Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show October 2nd, 2008

What a great place to hold a Los Altos Rotary Club meeting; the Los Altos Youth Center! Whose idea was that anyway? Greeters today were MARLIS McALLISTER, VAL CARPENTER, KAREN GESSERT and MICHAEL STADLEN. In a room with no flag, MEL KAHN was the chosen one to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Thought for the day was given by DAVE SNOW. Songmeister JOHN SYLVESTER led us in a spirited rendition of “God Bless America.”

President-Elect TRACIE MURRAY called for visiting Rotarians to stand up and make themselves known to all. We had Guy, who sat next to our Guy, GUY FARTHING. The visiting Guy is a Rotarian from Wakefield, England, on his bi-annual visit to our club and another from Palo Alto. Rotarians STEVE SHEPHERD, KENDRA GJERSETH, STEVE YARBROUGH, JOHN CARDOZA, DICK DUHRING, JACK HEIDMILLER and TOM LISTON introduced their respective guests. Looks like our membership is taking JOHN CARDOZA’S recruiting challenge seriously. Good job, folks.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
President SETH thanked JEAN MORDO and his wife, Barbara, for hosting last Friday’s wine tasting event at their home and then properly praised KENDRA GJERSETH for organizing the event.

KAILAS CHIDAMBARAM said this would be his last announcement regarding Coaniquem, the Burned Children Foundation. Reason being, by the time you read this, the fund-raising event is history. He did say, however, that he will be reporting how much was raised from the event. During KAILAS’s announcement, PP SAM P, with the help of PP MARLENE C, held up pictures of the three burned children LARC supports.

Past-Prez MARLENE COWAN is encouraging LARC members to register for the STRS one-day leadership seminar on Saturday, November 8th. This training is open to all members who have not yet served as club president. Just tell President SETH or Past President MARLENE that you want to be a STAR and they will give you all the details and, better yet, they’ll even pay your way.

Membership Director JOHN CARDOZA is most concerned about your health this winter. As a matter of fact, he is so concerned, he wants ya’ll to be sure and get your flu shot on November 6th, prior to the meeting. So come early, and yes, there will be a donation expected.

Red Badge Liaison MARY MARLEY and her energetic band of Red-Badgers are holding “lots of events” to benefit the library-with-no-books at the newly-opened Gardner Bullis School. One coming up on Saturday, October 11th, is a premium wine tasting at VINO 100 in downtown Los Altos. All proceeds from this event will be used to buy books for the library. Capacity is limited, so see MARY or KAREN soon.

Past Prez ROY LAVE, billing himself as our resident cynic, took the microphone to “tell the truth” (his words) about the recent high-speed rail presentation. He suggested the proponents may have been using Lehman Bros. as their financial advisor and the true cost may be as much as twice what was presented. Stay tuned.

President SETH declared 15 minutes of fellowship. Not only is such time good for getting to know fellow members, it is also, in the opinion of your humble scribe, a time in which much club business is transacted. For example, look forward to a new Rotator Writer making his debut later this month. LOU WELLMEIER will be taking pen in hand on October 30th.

RECOGNITION
Famous financial columnist, RICK GLAZE took his turn at the mic in an attempt to raise funds for the “Nancy Glaze Vacation Fund.” His “bailout plan” didn’t require congressional approval. Volunteer donors included GEORGE ESTILL for promoting the Costume Bank as a worthwhile charity, KAREN GESSERT for becoming a certified wine instructor and JACK HEIDMILLER for his wedding anniversary. RICK then launched into his “Sub-prime Quiz” and managed to extract more cash from MIKE ABRAMS, BOO BUE, JEAN NEWTON-FRAGUGLIA and GUY FARTHING.

THE PROGRAM
Prez-Elect TRACIE MURRAY began a rather lengthy introduction of Ms. Sasha Kramer, Ph.D. By the time TRACIE finished the intro, given the list of educational, professional and academic accomplishments, I fully expected to see someone my age take the microphone rather someone younger than my 24-year-old son. Dr. Kramer is the co-founder of an organization called SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) which is dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. Dr. Kramer explained in great detail the sanitation, agricultural and environmental crises facing this beautiful country. To get more information and to view the credentials of this remarkable young lady, see www.oursoil.org.

Dr. Kramer’s presentation concluded with a performance by a young man who bested 40,000 contestants in the Haitian equivalent of American Idol. Rosemond Jolissaint sang “Children are the Hope” in his native tongue.

After the meeting, our insightful and erudite Past-Prez SAM PESNER said “this is another example of how much help is needed out there in the world.” How true.

{Copyright � 2008 Los Altos Rotary Club. All rights reserved}

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