This Week's Program: 
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Linda Price --Youth Protection Training
 

Upcoming Events:

Website search:

President SAM PESNER called upon KAREN FOX to lead the club in the pledge.  BRIAN WARD shared the thought for the day, and CRES MCFALL led the song (a bit high for most of the guys).   

President-elect JOHN MOSS asked visiting Rotarians to introduce themselves.  We had visitors from the Rotary Club of San Jose and someplace in India.  (Visitor didn’t wait for the microphone.)  Rotarians introducing guests included MARY MARLEY, JOHN HAMBLIN, JANE REED, VICTORIA EMMONS, JOE RENATI and JULE ROSE. It’s good to see all that interest in our club.  We must be doing something right.

 Announcements
Opening up the floor to just a few announcements, President SAM PESNER encouraged members to attend next week’s meeting, during which there will be a one-hour youth-protection class.  Members are encouraged to come on time. 

SCOTT RICHES told members about the Youth Philanthropy Board, a group of young people who have $10,000 to grant to programs or initiatives that benefit area youths. 

DENNIS YOUNG announced that the club needs 63 more Guy Shoup Fellows to enable LAREF to grow its corpus to the half-million-dollar level. 

TOM LISTON announced that the starting time for the March 9 poker tournament has been changed to 6:30 p.m.

Two “mini” programs
JANE REED and ALLART LIGTENBERG reported back on their short trip to the Yucatan, Mexico, where they and other Rotarians from Palo Alto provided hands-on assistance to Proyecto Itzaes.  A grant from Los Altos Rotary helped buy a permanent home for this ongoing development program that focuses on reading, family literacy and cultural preservation.  Rotarians brought supplies, helped paint, created gardens and demonstrated solar cooking.

AL TRAFICANTI introduced our second “mini program” of the day, a session on heart health brought to us by the club’s new health committee.  Our guest speaker was Nancy Bugwadia, clinical manager of the Regional Medical Center of San Jose. Her top three tips for heart health: First, stop smoking.  Second, start exercising.  Third, eat a healthy diet, drinking more water, having fish twice a week, and limiting the intake of transfats.  For more information, go to www.RegionalMedicalCenterSanJose.com.  Thanks to VICTORIA EMMONS for introducing Nancy to the club!

Program on the Los Altos Community Pool
The major program for the day was a presentation by John Day on the Los Altos Community Pool project, which is being spearheaded by a non-profit foundation.  Its goal is to design, build and give a community pool to the citizens of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.  Located in Rosita Park, the pool would replace the one that was closed at Covington.  With one lap pool and a children’s water-spray play area, the new complex would provide swimming lessons, family recreation, fitness programs and community-building activities. 

There are 9,000 children in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, reported John, and the demand for swimming lessons is very strong.  Scaled down from its initial conceptualization, the pool complex is being designed to look like the single-story ranch houses that comprise the Rosita Park neighborhood where it will be located. 

The price tag for the project is about $8 million, of which half has already been raised.  Construction is slated for spring of 2008.  People who want to donate or learn more are encouraged to e-mail splash@splashcommunitypool.org.

Art Show Update – Help us “Get Googled”
Those electrons are out there, spinning around the network.  Better yet, those electrons are pretty darn cheap.  That’s why this year we have a new emphasis this year on “e-marketing” – that is, using the Web, e-mail and whatever electronic media we can find to get the word out about the show.  STEVE GRUBER has taken on this strategy, and key to his approach is this simple concept:  Get Googled!  That’s why we’ve created an independent website for the show this year – so it’s easy for Google to find.  Our in-house website – the one that’s contained within the club’s site --   continues to be our working site, the place where artists can go to register and Rotarians can go to find their work shifts, etc.  (And doncha worry, STEVE GRUBER and MATT CABOT are coordinating their efforts.) 

The new, marketing website is at “www.rotaryartshow.com.” We would like to have this website rated high on Google when potential art buyers are searching the internet. One way to get a higher ranking on Google is to have a lot of links to our website from other websites. Google believes the incoming links show the popularity of the website, and therefore rate it higher. We would appreciate it if you could include a link from your website to our marketing site.  Questions?  Call Steve at 650-965-7300.