Rotator for August 10th, 2006
Photographer: Jerry Tomanek
Editor: Matt Cabot
This Week's Program:
Tom Popp
• AIDS Orphans in Malawi
Upcoming Events:
8/24
• Dr. Kathryn Riley -
Spinal Health
Website search:
See our Calendar for all of the important dates.
To see Neighboring Club meetings go to Clubs
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Greeters, Julie Rose and Jeanne McVicar |
Tour weekly meeting in the Garden House of Shoup Park in Los
Altos was convened promptly at 12:15 by President SAM PESNER. The pledge of
allegiance was led by MIKE HARIGAN, and the duo of
VAL CARPENTER and JOHN
SYLVESTER led the group through a stirring rendition of “In the Good Old
Summer Time.” JERRY TOMANEK provided the thought for the day, reflecting on
the Los Altos Relay for Life and how the whole community got involved.
Announcements from President SAM Pesner included the following.
Applications for a Rotary Club credit card are available.
Freestyle High will have its open house on August 21 from 5-7 p.m. Go see the lovely remodeling job done by our very own Rotarian, GARY ROSS.
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE District Cabinet meeting of 8-2-06
a. Leadership Academy for Past Presidents of clubs involves electronic info + 4 meetings ( Avenues of Service in Oct, mid year meeting in Jan, District Conference in April, District. Assembly in May)
b. STaRS for club members who have not been Club Presidents and are interested in becoming leaders in the club. One day: Sat, Nov. 4. $50 including lunch. our PP MARLENE COWAN is responsible so contact her if you have an interest.
c. "Single Rotarians" is a newly developing fellowship group. Sign up with PP MARLENE for information on events.
d. Youth Exchange training - only 4 clubs have completed all requirements of sexual abuse prevention training (not LARC)
e. Five trips available to D5170 Rotarians:
- Oct. 29-Nov. 8 to Ghana for polio innoculations
- Jan 18-21 to San Miguel de Allende, Honduras for Project Fair
- March 12-20 to Djibouti for hospital cardiac intensive care unit + Kenya for wildlife safari
- late spring to Turkey for San Jose West Club's Project & fellowship (Cecilia Babkirk, leader)
- date tba to Rwanda with Kim Murdock
f. Rotarian team leader needed for trip to Buenos Aires (Spanish speaker). Apply by Sept. 15 to Steve Murdock.
g. Oct 13 - Latin Fiesta fundraiser at Blackhawk, Danville. $10 chance to win trip for 2 to Chilean Riviera (Viña del Mar)
h. Governor's new award to Ward Garing for 15 years work with inbound student exchanges.
i. Excellent fundraising in our district for TRF last year. We're now 9th in the world:
39 clubs in District raised over $150/capita (including LARC)
$2.4 million (including benefactors) donated to TRF in D 5170 last year.Marlene Cowan & John Moss
The LARC Board of Directors is considering changing the date of the Red Badge Auction so that it doesn’t conflict with the beginning of sponsor solicitation for the Fine Art Show. If people have views on the subject, they should share them with their Board member colleagues.
On September 7, three past presidents of Rotary International will speak, including Dr. Conseco, who spearheaded the Polio Plus campaign. More details to come.
MARY PROCHNOW announced that the Rotary AIDS project meeting would be at her home on Thursday, not her office.
VAL CARPENTER announced that the 5th annual City of Los Altos Community Picnic is scheduled for Sunday, September 10th from 11 am to 3 pm in the Civic Center at 97 Hillview Avenue. This free event is open to all Los Altos residents and their guests. The picnic committee is actively seeking volunteers to work at the event; please contact Curtis Cole at 650-948-4007 or ccole@colefamily.org if you can help.
A raffle was held for a mystery gift provided by another Rotary Club. Tickets were $5.
The lucky winner was MEG SOLERA, who was pleasantly surprised by a coffee-table quality book of
New Yorker Magazine cartoons.
Finemaster BAIDRA MURPHY, assisted by duck-bucket carrier STEVE FICK, “recognized” a number of people. PAT GRAY was fined for her birthday (which she celebrated by getting CERT training.) BARBARA DUNCAN was fine for getting married on Saturday. (Congratulations, Barbara!) JOANNE KAVALARIS was fined because her photograph was on the cover of the Los Altos Town Crier. ALAN LAMBERT was fined, even though he correctly answered the question of when the bikini was introduced (1946).
KENDRA GJERSETH demanded that SAM PESNER be fined for stealing her joke – and for telling it with less skill than she had done during her Relay for Life bartending gig.
Then began a curious sequence of questions to our sweet, innocent Rotarians. When did Jessie Owen win his Olympic Gold Medal? Not just what year – what date? What year – and date – did Columbus sail for the New World? What year – and date – did Rossini’s “William Tell” opera debut? Your fellow Rotarians – a clever lot – soon began to discern a pattern in the answers. The years in the answers were all different, but the dates were all the same – August 3. So JEANNE MACVICAR, KIM COPHER, AND BO KEARNS all correctly answered “August 3” for their fine master questions.
Finally, to the denouement of our fine master session -- A lovely Rotarian named MARY PROCHNOW was asked what day her birthday was. Surprise, surprise – it was August 3. Happy Birthday, Mary!
President-elect JOHN MOSS then introduced our program. We had three 10-minute speeches planned, but one of our speakers was unable to attend the meeting. So that left two people –DICK HENNING and STEVE FICK. By a cruel twist of fate, renowned speech maker DICK HENNING went first.
This reporter wishes she were able to repeat what he had to say. But between his swinging naked (as a youth, mind you) in front of girl scouts, putting potatoes in his jockey shorts, and travails with zippers and napkins at the senior prom – well, DICK HENNING didn’t say anything we could print. Luckily, The Rotator isn’t printed, so this reporter can at least hint at how salubrious a speech was given. And we still don’t know if the girl danced with him.
STEVE FICK said he’d just received an urgent phone call and couldn’t follow DICK HENNING at the podium. That excuse wasn’t accepted. That’s good, because his fellow Rotarians got to learn some interesting factoids about STEVE FICK. For example, we now know that he graduated from UOP in 1996 with a degree in finance and a minor in beer-drinking. We learned that after a short career “selling high interest-rate loans to individuals,” he joined Borel Bank, which had been started by his grandfather in 1865. We learned that he has three children (two boys and a girl) and is active in Little League, Peninsula Bridge, El Camino YMCA and Cub Scouts. The biggest surprise – STEVE FICK is a really big cyclist – the kind who does 100-mile-long treks. Some fellow Rotarians, who think of themselves in that category, shook their heads in wonder.
The meeting was adjourned early, at 1:20, by President SAM PESNER, who left us all with a joke that this reporter promptly forgot. (I do remember the earlier one about the chicken, the library book and the frog.)
Copyright © 2006 Los Altos Rotary Club. All rights reserved.