museum’s Docent Training Committee, and does presentations in the Puget Sound community for the Museum’s Speakers Bureau. He is also interested in supporting and promoting STEM-related education programs and initiatives. In his leisure time, Jon is a bicyclist (road bike/touring), pickleball player, and long-suffering Seattle sports fan. He enjoys reading, with aviation history, biographies, and other historical non-fiction currently taking up most of his reading list.