Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show October 1st, 2009

Writer: Michael Stadlen - Photographer: Steve Yarbrough - Editor:  Cindy Luedtke

This Thursday's Program: Oct 8 2009 Gerta Mosse A Holocaust Survivor

The front lobby was full of smiling Rotarians, as usual.  Greeting members and guests were KAREN OWEN, STEVE FICK, and CHUCK LINDAUER.  Handling all the important financial details was WYATT ALLEN.
 
After 3 months as President, TRACIE MURRAY has trained the whole Club to respond enthusiastically to her opening statement of welcome, which she regaled us with at precisely 12:15.  TOM LISTON took the lead in the Pledge of Allegiance.  SCOTT FLEMING read us a quote from John Muir, which was in keeping with the wonderful new Ken Burns series on our National Park system.  And JEANNE MacVICAR led the Club in serenading all members who have birthdays in September or October.

Our first visiting Rotarian was NILS-GUSTAV HOGLUND from Karis, Finland.  NILES, as he likes to be called, is President of his 42-member club and is in the construction business.  Next was YORIKO KISHIMOTO from the Palo Alto club.  She is a Member of the City Council and a candidate for the State Assembly.  Last was MIKE GRANDY, but neither your reporter nor any of his table-mates heard where he was from.  Sorry, MIKE!
 
Members with guests included BOB ADAMS (MVLA School District Trustee Susan Sweeley and retired Plastic Surgeon John Nicholson), JEANNE MacVICAR (Husband Duncan), and PAUL NYBERG (wife Liz).

ANNOUNCEMENTS 

• DENNIS YOUNG presented STEWART BOWEN with a check from the Red Badgers for the Gardner-Bullis School fund.   We’re told this was a down payment and that more is to follow.  Stay tuned!
• JOHN SYLVESTER reported that this month’s Social evening will be at AL TRAFICANTI’s home on October 30 from 6-8 PM.  He also encouraged us all to come see this year’s Bus Barn Follies from October 8-10 – particularly since he and Duncan MacVicar are in the show.
• KAILAS CHIDAMBARAM told us about the Coaniquem Burn Center in Chile, which he and BRUCE CANN have been involved in for some time.  For $700 per year, one can finance the care of a child at Coaniquem – most of home have been badly burned in household accidents.  Thanks to STEVE YARBOROUGH, BRUCE CANN and BILL MOISON, two children have already been provided for this year.  KAILAS was kept very busy during the meeting selling raffle tickets and collecting lots of money for the burn center.  Coaniquem will have its major fund-raising event soon in San Francisco, and we are encouraged to support this fine organization.  The ticket price for the event will be $75.

Kailas Sent this update email to all WCS members:

Dear Pres. Tracie & WCS Members
I am happy to report that our Club members have donated and/or pledged a total of  $2,125.00 towards supporting the work of Coaniquem Burn Children Foundation
in Santiago, Chile. This will allow us to rehab three burn victims for the year.   PDG Carolyn Schuetz, as Director of the Foundation has accepted my invitation to attend our lunch meeting Thurs 15 October. I have asked her to give a 10 min talk on the work of the Burn Centers and accept the Club member donations from you.   I shall make a final appeal for donations at our lunch meeting Thurs 08 October and expect the final total to be presented to be greater than the $2,125.00 collected to date.

• JULIE ROSE encouraged us to patronize the Fall Festival run by the Chamber of Commerce this past weekend, since she has been working very hard to put it together for several months.  Of course, by the time you read this it will be too late to attend, so hopefully you already got to enjoy the festivities!
• MARY PROCHNOW reminded us of the October 11 event at the Crowne Plaza for HIV / AIDS program.  And it also marks the 20th anniversary of RAP.  Robin Young, the talented producer responsible for the Los Altos Story DVD will be attending from Boston.  Greg Hoblit son of PP HAL HOBLIT and also a superb film producer will also be there.

PP MARY PROCHNOW'S announcement was enforced by an email I received several days later:

"One dose, one dollar, one life saved!" Please plan on joining us next Sunday  (October 11th) for several reasons. First and foremost is to save lives; secondly, to honor and learn from three giants in the AIDS world; and lastly, to socialize with each other while paying tribute to two people who played a huge role in putting LARC on the Rotary International map.

Many of the present membership were not in the club twenty years ago when these remarkable people came into our lives. Here is your chance to meet and honor them. The Twentieth Anniversary of The Los Altos Story is a significant event for all of us, but especially for the two professionals who breathed life into the Project. Robin Young is flying in from Boson to be with us, as is Greg Hoblit from Hollywood.

Again, please plan on joining us to illustrate what a great club is all about!

Many thanks,

Dude Angius
PP -- LARAP

For more information:
www.rotaryaidsproject.org/raptwentyyear.html

• TRACIE MURRAY had the last word and reminded us to sign up for the Avenues of Service conference.

RECOGNITION

KURT HUEG reminded the Club that Recognition is not about the money and then proceeded to extract quite a bit of it from his victims – whoops, I meant volunteers. Trivial factoids about Cal, Stanford, and the Pac-10 seemed to be the theme of the day.

• KURT began by fining himself $40 for missing several recent meetings, but also because his daughter just turned 3.
• DICK DUHRING, who was raised in Berkeley AND went to Cal, knew that OSKY is the school mascot.  Furthermore, he knew that the name was derived from an old school yell.  He then sang it for us, and was rewarded / excused with no fine.
• ROGER ENG contributed $40 for not knowing the Stanford mascot.
• PAUL NYBERG also chipped in $20 for not knowing Stanford mascot (less than Roger because he is a CAL man).
• Side note from Kurt: there is no “official” Stanford mascot – it’s not the Cardinal or the Tree (El Palo Alto)
• SHELLY POTVIN was dinged $30 for not knowing the UCLA mascot (Joe and Josephine Bruin).
• ESTER NG, who is a financial whiz, was fined $30 for not knowing the signs that made Ben Bernanke announce that the recession is over.
• RICK GLAZE paid $25 for “not being sure” the market is really going up.  But he is also celebrating his daughter Amanda’s getting & starting a new job at a production company in Los Angeles.
• PHIL ROSE coughed up $30 for not knowing the recession started in 2007 or that 6.9 million jobs have been lost.
• COETA CHAMBERS had to fork over $30 for revealing that because there was no money for lawyers in “unemployment law” she chose "employment law".
• BARRY GROVES was happy to pay $30 to celebrate the start of a new school year.  This year, there are 3,842 kids in the district, and its API scores are up 20 points this year.  Newsweek recently rated 2,500 US High Schools, and LAHS came in at #372, MVHS at #561 – pretty good, huh?
 

GUEST SPEAKER

Abby Longcor, Supervisor of the innovative Beyond The Bell (BTB) program in the Mountain View Whisman School District (MVWSD), introduced us to BTB with an informative slide presentation and a lively Question & Answer session.  Abby grew up in Mountain View and has also lived in Spain and Costa Rica, so she is fluent in Spanish. As we learned about BTB, it became obvious why both of these backgrounds have equipped her well for doing this job.  Rather than re-stating the content of her slides here, her presentation is available to you at the following URL: http://www.losaltosrotary.org/2009-2010/BeyondTheBell.ppt

Here is a brief summary of some of the most interesting questions that were raised and discussed:

• BTB is only in its 3rd year, so it’s too early to have any before & after statistics showing the performance of its students in their regular classroom studies.
• All BTB sessions are conducted in English, which provides the ESL students with additional opportunities for improving their language skills.
• Children are selected for invitation into the program based on recommendations from their schools, whether they are not performing at their grade level, and judgments about which kids can benefit the most.
• In order to remain in the program, students must attend every day and their parents must come to a series of meetings & conferences with the teachers.
• Volunteers must be screened for Tuberculosis but fingerprinting is not required, since they are never alone with the children.
• The Staff demographics match the mix of students in the program.  There are always Spanish-speaking adults present during BTB sessions.
• Turnover of students has not been a problem so far.  Parents take the program very seriously, and they appreciate that it is offered without charge.
• BARRY GROVES mentioned how much he appreciates the program, since it helps prepare these children for their entry into High School.
• BTB is funded jointly by MVWSD & the City of Mountain View.  They also currently receive a grant from the State of California.  Total funding is close to $700K ($450K by MVWSD and $250K by Mountain View).
• BTB hasn’t expanded to other schools yet, because the terms of the grant from the State require that at least 50% of a school’s population must be on the Free / Reduced-cost Lunch program.
• Some sites have dedicated facilities for the program.  In others, regular classrooms are used for academic classes only, and great care is taken not to disturb the premises.  And lots of BTB activities are held outside.
• More volunteers are always needed for many different jobs.  Contact Abby for more information.

As a final comment, Abby mentioned that she is a product of the Mountain View school system, and feels that she was very well-prepared for college and entry into her career (as were many other graduates she knows).

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