Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show March 5 2009

 
 
Past President JOHN MOSS led the pledge of allegiance after President SETH MANNING called the meeting to order at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Los Altos Rotary Club.
 
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
President Seth channeled Winston Churchill with a thought for the day, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
 
Musical master JOHN SYLVESTER led us in song with “God Bless America.”
 

VISITING ROTARIANS
President-elect TRACIE MURRAY introduced the only visiting Rotarian, Jim Varner , past district governor and a member of the Pearl Harbor Club in Hawaii.

AND GUESTS
Due to the special occasion, there were many members with their spouses as guests including DICK and Paulette HENNING, JEAN and Barbara MORDO, SETH and Marilyn MANNING, DICK and Faith DUHRING, LEN and Carolyn MCBIRNEY, TOM and Robin LISTON, ROY and Maureen JONES, BOO and Gretchen BUE, CAREW and Jean MCFALL, BUD and Ann OLIVER,  BILL and Sally PALMER, MEL and Mady KAHN, GARY and Sandy MAGGARD, SAM and Lou PESNER, and CINDY LUEDTKE with honorary member and birthday boy, DAVE LUEDTKE.  SANDY BOZICH introduced her future husband.  BONNIE BURDETT introduced her Dad, former LARC member, Nels Burdett.  Other guests were introduced by Cindy Luedtke, JOANNE KAVALARIS, DAVID BERGMAN, PHIL ROSE, and VAL CARPENTER.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
DENNIS YOUNG announced the John Gardner Awards sponsored by Los Altos Community Foundation will be held the evening of March 25th.  This year the very prestigious Silicon Valley Association of Realtor Community Service Award will be presented for the 45th time at the event to our own wonderful and charismatic DICK HENNING.
 

This was unknown at the time, but it turns out that another of our members, JACK HEIDMILLER will also be honored at the annual Gardner Awards Dinner by Los Altos Sister Cities.  To make reservations to attend the 6th Annual John W. Gardner Community Building Awards, contact the Los Altos Community Foundation by March 18th.
 
BOCCE BALL
KAREN GESSERT reminded people that last Thursday was the last day to sign up for Bocce Ball at Campo Di Bocce in Los Gatos on March 14.

FROM THE WEBMASTER:  Past Member Hugh Riddell sends greetings. You may or may not know that Hugh is going through a battle with cancer, as are a number of our members.  Hugh's daughter has set up a website link through a non profit called CaringBridge that you can go to and check up on him, send him a note or just keep him in your thoughts and prayers.  Take a look at: here, or email him directly at: Hughriddell@cs.com.  Incidentally, this organization, CaringBridgege is a good way to keep up with many of our friends in Rotary who have serious health issues. 

NEW BABY
SHELLY POTVIN and Michael Sutton are the proud parents of brand new baby boy, Wyatt Emerson Sutton. Congrats and good wishes to the family.
 
LARC 60th BIRTHDAY
President Seth acknowledged with heartfelt thanks the four people who worked so hard on producing the special event and a 10 year update to the Los Altos Rotary Club’s 50th anniversary publication: MEL KAHN, GINNY LEAR, DICK HENNING, and ROY LAVE.  “They really are amazing. If you want to get something done, they will do it,” Seth said.  But the “star of the show” was GINNY LEAR who received a bouquet of flowers for all her leadership on the project.

RECOGNITION
PP GINNY LEAR led the recognition effort by pointing out that there are only six members  left in our present-day club, who joined the club in the 1960s and, of them, only three were members of the President’s Club. So she called on PP LEN MCBIRNEY---the longest serving Rotarian in the Club---to tell us about his year as president.  He told a long, rambling story about Bill Powell and a costume with a stuck zipper that left Len (for the first time ever) short of blarney as he and Dick Henning tried to tell jokes and wing it before the club.  McBirney couldn’t “blarney” his way out of the fine so he ended up joining the President’s Club. 
 
Then it was PP LARRY MADSEN’s turn with a story about his presidency in 1972-73 where fines were given out according to the spin of the wheel.  DAN DUTTON ended up paying a “weighted” fine of $50, though it was later changed to the usually $5 fine.  Larry also gave an update on his granddaughter who is the first woman to break a 22 second record when swimming in one of her races.
 
DICK DUHRING thought it was inappropriate to fine people at a special occasion, but told us about the big event in his year that revolved around changing venues. SAM HARDING was in charge of finding a new place so the club moved from a Chinese restaurant to a Japanese one that later turned into a Chinese restaurant.  They eventually ended up at Copperwood where they stayed put for awhile.  Note: This was all before LARRY CHU joined the club.(by the way, Dick told this story much better.)  Since it was Dick’s birthday, he agreed to pay up and become a member of the President’s Club.
 
THE SPEAKER
Before DICK HENNING introduced the speaker, he said he was humbled to be the recipient of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors Community Service Award and remembered Roy Dunnett, a former member of our club, who received the very first award 45 years ago.
 
On the 60th birthday celebration of the club, Dick introduced a very special guest, Cliff Dochterman, a Past President of Rotary International, who is known worldwide as one of the pioneers of the PolioPlus program as well as for his efforts in spreading good will and world understanding as a volunteer for RI for the past 48 years.
 
Filled with anecdotes and jokes, Cliff’s speech also touched on the club’s birthday and what it meant to belong to Rotary.  During the past 60 years, this club has met over 3000 times for lunch.  Cliff told the group that the reason Rotarians go to lunch, is that someone in the room needs them and it’s important to be there when someone is going through a bad time or wants to share a happy event.  It’s the friendships in Rotary and the small and random acts of kindness that are important. 
 
Cliff also shared his experience with the PolioPlus program in Ethiopia.  In the early days of the program, one Rotarian who had polio as a child became a Paul Harris Fellow, so that he could change lives. Cliff also shared a story about Bosnia, where the power of Rotary brought food, medicine and supplies to the refugees in the war torn area.
 
“Your club has 60 years experience in changing lives, working together to change the world;  Teaching people to read, caring for the sick, guiding kids in the community, providing food for the food bank, listening to a friend, and giving encouragement to the lonely.
 
Time is a priceless gift that anyone can give and small tasks that become great and noble make a difference in people’s lives, all in the name of Rotary’s motto of ‘Service above Self’.  Rotary gives you the opportunity to build a better community and to reach out to almost anywhere around the world. 
 
The real message of the 60th anniversary is that it is a rare opportunity to Make Dreams become Real by reaching out and touching other people.  So congratulations on 60 years and may you continue to keep dreams real for people in Los Altos and throughout the world.”
 
The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 by President Seth.
 

 
JOKES
At the request of DAN O’DONNEL here are some of the jokes from Cliff’s speech, (I’ve never been able to tell a joke successfully, so hope these are right.)
 
It’s Dick Henning’s fault for why I am here.  He called me up to say he had been advertising this special program with me as a speaker, so could I please come.  Then we debated the speaker’s fee and I argued about the money.  I ended up sending him the $50 bucks.
 
I live in Moraga, that’s a Spanish name that loosely translated means ‘large mortgage’.
 
I go to a breakfast club that meets at noon. There are lots of older guys in this club who are retired.  One of the guys asked his wife if he looked 83.  She replied, no but you used to.
 
Wife says let’s go upstairs and make love.  Husband says, “Can’t do both”.
 
One of the guys was bragging about making love for one hour and 3 minutes.  Turns out that was the night they turned the clock back for day light savings time.
 

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