MEETING OF MARCH 11, 2004
By Matt Cabot
SPRING IS SPRINGING: Spring definitely has sprung today. New member DOUG FRANCO, more about him later, lead us in the pledge, and JOHN SYLVESTER celebrated the weather leading us in “Your are My Sunshine.” While the song is about people, or specifically a person making us bright and happy, I think the weather surely set the tone for the meeting. Good weather, AND cheerful people, what a combination.
JOHN MOSS read the Thought for the Day from Lillian Helman’s Autumn Garden, which basically cautioned against frittering your life away. For some of us, that decision was made or not made, years ago.
There were no visiting Rotarians for the third week in a row. Hopefully this does not say anything about our meetings. But on the bright side, the Membership Committee’s effort to raise our attendance is paying off so there were more of us.
We did have eight guests. That is always a pleasure.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BASKETBALL: Bob Adams and Don Hull were recognized for their effort in coaching their basketball team to the championship level. A precursor to March Madness, you might say.
SPEECH CONTEST: President Al mentioned that March 27th is the next level of the speech contest. It will be held at the Palo Alto University club meeting which meets at the Sheraton Hotel, 625 El Camino Real Palo Alto at 7:30. That in itself is confusing. It is not part of Stanford University, and it does not meet at the University Club in Palo Alto. Got that?
President Elect CINDY LUEDTKE shared her experience attending the PETS (President Elect Training Seminar) conference. Cindy mentioned that the theme for her 2005 Presidential Year is “Having Fun” and charged us all with coming up with ways to make her year a “fun” year. She also mentioned that March 24th from 6:30 to 9:30 PM the District will be holding a workshop on Internet Tools at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose. What a kickoff for a year of fun.
RELAY FOR LIFE: Both MARY PROCHNOW and CINDY LUEDTKE are involved in an American Cancer Society fundraiser on June 26 and 27. There will be a 24 hr relay held at Los Altos High. They are looking for a Los Altos Rotary Team to run (walk, crawl) in relay fashion for every hour of the 24 hr relay. Talk to either Mary or Cindy for details, and to offer your support.
RED BADGE AUCTION: MARION TAVENNER reminded everyone that on March 24th the Red Badgers will hold their annual Red Badge Auction. Contact Marion to contribute something of value for the auction. She also mentioned that the club meeting will start a half hour early at 11:30, so come early and bring your checkbook.
ART SHOW GEARUP: SAM PESNER reminds us that EVERYONE is expected to participate in our annual fundraiser, the Los Altos Fine Art Show to be held on May 15th and 16th. Be sure you fill out your work preference. Otherwise you will probably be assigned to the “GST” (Gold Shovel Team), which follows the elephants.
NOTE RED BADGERS: Sam’s other hat is that he is heading up the effort to get people to attend the District Conference at the Double Tree Hotel on April 16 - 18th. See Sam for details.
PAY AND PLAY: ELLEN YAMANE FLANAGAN reminded us that funding of social functions will be handled a little bit differently than before. There is now a signup deadline, and members will be billed for signing up for functions that they do not attend. The deadline will be clearly marked on the signup sheets that are passed around at the meetings.
On a less dour note, Ellen noted that the Cioppino Night was a tremendous success and thanked JOE and SANDI RENATI, CINDY and DAVE LUEDTKE, and their helpers and Social Chairs JOANNE BYRNE, and SHELLY POTVIN for their work in making it a success.
FIVE MINUTE TALK Red Badger, DON WITT gave his 5 minute introduction today. He talked about his extended family that he grew up around, with cousins, and uncles and aunts all living within a few blocks from one in other in the Chicago area. Don also said he married his optometrist. I guess they saw Aye-to-aye.
He spoke of honing his invasion techniques for the Marines on the California and Virginia beaches. But his greatest accomplishments to date had to be successfully adopting two children from Lithuania
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE: Last week it was reported by President elect elect MARLENE COWAN that Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarships are now being accepted. Marlene wanted to make clear that the students can either LIVE or attend college in our area to qualify for Ambassadorial Scholarships. For further information, talk to Marlene.
COLOR CONVERSION RED TO BLUE: We had another Red Badge convert to a Blue Badge with accustomed panache. With a seated ovation, Marlis McAllister was stripped of her Red Badge and presented with a new shiny Blue badge. Actually, that is not exactly true. It was a slight-of-hands trick. See, they really just strip off the red sticker and voila, there is a blue badge underneath. President Al stood in for Marlis’ sponsor CINDY WEMYSS.
AND FROM BLUE TO RED Believe it or not, we also had a Blue Badge to Red Badge conversion. New member, and thus new Red Badger DOUG FRANCO joined us from Hayward Sunset, where he was a founding member, and Secretary of the club. We are extremely lucky to have Doug join our club. His work at Hayward Sunset in behalf of World Community Service projects in Afghanistan are nearly legendary. Doug is a Stanford graduate in math, art and computer science. (They are related closer than you think). He also has an MBA from Harvard. He is currently working on an eye care project for Afghanistan for WCS. When he is not working on Rotary projects, he does have a consulting company called Valley Resources.
RECOGNITION MASTER (MISTRESS?) BRENDA NIEDERT didn’t have much time to inflict a lot of damage on the group, but was able to get BRIAN WARD back for his seeming shortsighted, or should I say myopic view of the fairer sex. This is quite alarming seeing his occupation has always been farsighted. Brenda also tagged CHUCK LINDAUER for $25, DON WITT for $10 (hexadecimal) AND BELLA BERLLY for $50, base 10.
SPEAKER OF THE DAY - Carl Guardino is the President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Manufacturer’s Group and he talked about health and status of our “Silicon Valley.” One thing that jumped out at me was this recovery is still a ways off, although at least going in the right direction.
We currently have over 200,000 less jobs in the Silicon Valley today than we had at the hay day of the “internet” boom. He said it would take until 2010 to get those jobs back.
As an editorial comment, and not something that Carl said, it seems to me that many of those jobs were not real jobs in the first place. Jobs, not in the sense of employing people, but in the sense that they did not make economic sense, but rather were created because of the boom atmosphere of the time. End of editorial.
Carl said that in the Valley, we contend with 56 languages in our schools, which poses its own challenges that other school districts around the country do not face.
Housing is a real issue, where only 25% of the people wanting homes can afford them, while the national average is closer to 50%. Nationally the average commute is 20 minutes where around here it is between 1.5 and 2.5 hours.
Programs and Events
March
March 18: To be announced
March 25: Red Badge Auction, starts at 11:30 a.m.
March 26: Fellowship Night
April
April 7: Celebrate Spring at Chef Chu's
April 8: Mountain View High School Madrigal Singers Spring Program
May
May 7: Golf Tournament
May 15 and 16: Rotary Fine Art Show
May 21: Fellowship NightJune
June 25: Kickout Dinner
OTHER ROTARY CLUB MEETING PLACES
On-line Meeting: www.rotaryeclubone.org
MONDAY
Palo Alto: Rickey's Hyatt House, 12:15 p.m.
TUESDAY
Los Altos Sunset: The Echo Restaurant, Los Altos, 7:15 p.m.
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.
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