Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show April 24th, 2008

It isn’t every day you have four Rotarians greeting you at the door after you pick up your Rotary pin and enter the club to enjoy the day’s proceedings. GREGORY DABB, DAVE SNOW, MARLENE COWAN and BO KEARNS stuck out a glad hand to start the meeting on a high level.

Once we were seated we were asked to stand again while DAN DUTTON led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and VAL CARPENTER acting as a substitute asked us all to sing an old 1892 song called “Daisy Bell.” We all know it as “A Bicycle Built for Two.”

DUDE ANGIUS provided the thought of the day and recalled a bunch of philosophers who threw philosophical comments at us.   Dude said many of Einstein’s thoughts are dedicated to our Rotarian group, which includes quotes like “Only a life lived for others is a life worth while. “

President JOHN MOSS did double duty but got off easy since there were no visiting Rotarians today. Guests of Rotarians were also in scarce quantity today, but did include JEANNE MacVICAR who introducing Alan Russell, the chair for Relay for Life.

Pres JOHN mentioned that Pres-elect SETH MANNING and he attended a district meeting on planning. “Of the 30-40 Rotary clubs in attendance, they represent a lot of commonness with Rotary goals and ideals”.

ROY JONES again suggested purchasing Rotary shirts for identification at the Art Show and those who already purchased the shirt could pick it up today and next week.

DAVID BERGMAN passed around a couple of clipboards trying to fill in the gaps in the soon-to-be-here Rotary Fine Art Show.  Just so you know, those with the lease number of jobs will be assigned one of the ones that no one signed up for, so it behooves you to contact David with at least a preference.  Otherwise... 

VAL CARPENTER announced a new experiment having a community conversation with the Los Altos Council. It’s an opportunity to share thoughts and concerns about Los Altos. The first meeting will be held April 29 from 7:00 PM to 8 PM at the Grant Park Multi-purpose room. The address is 1575 Holt Avenue.   The second meeting will be held from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM in the Hillview Community Center in Room 18. For more information call Rebecca Zito at 650-947-2620.

PAUL NYBERG spoke about churches in the bay area becoming involved with assembling care kits for Africans afflicted with AIDS.    It is an opportunity to get involved and keep AIDS-afflicted parents alive so they are able to take care of their children.  

Relay for Life – A short program JEANNE MacVICAR explained the American Cancer Society is inviting men and women between the ages of 30 to 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer to join an historic research study. The program is called “Cancer Prevention Study-3.
In any given year 1.4 million people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer and more than 550,000 people will die of the disease.

Previous studies have yielded key finding that show:  
  —The link between cigarette smoking and cancer.
  —The impact of obesity and the risk of dying of cancer.
  —The link between aspirin use and a lower risk of colon cancer.
   To better understand ways to prevent cancer, The American Cancer Society is recruiting 500,000 adults across the U. S. for a new research called Cancer Prevention Study-3.  Enrollment will take place at the Relay For Life event at Los Altos High School track June 21 from 11:00 A.M. to 3 PM.

The Los Altos site will be the only regional CPS-3 enrollment site in 2008.  It should be noted that enrollees have never been diagnosed with cancer and are willing to make a long-term commitment to the study through periodic follow-ups. Rotarians take note: You must provide a waist measurement and give a small blood sample.  

The 10-minute talk – Gregory Dabb  Self-evaluation is a process aimed at collecting and analyzing relevant and irrelevant information about a complicated subject because it concerns an analysis on you. GREGORY DABB is a latent comedian and did a fine job of locating his broad interests in life. He was prepared to explain the different career options in accordance with his wishes.

“It was a pleasure growing up,” Dabb said. “When I was 10 years old the pig I was raising won the blue ribbon at the Santa Clara County Fair”.  That provided my farm life experience. My father was a smart man and he passed that on to me.”

A lot of events changed the direction of his life. A community college was one change and an accident changed his life forever and was one inspiration for him to become a chiropractor. 

After attending the College of the Redwoods and majoring in nature through back-packing and fishing, he attended his chiropractor school in Hayward where ‘he could do, to give, and all out of abundance.”

Attending a clinic in Australia, he met a beautiful woman who was married and he talked to her for six hours at a wedding reception.  Little did he know her husband died of cancer shortly thereafter.  They got reacquainted and later he married her in Maui and they now have a two-year old daughter. “It’s a great life,” DABB exclaimed. “There are some people for whom you can make a profound difference. I learned in life everyone likes to bitch about his or her problems and you can talk to them. I feel good about being part of this group (Los Altos Rotary Club) and I thank you for having me.”

The agony of anticipation called “The Fining Period”  Future attorney, TRACIE MURRAY pulled out her “legal-ease” terms and put them in a choice ABC query and nabbed a couple of bucks from the uninformed.

GREGORY DABB for his ten-minute talk paid $75; JACK HIGGINS joined the club for $100; DAVID SMITH paid $80; BO KEARNS forked over his $100; JOHN McDONNELL got hooked for $35 and JOAN ROSSELLE paid $25. MARLIS McALLISTER said she has copies of cancelled checks, so don’t go there, and COETA CHAMBERS got off the hook free but in the end TRACIE set a new record for IOUs.  

The Main program – FACE AIDS  DUDE ANGIUS introduced two recent Stanford graduates deeply involved in the FACE-AIDS program. The program was started in 2005 when three Stanford students went to a refugee camp in Zambia. Through a request, the Los Altos Rotary Club provided funding that employed 70 HIV affected men and women in two refugee camps in Zambia.

Annie Kalt and David Ryan, working full time for FACE-AIDS, provided a slide show with interesting facts about infectious AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
“I know we are around friends when I see the pins,” said. David.   David explained how they met a grandmother in Zambia named Mama Katele with HIV and how eventually she lost her life battle to AIDS. The students started planning an income generation project that involved sewing beaded AIDS awareness pins to sell in United States.

“Treatment costs about 50 cents a day or $140 a year yet only 1 in 4 people receive treatment,” David said. “In 2007, 500,000 infants were infected by their mother and basically it’s a cycle of poverty and disease.”

Annie explained that in 2007 the program now works with 100 HIV affected men and women in rural Rwanda. In addition the FACE-AIDS campaign workers now cover more than 150 college and high school campuses across the United States.

David discussed the Comprehensive Care Clinics that are HIV/AIDS not-for-profit outpatient medical clinics (Partners in Health) now in the poorest regions of the world that include Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Siberia and Rwanda. 

The goals for 2008-2009 is to employ 100 more women and men affected by AIDS in Rwanda to make 60,000 more AIDS pins.  They also wish to recruit 100 new chapters at colleges and high schools.

The AIDS campaigns centers on the distribution of the pins made in Zambia and Rwanda. The pins are dispersed in exchange for a $5 donation that supports the work of Partners in Health.

It was suggested that each Rotarian leave a $5 donation at the table before they leave. I am glad to report that the table where I sat more than $60 was collected. 

In fact, DUDE received this email from Annie Kalk:

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