MEETING OF JUNE 17, 2004
By Dick Blanding
Seth kicked off the Kickout mood early, with a song about President Al's imminent departure, "He'll be going down the Mountain, when he goes, etc. " A large wad of cash, found on the floor near the cashier, was claimed by Dan O'Donnell, who knew the right number of twenties contained therein. There were no other guesses, we being a roomful of Rotarians. Dan appeared to be receiving numerous solicitations for small loans throughout the rest of the meeting, however.
Al Lambert offered a thought for the day from The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, by Alexander Fraser in the mid-1700's. The gist of it was a democracy cannot exist past that day when voters discover they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury always win, until government collapses. He cites the following stages of the world's greatest civilizations:
• from bondage to spiritual faith
• from spiritual faith to great courage
• from courage to liberty
• from liberty to abundance
• from abundance to selfishness
• from selfishness to complacency
• from complacency to apathy
• from apathy to dependency
• from dependency back into bondage
President Al took a voice vote, and declared the passage of the motion to modify the bylaws as described on the club web site for the past month. Roy Lave was then presented with Al's "Service above Self" award.
Wyatt gave Rotary Foundation recognition to the following donors:
Paul Nyberg Paul Harris with three sapphires
Mary Prochnow Paul Harris with three sapphires
Guy Farthing Paul Harris with five sapphires
Dick Duhring Paul Harris with two rubies
With these members' contributions, LARC exceeded its goal of giving over
$22,000 to the R.I. Foundation this Rotary year.
Hardy Jones was once again presented with his Blue Badge, after a brief departure from the club and subsequent rejoining. Welcome back, Hardy.
A great stir arose from the crowd when it was announced that Brian Ward, widely acclaimed master of offense to the fairer sex, would take the microphone for a few minutes of fining members of both genders. Kelly Hudson paid for having made a 585 mile, seven day bike ride for AIDS recently. The project took in $5 million nationally.
Cres McFall's daughter is Captain of the USA Olympic Team for synchronized swimming , going to Athens this summer. Francis La Poll paid for graduating three kids this month: two from sixth grade, and one from eighth grade.
Brian then called upon fellow Finemaster John Sines to provide the root for the word "spa." It turned out to be an acronym from the Latin "salutas per aqua" (water makes you feel better.)
Jack Heidmiller said there still a few shifts open, for Rotarians to sign up to help in the Chef Chu's chicken salad booth at the downtown Art and Wine event on July 10th and 11th.
Cindy reported a little more on her experiences in Japan at the recent RI convention, which led into telling about our AIDS booth that has been displayed six different years now, and she then introduced Dude to provide our program today.
Dude gave a recap of the history of the Rotary AIDS Project which our club undertook during his year as president. He mentioned that after years of working on RI to try to get them to participate in fighting AIDS, the disease has been moved up to about number three on the RI agenda, behind water management and literacy.
He reported that the "Los Altos Story" video has been translated into six languages since it received the Peabody award and ACE award in the early nineties. He estimates a total of 25,000 copies have been distributed in 160 countries since that time. The latest improvement is to convert to a DVD format, and 500 of these were given away at the Osaka convention. Dude showed a copy with Japanese subtitles, and then showed one in Japanese language without subtitles, which he had been obliged to pay $100 for because it was a fundraising project.
The R.A.P. group also combined $20,000 from LARC and the local community with a $40,000 grant from the Packard Foundation, to give widespread distribution in foreign countries to an excellent book describing the problems in dealing with AIDS.
Dude then turned the program over to Jack Higgins, who, with Sam Pesner, has created a Powerpoint presentation capturing some of the highlights of the multi-year effort. It cites the progress of the disease and tells of programs and books to increase awareness, mostly in Asia and Africa, and is designed to permit folks who are unskilled in presenting, to make a creditable presentation using the Powerpoint tool.
Information about the AIDS Fellowship is available at: http://www.rffa.org/
Programs and Events
June
June 24th - End of Rotary Year Celebration
June 25: Kickout Dinner, 6:30 p.m., Los Altos Golf and Country Club, country club casual
July
July 1 - President Cindy, Club Assembly
July 8 - Gloria Duffy, Update on Iraq
July 15 - Don McDonald, History of Los Altos
July 22 - Sam Bishop, Rotary Flying Fellowship
July 29 - Rick Salazar, Therapy Pets
August
August 5 - Bernadine Fong, New Developments at Foothill College
August 12 -
August 19 - Steve Gruber, Rotary on the Web, at Foothill College’s Krause Center for Innovation (not at Garden House)
August 26 - Ron Sekkel, District Governor’s Visit
September
Sept. 2 - Richard Walker, Expanding Market in China
Sept. 9 -
Sept. 16 - Mary Alice Rathbun, RotaPlast
Sept. 23 - David Sloss, West Bay Opera in our Community
Sept. 30 - Larry Rinsky, Operation Rainbow in Nicaragua
OTHER ROTARY CLUB MEETING PLACES
On-line Meeting: www.rotaryeclubone.org
MONDAY
Palo Alto: Rickey's Hyatt House, 12:15 p.m.
TUESDAY
Sunnyvale: Ramada Inn, 12:15 p.m.
Mountain View: Adobe House, Moffett & Central, Mountain View, 12:15 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Menlo Park: Menlo Park Recreation Center, Menlo Park, noon.
Woodside/Portola: Woodside Village Church, Woodside, 7:30 a.m.
Sunnyvale Sunrise: Wild Woodys Grill, Sunken Gardens Golf Course, 7 a.m.
Cupertino: Quinlan Community Center, 12:15 p.m.
East Palo Alto Bayshore: Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, 2031 Pulgas Avenue, East Palo Alto, 12:15 p.m.
FRIDAY
Palo Alto University: Sheraton, El Camino, Palo Alto, 7:30 a.m.
"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 2004 The Los Altos Rotary Club