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

 
As we fast approach spring, and the club enjoyed a lovely spring day, President SETH MANNING chimed meeting to order promptly at 12:15 p.m..  
 
Arriving Rotarians had been met by a gaggle of greeters; AL LIGTENBERG, GARY MAGGARD, PAT FARRELL and GOERGE ZETINA.
 
GEORGE STAFFORD led the Pledge of Allegiance and KAREN FOX gave the thought for the day. Her message was; as a person progresses through life, this person should be just and give good advice and die without regrets.
 
Song-meister JEANNE MACVICAR sees St. Pat’s day coming, and led us in “I’m Looking Over a Four-leaf Clover..”
 
President-Elect, TRACIE MURRAY called on visiting Rotarians..  We were visited by Bob from Santa Clara and Al from Palo Alto.  Our former member, David Dye, visited us from his new club, San Francisco #2.  JULIE ROSE was the only Rotarian with a guest (of the club) this week. 
 
 
ANNOUNCEMENTS
KAREN GESSERT announced that the Bocce Ball tournament for Saturday March 14 was a sellout, and asked a few remaining folks to pay the fees. 
 
DAVID SMITH reminded us that April 25 has been designated by Rotary International as “Rotarians at Work Day,” and every Rotarian is encouraged to work on a community project that day.  One project our club may work on is to paint the Gazebo in Lincoln Park just prior to our May Art show.  In addition, CSA (Community Service Agency) is way down in food donations, and another project will be to go to markets and greet shoppers on the way in and encourage them to buy something extra to donate to CSA on the way out.
 
TRACIE MURRAY announced that we are supporting a charity bike ride on May 3, and she is looking for help to staff a refreshment stop at the Chamber office.
 
KENDRA GJERSETH announced that plans for the April 25 Progressive dinner (at the end of your Rotarian Work day) are proceeding nicely, and we have all the food lined up.  However, she needs two more houses in the downtown area to host; just provide a locale, all the food is covered.
 
MIKE ABRAMS announced that the first annual Los Altos Talent Show was a success and warned us to start getting ready for next year.
 
 
SNOOZIN’ THROUGH PETS
President Elect TRACIE stepped up to report on her sessions at PETS (President Elects Training Sessions).  It was more than she was ready for.  TRACIE was thrilled, energized, excited stoked, pumped, and scary crazy after her time at PETS.  She bought all the Rotary paraphernalia, (scarf, jacket, shirt, keychain, toilet plunger), and even got the Rotary Prez tattoo.  She gave us an update on Polio eradication; from 1000 new cases per day in 1985, we are down to 1600 for the whole year of 2008.  We are down to only four countries, and we may finish the job in TRACIE’s year. 

TRACIE reported that after seeing Rotary in action, the Bill Gates Foundation gave Rotary $255 million, because Gates saw that this was the organization that did the most with the money it had.  Following Gates, the UK gave Rotary $130 million, and Germany gave $150 million.  TRACIE got the club so excited that DENNIS YOUNG bemoaned that he has to wait 475 days until he can be President.
  
BUTTON, BUTTON, WHO HAS THE UMBRELLA? PP MARLENE COWAN asks via email who picked up her First Republic Bank green umbrella for her?  Please  bring it to the meeting this Thursday.  Thanks. 

TEN MINUTE TALK
STUART BOWEN stepped up to give his ten minute talk (with slide show).  STUART’s family hails from Athens Georgia, and his dad flew fighter jets in the Air Force.  As a result, STUART’s family moved all over the world. STUART was born on a base in Germany and grew up near Chicago.  He moved to San Ramon, but then back to Georgia.  In high school he covered a lot of activities, and threw discus and shot put in high school. 

He went to Auburn University, but dropped out to learn the ways of the world, eventually coming back to the Bay Area where some of his family had stayed.  He got married in 1996, to a lovely lady he met on www.match.com, (making him probably the oldest person any of us know who met his spouse on the internet).  STUART initiated a long career in food service at the Italian Deli on Main Street, and also covered the KFC that used to be at First & Main.  He moved to the high-tech field and spent 18 years in that business, the last, at Applied Materials.  The 2001 downturn spurred him to get into the real estate business, which he has done with his mother as part of Bowen and Buchanan since 2001.
 
 
RECOGNITION:
Like the proverbial bad penny, past president SAM PESNER turned up again, this time as fine master.  Thankfully, the fine masters in charge had forbidden any jokes, so SAM initiated another round of Rotary Jeopardy.  The categories were LARC, 1949, and something unpronounceable. 

SAM lobbed out some softball questions, like who was the President of Rotary International in 1949 when the LARC club was first chartered.  If was shocking and disappointing to see how many members of our club could not handle a few simple questions like that (or even pronounce category 3).  MONA ARMISTEAD, JOHN CARDOZA, JEAN NEWTON-FRUGAGLIA, PAT HYLAND, AL LIGTENBERG, JOANNA MEDIN, BEVERLY TUCKER, MARGE SENTOUS and SANDY WHIPPLE all fell prey to SAM’s, wily answer-and-question ploy.
 
 
THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: ROTARY SPEECH CONTEST
Whoops!  We had a bit of a mix-up, and the speech contest was NOT held today.  Instead, emergency presenters PAT HYLAND and KURT HUEG stepped in to give us:
 
THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: RENEWAL AND GROWTH AT FOOTHILL COLLEGE
PAT and KURT even brought slides to show all the new things growing at Foothill.  Fortunately, bond money voted in years ago is still available (despite current budget problems) to fund renovations. And Foothill is ready for some rebuilding and expansion.  Foothill was built in 1957, and De Anza in 1963.  Foothill has just built a new student center, which is likely to win architecture awards (just as the original campus did in 1957). 

Foothill now serves 35,000 students in many paths; the path to a four-year BA, the path to a 2-year AA and many career training paths, such as paramedic, dental technician and EMT training.  One area of critical focus is remedial math and reading skills.  A large percentage of students coming out of high school do not have 12th grade reading skills.  Only 25% of the students who lack these skills are able to complete their first year courses at the college level.  To improve their chances for success in any of the colleges, the community colleges are expanding tutorial and remedial classes to get these students up to the skill levels they need for college. 

Voters also gave the schools a $490 million bond that is being used at Foothill for new buildings, including a set of Science and Math buildings that will be “bridged” to the main campus.  Foothill also promotes its Middlefield Campus in Palo Alto, which promotes “workforce development” and English language development.  As KURT noted, this is the equivalent of “trade school” training that gives students valuable work and trade skills for those who are not inclined to follow the traditional four-year college path.  PAT also announced the news that Foothill, along with UC Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and other universities, was opening a new science and engineering facility at the old Moffett field site (this was announced in a press release the next day). 
 
PAT and KURT fielded a slew of questions from interested club members, right up to 1:30 when President SETH stepped in to chime the meeting to a close at 1:30.

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