Rotator eNewsletter

Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

September 3rd 2009

Writer: John McDonnell - Photographer:Jerry Tomanek - Editor:Cindy Luedtke

This Thursday's Program: Sep 10 2009 Rushton Hurley
Rotary E Clubs

President TRACIE MURRAY chimed an overflowing meeting to order promptly at 12:15 p.m. Our club was honored today by a visit from District Governor LOREN HARPER.

Arriving Rotarians had been met by greeters STEVE KATZ and STUART BOWEN. President Elect DENNIS YOUNG led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. BAIDRA MURPHY gave us the thought for the day, a poem in honor of her grandmother, saying that “the Irish bring a little bit of heaven to earth.”

JEANNE MACVICAR brought a new spin on and old song, as we sang “ROTARY” to the tune of Row your Boat.

President Elect DENNIS YOUNG, called on visiting Rotarians. We were visited by Lee Almis, past president of his club in Florida. and Lars was visiting us (and his daughter) again for a second week. Rotarians KAREN FOX and GREG DABB introduced their guests. TRACIE introduced her guest, husband, Jerry who is recently retired. DENNIS YOUNG thanked the club for all the good will supporting his wife’s recent hip operation, and reported that she is now doing fine.

NEW MEMBER
Membership director JOHN CARDOZA announced that our club was now up to 161 members. He then introduced new member HOMA TAVERNA, who came to the U.S. from Iran and now works at Stanford. Her sponsor, MARV PATTERSON, confessed that he had not done a lot of work recruiting HOMA; she saw our booth at the Art Show and was interested in helping on the solar power items we had on display (courtesy of quiet ALLART LIGTENBERG). John noted that 6 of our recent new members had come to the U.S. from other countries.

NEW PAUL HARRIS FELLOWS
WYATT ALLEN, chair of the annual Rotary Foundation fund drive, announced several new Paul Harris Fellows. SANDY BOZICH, CINDY WEYMESS and JOANNA MEDIN were all honored as new Fellows. WYATT announced that one of our Paul Harris Fellows had reached a new $1000 plateau, and had chosen to bestow a Paul Harris honor on another. TRACIE MURRAY announced that she was bestowing this on her husband, Jerry, who has and is providing tremendous support for her year as LARC President.

WYATT announced that RICH CASEY, DAN O’DONNELL and PHIL ROSE has reached the $2,000 level and were awarded Sapphire pins. JOHN CARDOZA has reached the PH plus 2 level of $3,000. WYATT then announced that PAUL NYBERG had reached PH plus 4 for total contributions of $5,000.

WYATT also mentioned that our club has 12 major donors; those who have given $10,000 to Rotary. WYATT then introduced the 13th member to the major donor club: JERRY TOMANEK.

WYATT then announced all the club members (too numerous to name) who had already become double sustainers by giving $200 to this year’s Rotary Foundation Drive. And already we have many members going above and beyond the sustainer level. DENNIS YOUNG has given $500 to this year’s drive, and four of our members, CINDY LUEDTKE, DAVE SNOW, HINDA WEBER and JERRY TOMANEK have already given $1000 this year.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

JOHN SYLVESTER announced that the dinner was set to go forward Friday at GARY MAGGARD’s house.
DAVE SMITH reminded us of the September 18 Bus Barn party; a meeting a Maltby’s followed by tickets to see Treasure Island. Signups continue.
STUART BOWEN announced that the Community Picnic is coming up on September 13, 1-5 pm, and that we have filled up the staffing of our booth.
BILL PALMER announced that he had taken on the chair of Partners for Elder Generations, and he’d be contacting committee members to set up the next meeting.

David Smith (background) and John Sylvester

Stuart Bowen and Bill Palmer (background)

Friday, after this meeting, or was it Saturday, MATT CABOT sent out an announcement for PP STEVE ANDERSON concerning the upcoming Los Altos Green event to be held on SUNDAY September 19 at the GESCHKE's home at 220 University Avenue. Unfortunately neither Matt nor Steve thought to check the 2009 calendar where it shows September 19th this year falls on a SATURDAY, not Sunday as was stated in the e-vite. You judge who should pay for that! Anyway, it will be on a SATURDAY, and still very worthy of your attendance! -WM

RECOGNITION
MARY PROCHNOW was warmly welcomed with thunderous applause as she stepped up to recognize a few folks. MARY found she did not have much time to be creative, because just her presence inspired many members to volunteer announcements for recognition.

MARGE BRUNO announced that she would put in $40 for her recent 40th birthday.
PAT FARRELL announced his 79th birthday, his 52nd anniversary, and that he had also passed the airman’s medical test. For all this, he joined the President’s Club.
MARLENE COWAN announced that her daughter’s wedding had recently been completed successfully, and also joined the President’s Club.
KAREN FOX put in $10 to clarify that she was not “retired” so much as embarking on an unpaid sabbatical to do some writing.
JOHN MOSS happily joined the President’s Club, just to celebrate being here. He gave some details of the stroke he suffered while driving on Foothill, and heartily complimented the police officers who immediately recognized the medical problem and whisked him to the hospital.
MATT CABOT joined the club for his 47th anniversary and his daughter’s engagement.
SANDY BOZICH also joined to announce she recently started working for Bausch and Laumb and that she was married on August 8th (and honeymooned in Bora Bora).
JOAN ROSSELLE put in $20 for her recent Birthday.
LOU FRASER, acknowledging he can’t match the drama of JOHN MOSS, nevertheless mentioned that he recently had an operation to insert two stents, and they put in a third just to be careful. He joined the President’s Club now, just in case....
STEVE KATZ joined the club in honor of his 36th anniversary and a new grandchild on the way. DON HULL put in $10 for his new badge.
MARY finally got to her “theme” for recognition. Her grandparents came from Ireland to San Francisco in April 1906 (great timing). Mary imposed a modest fine on BONNIE BURDETT who knew, with a little prompting, that San Francisco Club was the #2 Rotary club in the world.
JERRY TOMANEK was fined for not knowing that it was formed in 1908 because Paul Harris had a friend in San Francisco, and believed a Rotary club would help the city rebuild.

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: DISTRICT GOVERNOR LOREN HARPER

The club was honored by a visit from District Governor Harper, who opened by noting that in the distant past, he began his high school life being coached by DUDE ANGIUS (who promptly pointed out that he had a lot of good athletes like LOREN, not just short guys like MEL KAHN).
The Governor then gave a short description of Rotary: the one sentence answers, sometimes called "elevator answers" that any new Red Badger can give quickly and succinctly when asked about Rotary:

“What is Rotary?” It is one of the largest international humanitarian service organizations.
“Who are Rotarians?” A global network of business professionals and community service leaders.
“What does Rotary do?” (a lot) Rotary promotes peace and international understanding through service programs.

He said that after these answers are given, every Rotarian should ask the questioner: What service club do you belong to? He pointed out that the biggest reason folks give for not joining Rotary sooner is “No one ever asked me.”

The Governor pointed out that this year’s theme, by RI president John Kinney, is “The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands.” The Governor has a sub-theme; “The children are the future of Rotary.” The Governor strongly supports all the youth programs. He particularly mentioned the program to rescue abandoned young people in South America, and showed the picture of one rescued victim, Natalia in Brazil. The problem Rotary encountered in Brazil, was that the judges who controlled programs for homeless youth were selling the kids to dealers for $10,000. Governor Harper was able to get Santa Clara Judge Len Edwards (a Los Altan) to travel to Brazil to meet with judges and convince them to release some children to the Rotary program. Judge Edwards was able to have100 released, and since that time, Rotary has been able to obtain the release of 1200 more children.

He pointed out that our District 5170 Interact Group is the largest Interact Club in Rotary, with 6500 Interactors. They have raised over $250,000 to support our district programs. Four of these Interactors were brought to the RI Convention in England, and addressed the assembly to explain the successes of their programs. Many of the worldwide district governors wanted them to come to their districts to help describe how to implement a successful Interact program.

Governor Harper then thanked our club for the many members who are active at the District Level. He thanked DUDE, MARLENE COWAN and ALLART, and apologized for any he missed. He also thanked MARY MARLEY for the support she is giving to ARLEY on the path to becoming District Governor soon.

Governor Harper closed with a quote from past RI president Rick King; “ Where Rotary is, there is less disease, less hunger, less thirst, less want. Where Rotary is, there is more hope, more life, more peace.”

And remember; the future of Rotary is in YOUR hands.

On that note of encouragement, President TRACIE thanked the Governor and chimed the meeting to a close at 1:25.

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