Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show January 9th, 2009

Our first meeting of the New Year brought in a great turnout, and President SETH MANNING chimed meeting to order promptly at 12:15 p.m.  
 
Arriving Rotarians had been greeted by JOHN MOSS, and STUART BOWEN.
 
BRUCE CANN led the Pledge of Allegiance and KATHY BERRY gave the thought for the day.  She brought in quotes from the great religions of the world showing the universal virtue of “reciprocity.”  The Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them to do you” is a guide expressed in all the great religions. 
Songmeister JOHN SYLVESTER led us in “My Country Tis of Thee.”
 
President-Elect TRACIE MURRAY was absent, so SETH called on visiting Rotarians (and called and called) until finally our one visiting Rotarian, Nick, got the mike and introduced himself.  Several Rotarians, including MARLIS MCALLISTER, PHIL ROSE, STEVE FICK and CLARI NOLET, introduced guests.  JOHN MOSS introduced his special guest, former mayor Dan Casis. 
 

THE BYLAWS Brouhaha  ROY LAVE stood up to report on the work of the bylaws committee.  A topic that often produces yawns and an opportunity to catch up with news at your table, instead, led to a surprising burst of interest.  There were four proposed changes.  The first changed the number of people the club must nominate for election to the Board.  Second was a change to require a member to be a blue-badger for two years to be eligible to run for the Board.  The third concerned the rule that the Board MAY (but not MUST) terminate a member who misses four consecutive meetings.  The change would allow members to ask the board for an excuse from the meeting requirements.  The final one was to note that many members do not meet the general attendance requirement, and the new rule would create a “full member” status for those who do; a full member would be allowed to vote, others, including red badgers, would not vote.
 
There was a great deal of opposition to these proposed changes.  MARY PROCHNOW saw no need for the two-year requirement or the need to address attendance.  MARGE BRUNO was firmly in favor of retaining voting rights for red-badgers.  JOHN CARDOZA expressed concern that the Board had not actually endorsed all these changes.  Several other members, including VAL CARPENTER, KENDRA GJERSETH, RANDY GARD and STEVE YARBROUGH endorsed the idea of full rights for Red-badgers, including any of them foolish enough to run for the board and give up any notion of free time.
 
ROY and SETH expressed the notion that the changes may need further examination and debate before the vote.  SETH announced that the vote would be a “line item vote” so that members could vote for one but against another.  After the meeting ROY sent a follow-up e-mail to members, inviting all interested members to provide further comments and discussion.
 
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Let’s start with the special announcement by JERRY TOMANEK (hey, he paid a fine for this, so we will give him a special boost).  JERRY announced that he is having an exhibit of his photographs at the Main Street Cafe.  This is thanks to PAUL NYBERG and MIKE ABRAMS who help set this up.  The spectacular works are for sale, and JERRY is donating all proceeds to support  RAP.
 
SETH announced that the Mountain View Kiwanis are promoting a food drive, and they are hoping that Mountain View and Los Altos Rotarians will jump in to help.  SETH also announced that RotaCare is having a fundraising Wine Tasting on January 15.  RotaCare is a major project of our club, and money to RotaCare supports tons of volunteer hours providing free health care to the community.  And it will be great wine,fellowship,etc.  Contact MEL KAHN to sign up.
 
MARY MARLEY announced that the red badgers would meet Thursday night. 
 
BONNIE BURDETT announced that Project Share Life is putting on a drive seeking bone marrow matches on Saturday and would like some assistance from any club members who can help. 
 
SAM PESNER announced that the Rotary Foundation drive technically ended, but members can still donate to the Rotary Foundation throughout the year.
 
JERRY MOISON announced that this year’s Fine Art Show will be on May 16 and 17; everyone save the date.
 
Later, SETH announced that DENNIS YOUNG had to go into the hospital for cancer-related surgery.  SAM PESNER visited with Dennis at his home post-surgery after the meeting. The procedure to remove a cancerous mass from his left chest was successful. Three lymph nodes were also removed and were clear. He came home the next morning, is not in pain and is his normal cheerful self. He should be back to Rotary and work in about two weeks.

RECOGNITION:   MARY MARLEY stepped up to handle fines for the first time in her life.  Her theme was “resolve to do new things at Rotary.”  She “recognized” several member announcements. 
JERRY TOMANEK was mentioned above. 
BRUCE CANN stunned the crowd by announcing that during his flight home from NY on United Airlines, be became a member of “The Club.”   As we were about to book Bruce onto Oprah for “amazing cancer-survivor stories”, Bruce explained that it was “the million mile club” for frequent fliers…still an impressive achievement. 
JOAN ROSSELLE announced that she had a routine skin test, but it caught a melanoma growth; she had it removed and happily announced he is cancer-free; the moral of the story is to contact your dermatologist and get tested. 
DAVID BERONIO also paid recognition for happily announcing that he brought his 98-year old mother home from the hospital and she is in great health.
 
MARY then called on several Rotarians to provide their resolutions to do more at Rotary.  PAT HYLAND, FRANK VERLOT, RANDY GARD, JEAN HOLLANDS, LARRY CHU, DAN O’DONNELL, STEVE FICK and ROY LAVE made new resolutions to help make Rotary better. 
 

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: RETIREMENT TIPS  CLARI NOLET introduced this week’s speaker, Pat Carney, a CPA specializing in retirement planning.

The topic of “retirement planning” covers a wide range of services that many of our club members provide. There are “retirement plans”, “estate planning”, “insurance services”, and others.  Just a few of our members would be SAM HARDING in Retirement Services, SETH MANNING and DWIGHT MATTHEWS in insurance and STEVE GRUBER in estate planning.  Of course CLARI works in financial planning for retirement.  Look first to club members for services.
 
Mr. Carney gave us a lot of information about how social security works.  He pointed out that it was originally created to allow older workers to retire, so there would be openings in the work force for the millions of unemployed younger workers in the Depression.
 
He pointed out that the government wants people to start taking benefits at age 62, because this will save the government money over the long run.  In fact half of seniors fall for this and start at 62.  It is much better to wait until 66, since this will increase total payments over the longer life retirees now live.  He recommends that the higher earner of husband and wife always wait to seek benefits.
 
He pointed out four ways to take maximum advantage of social security benefits;  
            FIRST: look for refunds on your social security statement.  Many people who worked two jobs, were self employed, or were in the military are entitled to refunds of overpayments.
            SECOND: Take advantage of the spouse benefit rules.  A spouse (e.g. wife) is entitled to half of the benefits even if she never worked.  Even if the higher earning spouse defers to age 70, the spouse may take half of the benefits earlier, before the other reached the age of 70.
            THIRD: If you did start at 62; look into the start/stop rules or suspension rules for help.  You may be able to suspend taking benefits, and get a higher benefit after the suspension.
            FOURTH: Look into withdrawing and restarting.  If you took benefits at 62, you may be entitled to return those benefits to social security and then “start fresh” at 66 and have the higher level of payments over rest of your life.  This is similar to "paying" the benefits back to the government to "buy" a higher annuity payment for the rest of your life.  This would be the least expensive and safest annuity a person could buy.
 
Mr. Carney also pointed out that there are options on what to do when your life insurance is no longer needed. Most people let the policy lapse, because the premiums get to high.   However, there is a growing secondary market where investors will buy the policy and make the higher payments to collect the proceeds later.  This is another opportunity for cash flow in retirement.
 
At the end of the presentation, President SETH reminded members that the discussions on the bylaws will continue and people should take a look at the proposals online. SETH then chimed the meeting to close at 1:30.

template updated: 06/27/08