Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show December 3rd 2009

On a beautiful, late-fall day full of sunshine, arriving Rotarians were greeted by the smiling sunshine team of ABBY AHRENS and PAUL SCHUTZ.  WYATT ALLEN continued the good cheer by smiling as he took our money for lunch!
 
On the first meeting of her sixth month as President, TRACIE MURRAY called the meeting to order with her usual cheery greeting.  We knew it was exactly 12:15, because she had already made sure that both of the wall clocks read the same.  Very thorough, eh?  KIM COPHER shared some inspiring words about the importance of gratitude, and JEANNE MacVICAR got us started on the holiday season with a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells!

 
Hal Hyde and Jerry Fitzgerald were our Visiting Rotarians.  Hal is a member of the Watsonville Rotary Club where Jerry also used to be a member.  Jerry now lives at the Forum and is a member of the Cupertino Club.  Jerry has donated over $250,000 to Rotary International over the past few years.  He is also our District's (5170) only "Honorary District Governor."  Hal came over to talk to ALLART about a solar-cooking project.  Hal is retired from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a founding Board member of Cabrillo College. He was a close friend of Foothill's founder, Cal Flint.
 
STEVE YARBROUGH introduced his guests of the Club, Steve Wu and Barbara Small
 
ALLART LIGTENBERG, just back from two months in Nepal (where he lost 16 lbs) presented Madame President with Club banners from Katmandu Sunrise (our matching grant partner) and Katmandu Kantipur (which has 40 members, but only one woman).
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• DAN O’DONNELL sent around the sign-up sheets for the next round of RotaCare restaurant pick-ups
• BILL BALSON informed us that the Red Badgers will present a check to the School Board next week
• DAVID BERONIO thanked the folks who helped Maltby’s cook Thanksgiving turkeys.  He also told a cute story about a local executive and his wife coming to the restaurant to have their holiday dinner.  Finding it closed to the general public, they ended up accepting an invitation to join the crowd of almost 110 for the holiday repast.
• STEVE SHEPHERD gave us lots of lead time to plan to join this year’s Golf Tournament on Friday, June 4 at Shoreline.  As usual, it will be followed by a Barbecue Dinner and Poker Tournament afterwards at Lakeside Café, and non-golfers are also invited to join the gang for these post golf activities.
• JERRY MOISON asked for our assistance with the Laptops for Life Project, in which LARC is partnered with ODFL, Pinewood, and other local schools, and the Town Crier.  The goal is to collect 100 used laptops to build an electronic bulletin board to share best agricultural practices in Kenya.  If agricultural output can be raised by only 1%, 6 million more people can be fed.
• ABBY AHRENS reminded the Red Badgers about their meeting after lunch.
• ESTHER NG gave a quick medical update on JACK HEIDMILLER, who is doing well after his recent operation.

NEW MEMBER INTRODUCTED Membership Chairman, JOHN CARDOZA, presided over the induction of MIKE STANLEY as a new Red Badger.  Mike is a retired prosecuting attorney and has served on many non-profit boards. MIKE’s sponsor is MIKE ABRAMS.

President TRACIE returned to the podium to tell us that DUDE ANGIUS has returned home & is doing well. 

She also announced that Asante’ is coming soon and that JOANNA MEDIN is collecting donations for the silent and live auction.  All proceeds from this event ($50/person) go to RotaCare.  Last year we raised over $30,000.  Feel free to contribute Christmas gifts you get but don’t want.
For good measure, TRACIE also reminded the Past Presidents of their meeting at 2 PM.

RECOGNITION
Chairman KURT HUEG apologized to the many members who had not yet been recognized this year and promised to start making it up to them at this meeting.  He emphasized that everyone should be at 50% of their $100 annual goal by the end of December, and that he was happy to assist the many members who were still at 0% to achieve their target.  

• But first he fined himself $20 for missing last week’s meeting
• Then he collected $40 from VAL - $18 in honor of her 18th anniversary & $22 in honor of DAVID’s & RON’s recent City Council elections.
• LOUIS WELLMEIER’s daughter can now go downstairs by herself backwards, which merited $50.
• ROLAND PAYNE chipped in $30 to get to 50%.
• KAREN OWEN followed with $50 to get to 50%.
• JOE LOCONTE took some heat for sitting at the same corner table near the stage every week, but said he likes seeing the same group of guys who always sit there (almost never any women though).  While noting that it’s still true that “nobody’s building anything”, JOE added $40 to the Bucket.
• JOE CORRAL, another guy who sits at that same table, joined the President’s Club.
• BONNIE BURDETT, who is already in the President's Club, wanted to give $20 worth of extra thanks for her Dad’s (Nels) return home from the hospital and recovery from a 90% blocked carotid artery

GUEST SPEAKER
ALLART returned to the podium to introduce our Guest Speaker, Charles Knowles, Exec Director of Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN).  Charlie lives and works in Los Altos and graduated from Stanford.  His father was a 40-year Rotarian in Elgin, IL.
 
Charlie founded Rubicon Technology, a Mountain View software company, in 1989 and sold it in 1994.  His retirement lasted six days, at which time he launched himself full-time into applying his business savvy and experience to the field of wildlife conservation.  In the 1990’s, Charlie helped the Cheetah Conservation Fund and the Snow Leopard Conservancy to grow into world-class, community-based programs.
 
Seeing the possibilities for a new model of wildlife conservation, he co-founded WCN in 2002 to identify and invest in the best and the brightest conservationists around the world, thereby creating a rising generation of passionate conservation pioneers.  The Network also explores novel technologies that can assist conservation efforts, such as interfacing animal tracking radar with Google Earth, providing electricity to projects in the bush, and building solar cookers.
 
Charlie delivered a fascinating presentation full of details about WCN goals, activities, and successes, as well as many beautiful pictures of wild animals from its many projects around the world.  He has also been kind enough to share the entire slide show with us in online form, which is available for members to peruse here.
 
After his prepared remarks, the LARC audience had several questions.  Here are Charlie’s answers:

• There are no WCN projects in the USA.  But its annual EXPO is held domestically, and both exhibitors and attendees come from all around the world.
• There are sometimes opportunities for apprentices to work on WCN projects at the field sites, but these are usually filled with people local to the project site.  This helps to build the base of knowledgeable and experienced people in-country.
• Local governments are usually receptive to these projects.  Interfacing with these governments in the various countries is handled by the local residents also.  WCN works its magic from here and pretty much stays under the radar in the project countries.
• His visit to LARC was the first time he has met with a Rotary group.  He said we are his “guinea pig” to check out the possibilities of forming alliances / partnerships with Rotary Clubs around the globe.