Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show June 12th, 2008

Greeters PP GINNY LEAR, KATHY BERRY and DAVE SNOW

Today’s meeting opened with PEN TRACIE MURRAY’s sad announcement that PP BILLY RUSSELL had just passed away.  BILLY was beloved and admired as President 1960-61 and the “eldest statesman” of our club with nearly 50 years of active LARC membership; he continued attending club meetings (thanks to the generous care of TRACIE).  PP GINNY LEAR had recently reminded us where we could visit him, and a group of LARC members en route to PP GEORGE PERHAM’s home did have a good stop-over with BILLY, tickled to see them and still sharp as a tack.  All are invited to BILLY’s memorial service at Christ Episcopal Church, 1040 Border Road, Los Altos at 2:00 PM on Monday, June 16.

  Instead of a song, KENDRA GJERSETH led a salute to the flag in honor of BILLY.
 
JOHN CARDOZA was our Cashier, “Flash” TOMANEK our photographer, and SCOTT FLEMING the sole Sergeant-at-Arms.  Today’s guests included Supervisor Liz Kniss.
 
Visiting Rotarian PP GEORGE PERHAM, who reigned over LARC in 1997-98 before moving to Paso Robles to raise hell (oops, raise grapes) at his ranch Los Voladores, was recognized as an Honorary Member of LARC. The Board of Directors had recently approved a new policy granting honorary membership to our club’s visiting Past Presidents who had moved out of the area, so they can always return to LARC meetings.  BUD OLIVER reminded us of GEORGE’s “horse brass” theme for his President’s Club, and GEORGE quipped how much fun it was to see “all you old people”. 
 
PRES JOHN (soon to be Ex Pres, since this meeting is “X minus 2” according to JOHN) recognized several people for their service in District 5170 this year: PP MARY PROCHNOW for her work on Population and Development; PP DUDE ANGIUS for 20 years of dedication to AIDS education and prevention which will be honored June 21 by the AIDS Coalition of Silicon Valley; PP GINNY LEAR as Area 10 Trainer for Youth Protection Awareness , PP MARLENE COWAN as Area 10 Membership Rep; BONNIE BURDETT for her work on Project Share Life; and ALLART LIGTENBERG for his work on Water, Health, Hunger, Solar coordination.
 
LARC will sponsor four students to Camp RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), and all LARC members are invited to the students’ barbecue dinner at Camp RYLA, on Thursday evening, June 19 in Boulder Creek. Their great spirit is contagious and the evening very enjoyable! Please contact PRES JOHN ASAP if you wish to attend.

The long lineup of announcements attests to the energetic activity in this club (or was it due to the frantic X minus 2 calendar):
WCS will hold its final meeting of the year on Tues, June 24, 11:30 am at Chef Chu’s. Please RSVP now to ROLAND PAYNE.

Three spots are open in the Golf Tournament at Moffett Field. Contact PP STEVE ANDERSON.

The Los Altos Village Association needs volunteers for the Los Altos Art and Wine Festival, July 12 & 13. Contact NANCY DUNAWAY.
LARC also needs 24 volunteers to sell Chef Chu’s chicken salad at the Los Altos Art and Wine Festival. Contact JACK KELLY. There will be a clip board circulating around the meeting for the next few weeks.  But You can also sign up on the website to get the best shifts.

VAL CARPENTER presented a club banner from the Pennsylvania club where she recently enjoyed doing a make-up.

PEN TRACIE MURRAY reminded us that there is one position open on the LAREF (Los Altos Rotary Endowment Fund) Board and one candidate, Jean Mordo.  With PP SAM PESNER making sure that parliamentary procedure was followed properly, Jerry TOMANEK moved to close the nominations and the club agreed unanimously.  Voting will take place at the LARC luncheon next Thursday.

A car wash benefiting the Relay for Life will be held at 2 pm, Thursday, June 19 at Lozano Brushless Car Wash on El Camino Real. “No need for you to wear your bathing suit,” quipped KATHY BERRY.  She also announced that all the relay laps are now covered by the Rotary Ramblers.

KENDRA GJERSETH found a $10 bill on June 1, the day that LEE LYNCH passed away, and wishes to use it for a meaningful purpose. She plans to honor LEE with a luminaria at the Relay for Life and calls on each LARC member to match this $10 contribution for a luminaria.

LAREF and The Los Altos Town Crier have established the Lee Lynch Memorial Scholarship fund to be awarded to a high school student with an outstanding record of community service. Contribution checks, payable to LAREF, should be given to LAREF President Dennis Young or mailed to the LARC post office box.

RSVP’s for the Kick-Out Dinner on Friday, June 27 are urgently needed from each and every LARC member, whether attending or not, using the LARC website (www.losaltosrotary.org). PP SAM must soon inform the LA Golf and Country Club of our head count. Payment can be made by check or a credit card authorization faxed to SAM PESNER’s office (650-941-9980); credit card payments cannot be made online. Every LARC member is strongly encouraged to attend and make the evening a fun and memorable conclusion for PRES JOHN.  To maintain this banquet price, each member is responsible for paying the Kick-Out fee of $55, whether attending or not. Let’s not keep PP SAM on pins and needles; please RSVP on the website today.

Webmaster, MATT CABOT is looking for a few good men and women to write for the Rotator.  It would be your duty to write the Rotator in a creative and imaginative style about once every 7 weeks.   This is your chance to shine in a very rewarding effort.  Take a look at the "Rotator Style Sheet" for the simple guidelines.  Please let Matt know as the schedule for the new Rotary Year is being prepared. 

Ten Minutes with Matt Cabot
MATT cited the seven most important influences in his busy life. The first, and most important influence, is his wife of 46 years, Christine, so he jokingly referred to “BC” as “before he met Chris”. Second, is his faith and the Christ Episcopal Church. Third is his family of five children aged 28-44 and his ten grandchildren. His eldest son received a Rotary scholarship before Matt became a LARC member. Fourth is soccer, since Matt played soccer 40 years and coached 25 years. Fifth is theater where he has been involved with lighting, sound and set building and was the first Technical Director for the Peninsula Youth Theater. The sixth influence is computers, as he was responsible for  accounting at US Steel using a 4K computer and is now webmaster for LARC and PNG (thank you so much, Matt!) Seventh is Rotary which he joined in 1987, left to work in Oakland and returned at PP FIROOZ GHAFFARI’S insistence.  Seeing how much is accomplished by LARC’s one hundred committees, he learned that “Rotary is about service.”
 

Recognition, whether you wanted it or not, was carried out by Finemaster PP SAM HARDING. He began by recognizing PP STEVE ANDERSON for his very accurate accounting, which was later questioned by a few of his fining victims.  PP VICTORIA EMMONS took the lead from JEAN MORDO and JERRY MOISION as Top Giver by rounding up her contribution to $300 to celebrate her recent appointment as CEO of the Community Health Partnership in Santa Clara. TOM LISTON joined the President’s Club to celebrate his 50th anniversary, as did DAN O’DONNELL for his 56th wedding anniversary.  Others who joined the “star” club included PAUL NYBERG, CAREW MCFALL and KEVIN PHILIPS.  When JERRY TOMANEK was called upon to join the President’s Club, he reminded the Secretary that he had already done so when his daughter passed the bar, that accusing him of a balance due was a “base canard”, and more directly, “I ain’t payin’!” Those inclined toward legal and literary refinement will find “canard” in Webster’s dictionary.
 

“Globalism in Education” was presented by today’s speaker, John Swenson, Vice President of De Anza Community College, President of the Faculty Association and Dean of Language Arts. He cited the 65 language groups spoken on campus, the 1,400 international students studying there on F-1 visas and the 1000 students who are dependants of foreign workers. These international students do not displace any American students, and instead pay over $5,800/year for the same classes that Americans who are Californian residents get for about $800/year. The Foothill-De Anza College District enjoys the highest transfer rate to UC campuses of all 109 California community colleges, thus demonstrating the excellent quality of our local educational institution.
Swenson’s expertise lies in recent Vietnamese history, and 9% of De Anza’s students are of Vietnamese origin. He encouraged all community members to request a free Community Library Card to use De Anza’s Vietnamese library and the Current Conflicts Collection which focuses on Iraq and Afghanistan. He announced that four spots are still open for a one month study trip to Vietnam, reminding us that at De Anza’s two sister colleges in Saigon and Hanoi, 70% of all classes are taught in English. The study trip cost is $3,000 including airfare, $1000 of which is automatically covered by a scholarship fund for qualified students.
Other countries contributing to globalism at De Anza include China with 102 Chinese students on campus, Mexico with a bilingual journalism curriculum planned at the University of Merida next summer, Belize offering environmental internships at the “Green Preserve”, and India representing 6% of De Anza’s student population. Swenson, an instructor on campus, recommended reading “Dispatches” by Michael Herr, “the most powerful book I have ever read”, “A Bright Shining Lie” by Neal Sheehan, and “We Were Soldiers Once, and Young” by Joe Galloway.
 
After numerous questions, PRES JOHN adjourned this X minus 2 meeting, on time, of course. 

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