Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show February 12 2009

A warm welcome was given by several greeters: JACK KELLY, JOE LOCONTE, STEVE SHEPHERD, and a last-minute entrant red badger… please forgive the writer for not noting. The Pledge was led by PP JACK HEIDMILLER.

Thought of the Day was given by JOANNA MEDIN – Since St. Valentine’s Day is about sharing, JOANNA asked us all to turn to the person next to us and share something that they may know (family, hobby, something they may not know about you, something that’s not at Rotary or something that makes you smile). This Rotator writer will never tell what she learned that day about her neighbor (you know who you are)! The song of the day was in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday – The Battle Hymn of the Republic – led by JOHN MCDONNELL.
 
PE TRACIE led guest introductions; there were no visiting Rotarians and several Rotarians with guests.  

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Announcements were next and first off: We’re having a food drive all of February. The Mt. View Kiwanis club has a big red barrel in our foyer for us to fill with food. So far, team, it’s empty. Let’s do our best to fill ‘er up! It will be there for a couple more weeks, so please bring non perishable food items and show them what we can do. 
 
DAN O’DONNELL announced that he was overwhelmed with appreciation for those who signed up to be RotaCare meal drivers. DAN also noted that BOB RAYL also volunteers at RotaCare clinic and that JOHN CARDOZA volunteers on the council there, and through their efforts, they have saved $174,000. Way to go guys!

PP BOB ADAMS gave thanks to the club for its recent donation to PNG of $10,000. PNG need more mentors and tutors to accomplish their goals of supporting the youth of our community.  If  you think you might be interested in mentoring or tutoring, please contact BOB, past PNG President, MONA ARMISTEAD, ROLAND PAYNE or one of the many other PNG mentors or tutors that belong to our club. They can explain the commitment and benefit of becoming involved in Partners for New Generations.  You can also check out their website at: Partnersfornewgenerations.org.  There is a form on the website to request more information.

DAVID SMITH announced that all of Rotary International is doing a “Rotarians at Work Day” on Saturday, April 25th. Around the world, on that day, all Rotarians will do a project. He is consulting with the city to see about a project for our club. If you have an idea of a good 2-3 hour activity, please see DAVID.

PP LEN MCBIRNEY took the microphone to announce his affiliation with someone that’s interested in our club … but the writer thinks he may have wanted to be recognized instead.  We’ll get you next week, LEN!

BOARD OF DIRECTORS  Our annual election of Board of Directors was held today.  Nominees were noted in January 29th's Rotator; ballots were sent out and extra ballots were available at our meeting today.  There were 7 very qualified candidates, and three were elected to the Board for a two year term, replacing three Board members, JACK KELLY, KENDRA GJERSETH and COETA CHAMBERS.  PE TRACIE MURRAY announced the elected Board members and said she would be happy to serve with any of the seven nominees.  The elected were BONNIE BURDETT,  MARY MARLEY and JOHN SYLVESTER.  They will serve a two year term, during PE TRACIE MURRAY and PEN DENNIS YOUNG's presidental years.  Congratulations to the new Board members, and congratulations to all those nominated.  DAVID SMITH, JOHN CARDOZA and JERRY MOISON will have one more year as Directors.  Their replacement will be elected next year at this time. 

BONNIE BURDETT	MARY MARLEY	JOHN SYLVESTER

SOCIAL NETWORKING We were then given a presentation by Red Badger TATYANA KANZEVELI on Social Networking. TATYANA is interested in getting Los Altos Rotary involved in such websites as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. TATYANA noted that there are 350 Rotary Clubs on LinkedIn.  There are over 380 Rotary Club Groups and over 175 MILLION fans on Facebook, and 24 Rotary Clubs on Twitter.

In our surrounding area alone, there are 253,000 people on Facebook.  When TATYANA narrowed the demographic some and limited the age to 50+ the results were still over 10,000 people on Facebook. She suggested that we start using these viral marketing tools to build awareness, membership and help with fundraising.

Also noted was YouTube for video sharing. To find videos about our club, go to YouTube and search “Los Altos Rotary.” Currently there are only three, but she expects more in the future as we explore how Social Networking sites such as YouTube are exploited. 

The first question following TATYANA’s talk was from PP DAN DUTTON, “What are you talking about?” If you have an interest in this topic or more questions, feel free to contact her at tkanzaveli@gmail.com.
 

PROGRAM FOR THE DAY  Our program today was given by PP JOHN MOSS in PP ROY LAVE’s absence, regarding our pending bylaw changes. After much anticipation, it was announced that we will be voting next week now (Feb 19, 2009) due to more edits in the wording of the ballot and proposed changes. JOHN's slide show is available in both PPT and PDF formats on our website.  PDF VERSION   POWERPOINT VERSION. 

At the close of the meeting PP MEL KAHN did make a group apology to the visitors that our meetings aren’t THIS appealing usually… so they were experiencing us in rare form!


 
 

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