MEETING OF APRIL 26, 2001 By Steve Gruber
Thursday was volunteer day, the time when we recognize those who have helped the community through the Partners for New Generations program. It also was an opportunity to post the "Now Hiring" sign for future volunteers. Several dozen non-Rotarians joined us to be congratulated for their efforts during the past year, and we saw a Partners show that had a little bit of everything: robots, basketball, photography and justice.
ED SOX launched the program by telling us that 200 people had taken part in the Partners projects during the past five years. The program got started as a school program, and has now been expanded to many other organizations. We heard from several who are taking part in the program, including:
ALLEN PRICE, who is a mentor for KHRISTOPHER SANDIFER, a student at Alta Vista High School. Allen said his job is not to be Khris's father or teacher, but an adult friend.
ROLAND PAYNE, who introduced the Robotics Team from Los Altos High School. The team showed off its robot from two years ago, and also brought along this year's robot, which won sixth place nationally out of 500 entries. The team is looking for engineers to serve as advisors.
BOB ADAMS AND ROB HOLDEN, who are teaching basketball to high school students and sixth graders as part of the Sports at Noon program.
LAUREN RUCKER, who is looking for volunteers for the Neighborhood Accountability Board, which works with youths who have been arrested for minor offenses.
If you would like to volunteer for any of these programs, or learn more about Partners for New Generations, just send an e-mail to partners@losaltosrotary.org.
We have been invited to a reception for former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt that will be held after his talk at the Celebrity Forum on June 15. The reception will be held at Foothills Congregational Church, 461 Orange Avenue, Los Altos. The talk will start at 8 p.m. at Flint Center, and if you do not have tickets, you can get them through the club. Call STEVE SHEPHERD at 917-5369 to sign up.
SHELLY POTVIN is hoping that you will volunteer for the art show, which is only three weeks away. If you don't, she will probably assign you to a task. In other words, get the good jobs before they disappear.
If anybody asks you about the art show, please refer them to the website, where they can see dozens of photos of the art that will be shown. One of our most powerful tools for promoting the art show is the Internet, and we need to make use of it. The URL for the art show is www.losaltosrotary.org/artshow.html
President's Message Actual news since our meeting on Thursday…
Congratulations to the Los Altos High School Interact Club. Los Altos High School's Project of the Year, "Heifer International Foundation," won first place among the five outstanding District-wide Projects of the Year that were honored at the District 5170's Interact Awards Banquet, last Thursday night in San Jose. Nearly 500, of 4000 members of Interact, attended.Money to support this project was raised last December with the Christmas Gift Wrapping weekend in downtown Los Altos that many Rotarians and others supported.
Congratulations to the golfing side of Rotary as well. The annual tournament had a huge field of 48 golfers, with about 65 Rotarians, spouses, and friends enjoying dinner and cards together afterward in Steve and Kathy Anderson's backyard. Many thanks to the Andersons.
The top results will be of interest to some. Low Gross honors (that means he's the very best golfer that day and gets our club trophy for a year) to Jack Emmons, spouse of Victoria. Jack shot a 76, besting Jerry Moison and Steve Shepherd, who tied for second with an 82. Jack also won Low Net (that score comes after Roy Lave works with a system called Callaway to equalize something.) It takes a long time. Thanks Phil Rose for helping Roy. Men's Longest Drive winner was Jeff Sundquist, with 305 yards. Women's Longest Drive winner was Cindie Eberhardt. Victoria Emmons and Ingrid McDonald followed. Cindie also won closest to the pin honors for the whole field, with 12' 6", besting Steve Shepherd who came in second with 22'. Steve Shepherd and John McAlister tied for first in the least number of putts competition, with 30. That's for 18 holes! Many thanks to all who participated, and to the Golf Committee headed by Larry Madsen, with Steve Shepherd and Steve Anderson, assisting. Dick Henning served as photographer.
The Los Altos Rotary Fine Art Show is number one in our focus for the next three weeks. Please do all you can to help us maintain our ranking as one of the top ten fine art shows in California. That statistic comes from the 2001 edition of The Artfair Sourcebook of Portland, Oregon, which through artist's comments, reviews the 300 Best-Selling Fine Art & Craft Shows Nationwide.
See you Thursday, Ginny
The following is information about the new program for the Rotary AIDS Project:Dear Rotarians: The following is an update from Co-Chair Dude Angius on the recent activities and future areas of focus for the Los Altos Rotary AIDS Project. Every club member should be aware of these activities and feel free to volunteer at any time, simply by telling Dude or RAP Co-Chair Mary Prochnow of your interest. Thanks, Ginny
A message from Dude Angius:
I want to thank everyone who came to the RAP brainstorming session on February 27th. This memo is being sent in an effort to keep you & others interested in the activities of RAP in the loop with respect to our activities since then.COMMUNICATIONS: First of all, I want to thank Baidra Prochnow for taking on the important task of coordinating our communications. As many of you know, I am personally challenged when it comes to working with computers, email, etc. Baidra has graciously agreed to fill in this gap. For email purposes she has created two standard email address lists: RAP 1 for our Board members & RAP 2 for our many volunteers & other interested Rotarians. If you know of anyone, who would like to be added to the list, please let Baidra know.
SANDOWN PROJECT: Thanks to the good work of Marlene Cowan & Roy Lave, among others, our work on the Sandown Project is pretty much completed with the recent approval of matching funds by the Rotary Foundation. We look forward to meeting with Eric Henderson in San Antonio & learning how the project is progressing in South Africa.
DISTRICT CONFERENCE: Planning for the recent District Conference in Oakland has taken a great deal of time over the last several weeks, but was well worth it. Jean Newton put together an extremely informative & effective display - I hope you had chance to see it. The RAP session led by Dick Henning, Mary Prochnow, Dick Hasenpflug & myself was very well attended & well received. Our goal was to interest other District 5170 clubs in joining with us to partner with clubs In South Africa to put together meaningful AIDS projects. An initial success was the invitation from Cupertino Rotary to put on a program for them on May 23rd in anticipation of their partnering with Edenvale, South Africa, on a project being sponsored by that club. Similarly, Rotary Clubs of Livermore, San Leandro & East Oakland wish to partner with South African Clubs.
SUB-COMMITTEE: At the February 27th brainstorming session, most of the participants chose one or more areas of interest. The Board has combined these into five sub-committees as identified in the minutes of April 12th. If you were unable to attend the brainstorming session but would still like to join one of these committees, please contact me. Otherwise, as we move ahead with our Project, there will be times when we may cal on you for special needs. Following our next Board meeting, on May 10th, committee members will be contacted by the Board member assigned to that committee. One of the first items at these initial meetings will be to further refine each committee's mission.
RI CONVENTION: Planning for the upcoming RI Convention in San Antonio, June 24-27, is currently taking up the majority of the RAP Board's time. This is a 'biggie' for us, an opportunity to build a truly grass-roots movement among Rotarians on a worldwide basis. We will have a booth & have arranged to have several other AIDS related booths, including Sandown's grouped around us. Our objectives at the convention include:
-To build a network of Rotarians, both in the US & around the world. Interested in attacking the AIDS pandemic
-To encourage clubs to undertake meaningful AIDS projects, both individually & as part of international teams
-To continue to distribute The Los Altos Story as broadly as possible
-To meet with the senior leadership of RI to encourage them to take a leadership roll in tackling the devastating AIDS pandemic on a worldwide basis.
If you're planning on being in San Antonio & would like to join us in this ambitious endeavor, please let me know. I guarantee you will find a couple of hours booth time an extremely rewarding experience.
RAP PROMOTIONAL VIDEO & WEBSITE: To maximize the potential of our mission at the convention & afterwards, Jean Newton has taken the initiative to develop a six to seven minute videotape to be viewed at our booth & to be used as part of presentations to other Rotary clubs. It will include highlights from The Los Altos Story & discuss the evolution of our project into its current emphasis on the worldwide pandemic. Jean is also taking the lead in developing a new, updated RAP website. Its emphasis will be on building a network of Rotary Clubs interested in joining with us to attack the worldwide AIDS pandemic & to continue the distribution of The Los Altos Story as broadly as possible.
ANNUAL LOS ALTOS RAP AWARD: At a recent subcommittee meeting, the idea of an annual award, to be given to the club or clubs with the most meaningful AIDS project anywhere in the world, was conceived. We are very excited by this concept & hope to have it fleshed out in time to launch the program in San Antonio.
As you can see, we have been busy. And we've just begun. We are excitedly awaiting the activation of our new sub-committees next month & all the energy & new ideas we know you will bring to our project.
Programs
May
May 3 - Ron Blatman - Cities That Live, Cities That Die
May 10 - George Estill - Travel
May 17 – Chuck Bull, RI Faces the Population Dilemma
May 19-20 -26th Annual Rotary Fine Art in the Park
May 24 - Elizabeth Barkley on "The Music of Multicultural America"
May 31 – LARC Scholarship Awards DayJune
June 7 – Art Show Appreciation Day
June 10 - Rotary Family Picnic, 12:30 - 3:30 Serra Park, Sunnyvale
June 14 - LAREF Annual Meeting
June 15 - Bruce Babbitt Celebrity Forum Talk, 8 p.m. and Rotary Reception, 9:30 p.m.
June 21 – Bob Hoffman, Cleaned up Mt. Everest
June 28 – Ginny's Kick-out, part 1
June 29 - LARC Kick-out, Dinner/Dance, Fremont Hills Country Club"Information in this newsletter is intended for the exclusive use of the members of the Rotary Club of Los Altos to facilitate the work of the club and to promote club fellowship. It is not to be used for any commercial or outside, unrelated, non-profit purposes. No publication of material in this newsletter should occur without the express permission of the club President or the Editor of the Rotator."
Copyright 2001 The Los Altos Rotary Club
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