Rotator eNewsletter

Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

September 17th 2009

Writer: Karen Gessert - Photographer: Steve Pomeroy - Editor: Cindy Luedtke

This Thursday's Program: Sep 24 2009 Rich Casey Child AIDS Prevention

The meeting began right on time this week with a resounding “Good Afternoon” from President TRACIE. Members were greeted by BEVERLY TUCKER, AL LIGTENBERG, and LEW FRASER. VAL CARPENTER lead the Pledge, PP SETH MANNING did the thought for the day, and JOHN SYLVESTER lead the group in Take Me Out To the Ball Game.

PE DENNIS YOUNG then called for visitors and guests. There were no visiting Rotarians for the day. Rotarians KENDRA GJERSETH, STUART BOWEN, ROY JONES, and ABBY AHRENS all brought guests.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
President TRACIE MURRAY reminded the club about attendance requirements. Please email your make-ups to KENDRA GJERSETH. If you have less than 50% attendance TRACIE will send you an email reminder at the end of the month. This is not meant to offend anybody, just a friendly heads up.

RICH CASEY gave a preview of his speech for next week. He would like feedback on the Child AIDS Prevention presentation from next week because this presentation will go to other clubs. There is an AIDS Prevention fundraiser on October 11th (Sunday afternoon) for appetizers and cocktails ($125 per person, and more information to follow). STUART BOWEN recognized the Rotarians who helped with the Community Picnic last weekend. It was a big success.

FRANK VERLOT announced the World Community Services meeting Tuesday, September 22nd at 8:00am at First Republic Bank.

PP DUDE ANGIUS is not an alcoholic and is using a new shock therapy system to help with his legs and back.

LARRY CHU is recruiting for the new softball season; if you are interested please contact him for more information.

PP DICK DUHRING announced an evening of poetry and music at the Los Altos Library on Friday, August 19th.

ABBY AHRENS 10 MINUTE TALK:
ABBY gave an excellent 10 minute talk starting with her high school days. She was very active in high school participating in debate, science team, girl scouts, and forensics team. She then attended Lake Erie College which is an all girls school. Their motto is “Get in and Stand Out”.
She has four children (two girls and two boys) and nine grandchildren. She strived to teach her children to be the best you can be. Her family is completed by two dogs (Paris and Bone Apart).
ABBY has had a long and successful career in real estate and design. She has been in the business for 40 years and her first office was Abigail Residences and Romantiques. She has designed and decorated many Los Altos and Bay Area homes that have received recognition in magazines and newspapers.
ABBY and her family lived in Williamsburg, Virginia for three years which has been an inspiration in her decorating and designs.
She is extremely active in local charities, especially the Ronald McDonald House.

And from Allart Ligtenberg on the Solar project he demonstrated at the Community Picnic:

The sun did not quite cooperate with our Solar Rotary booth, with popcorn in the parabolic cooker, chocolate chip cookies in the box cooker and our dinner in the cardboard „Cookit“ fold-up cooker. (At the ArtShow we did solar cookies batches every 15 minutes and popcorn every 5 minutes). However we got a lot of traffic of interested people and explained how these cookers work, how WCS is „making a difference“ in Nepal, Indonesia, Mexico and other countries. Also we promoted solar cookers for Emergency Preparedness - providing safe water and healthy food when utilities are down. Thanks for manning our booth to Kathy Berry, Allart and Ineke Ligtenberg, Marv Patterson, Roland Payne and Jason Sanborn.

BTW, Look for Allart's updates on his trip to Nepal et al here and on our webpage. Allart will be gone two months doing his valuable work. Hopefully he can send some pictures, but that will depend on the network connections he has access to.

RECOGNITION:

PP CINDY LUEDTKE was the fine master and ESTER NG assisted with the duck bucket.

ABBY AHRENS was first up and paid $10 for her speech, but she did note that she has paid dues, paid the initiation fee, joined the Presidents Club and is now broke. Since “it isn’t about the money, but recognition” CINDY let her go without a fine.
VAL CARPENTER paid $20 for the success of the Community Picnic for which she was chair; 1,000 people were in attendance.
STUART BOWEN received a round of applause for staffing the community picnic and paid a $30 fine for his success.
PAUL SCHUTZ had a busy weekend organizing the parking fundraiser for the Mountain View Art and Wine Festival and raised $7000 for CHAC. He paid $20 fine for his success and as a “Thank you” for the help received from fellow Rotarians.

There were a lot of anniversaries to celebrate this meeting.

PP SAM PESNER paid $32 for his 31st wedding anniversary with wife LOU (one extra dollar for good measure).
JACK HIGGINS paid a $22 fine for his 11 year anniversary. He paid twice as much since he needed the reminder.
GREG DABB started off with the fact that Rotary and his Father forgot about his birthday back in July, but Sunday was his fifth wedding anniversary. He paid ten times this for his wedded bliss, offering a fine of $50.
PP MEL KAHN paid $20 for his birthday.
PP STEVE YARBROUGH paid $30 for his customary annual announcement of his anniversary of living in sin; This year marks his 17th.
LEN MCBIRNEY spent six hours in the hospital and it cost him $7800, so how much did we want from him for standing up? The amount was $10 in honor of his September birthday (Again, not about the money).
PP DUDE ANGIUS fined himself $10 for making fun of PP MEL KAHN at last week’s meeting. He had to do this since MEL wasn’t at the meeting last week and didn’t want him to not know about it.
MONA ARMISTEAD paid $20 for her fishing trip to Alaska, where she and her husband caught the same fish at the same time.

Having just gotten back from a trip to New York City, PP CINDY asked people to volunteer their favorite New York City experiences.

Newest member, JASON SANBORN offered his first fine of $20 for his best moment: going to the top of the World Trade Center.
The last time BAIDRA MURPHY was in New York she attended the awards ceremony where the Rotary AIDS Project won a Peabody Award. She paid $20 in honor of the 20-year anniversary of the Rotary AIDS Project and her amazing experiences in New York City.
JULIE ROSE donated $20 in memory of her first college roommate who travelled with her to New York City for the first time. This dear friend just passed away last week.

SPEAKER:

PP BOB ADAMS introduced the speaker for the day – Dan McClure who is the CEO and creator of a non-profit organization called Generations Community Wellness.

Dan started the program off today with a modified chicken dance to get the crowd up

and involved in the presentation. He then taught the groups how to use the best piece of exercise equipment ever – a high-backed chair. He led the group in seated abdominal exercises, rotation and deceleration exercises, and the best exercise you can ever do – Stand Ups. His emphasis was on raising one’s heart rate for a moderate amount of time (30 minutes cumulative) most days of the week. If you follow this principle you can reduce nursing home dependency by 85%.

At this point President TRACIE MURRAY interjected a quick reminder not to do these exercises. Dan’s mission through his non-profit is “to combat the phenomenal rise in preventable diseases such as obesity and type II diabetes, both associated with inactivity and poor nutrition.” He believes that diet and exercise are preventative measures for many health issues later in life. For more information please visit his website: www.generations-centers.org.

template updated: 06/27/08