Los Altos Rotary Club eNewsletter "Rotator"

Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

January 14 2010

Writer: Jean Newton Fraguglia - Photographer: Jerry Tomanek - Editor: Cindy Luedtke

This Thursday's Program: Jan 21 2010 John Nicholson Plastic Surgery

President TRACIE MURRAY called the meeting to order and DAN O’DONNELL led the pledge of allegiance.

Tracie thanked Greeters, MICHAEL STADLEN, BEVERLY TUCKER, and STEVE POMEROY; photographer JERRY TOMANEK, Sergeant–at- Arms, STEVE POMEROY and MIKE ABRAMS, and cashier, JOHN MOSS sitting in for WYATT ALLEN.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
TATYANA KANZAVELI wished everyone a Happy New Year and told us about her a focus on life: Smile, Dance, Hug, Love, Live because this life is everything. She also said there is a strategy for the tragedy in Haiti and that is giving. Two options: Text 90999 on your cell phone and $10 will be added to your phone bill or go to
http://www.rotary.org/en/Contribute/WaysToGive/Announcements/Pages/100114_announce_HaitiReliefFund.aspx to send money through Rotary.

SONG FOR THE DAY
Songbird BONNIE BURDETT led us in a nice rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ in honor of all the Presidents born in January---make that February, too—and include Martin Luther King.

VISITING ROTARIANS AND GUESTS
Since there were no visiting Rotarians, President-elect DENNIS YOUNG asked for Rotarians and their guests to stand. LARRY MADSEN, DICK HENNING, DICK DUHRING, KATHY BERRY, BOB ADAMS, BONNIE BURDETT and BAIDRA MURPHY introduced their guests. DICK HENNING thought the speaker was our newest member JOHN NICHOLSON talking about plastic surgery, but learned instead, he had invited his guests and lovely wife, Paulette for the ever-exciting Club Assembly.

PROGRAM FOR NEXT WEEK
Note to DICK HENNING: Next week the program will be plastic surgery with speaker, JOHN NICHOLSON.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

NOTE ON HAITI: As far as Prez TRACIE knows, Sasha Kramer and everyone associated with the project there are all ok.
NEED A JOB?
MARK YOUR CALENDARS The District Conference has been set for April 23-25 and it’s going to be in Monterey this year. Get your reservations in early to get the best room rate.
There are two meetings where Green Town Los Altos will make a presentation to the public about what a vision of Los Altos in the future could look like.
SANDI WHIPPLE, standing in for KENDRA GERSETH, said some people still owed money for the holiday party so please turn it in as soon as possible.
MARLENE COWAN announced there would be a STARS Leadership meeting on March 20.
BAIDRA MURPHY reminded Red Badgers to attend the meeting at 6:00 p.m. on January 14 where JERRY MOISON is to be the guest speaker about the ODFL-$1 for Life project.
JACK KELLY, Chair of the Youth Speech Contest to be held on January 28, announced that our club was also hosting the Area 10 Contest on March 14 and needed some help. SAM HARDING and new member STEVE WU volunteered to judge.
JOANNA MEDIN started out by whining, but she really meant wining; wine tasting at the upcoming Asante event on January 21 that benefits Rotacare. If you can’t attend, you can donate a ticket so one of the nurses can be a guest. She still needs donations and if you donate wine, be sure to let her know the price. Tickets are 100% tax deductible this year and only cost $50 per person. Be there or be square: Thursday, 5:30-8:00 p.m. at the Historic Del Monte building in downtown Sunnyvale.
The “whine” by JEAN HOLLANDS was more dramatic, but that’s because she still needs volunteers to do mock interviews at Alta Vista in just two weeks time. Please let her know if you can help.
JACK HEIDMILLER wants you to come to the Los Altos Sister Cities annual dinner meeting catered by Chef Chu also on January 21 at the Garden House from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.

A FINE TIME WITH MARY MARY PROCHNOW was a fine, and prolific, fine master. First on the list was LARRY CHU, Jr. for his birthday AND anniversary AND for Chef Chu’s being chosen one of the top ten Chinese restaurants in the United States out of 45,000. In addition, LARRY CHU, Sr. was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in Las Vegas so LARRY, JR. volunteered his Dad for the President’s Club and then paid his fine of $40 for all that wonderful news.

MORE BIRTHDAYS
Also a birthday girl, MARLIS McALLISTER was fined $20 and recognized for her high school senior picture taken in Evergreen Colorado in 1976 that is proudly displayed on Facebook. Looking good!
SANDI WHIPPLE shares her big day with GEORGE STAFFORD and DAVE SNOW but they weren’t at the meeting so she was fined $25, even though she didn’t think the amount on the fine list was correct. JEAN NEWTON FRAGUGLIA paid for her birthday and an upcoming trip to Hawaii.
ALAN LAMBERT was still “Ça va bien” after paying a fine for his birthday. Although it wasn’t PAT GRAY’s birthday, she paid for her anniversary and 28 years of marriage.

THE PRESIDENT’S CLUB
A big “Welcome Back” went to CLYDE NOEL who was missing in action for a while and promptly joined the President’s Club upon his return. ROY LAVE tried flattery but still ended up joining the President’s Club because of his connection to the next two Rotary Presidents. DENNIS YOUNG says ROY was the reason he came to Los Altos and MONA ARMISTEAD will be the first president he’s sponsored.

COMMERCIALS
JULIE ROSE was called on to “volunteer” so she announced the Chamber Annual Award Dinner was coming up on January 27th. Rotary is being recognized as well as All Horizon Travel, the business of Maureen and ROY JONES. TATYANA KANZAVELI plugged her social media workshop and offered a discount to those who were interested.

OTHER FINEES
COETA CHAMBERS for reading a book; DICK HENNING for the wrong day; STEVE POMEROY for getting the right answer about the four sister cities and RICH CASEY for helping him out; JOE LOCONTE for working on a deal with MARY; SAM HARDING for a new bun in the oven to be his third grandbaby; SETH MANNING and JERRY MOISON for not knowing when Los Altos was incorporated; NANCY DUNAWAY for knowing it was 1952 and for her announcement she will run in the Boston Marathon on April 19; JACK KELLY and BEVERLY TUCKER for not knowing and knowing who was the first European in Haiti (it was Christopher Columbus and he brought small pox); MIKE SPENCE for bragging that his daughter was almost through college and only five more payments to go; CINDY LUEDTKE for an $10 IOU from September when she was finemaster. She accepted the fine of “Heavy-handed MARY” in exchange for telling us about a wonderful $50,000 donation to Day Workers Capital Campaign by an anonymous donor learned about on Christmas Eve. And that was finally the end of fining, whew!

THE PROGRAM: CLUB ASSEMBLY
TRACIE thanked the Club for “a better year then I deserve” and for the enthusiasm and camaraderie she’s felt as president.

Since it was Club Assembly, she wanted go over a few items:

you stand up to make an announcement, please say your full name and classification.
Turn off cell phones, please.
There is a proper way to introduce guests who may be considering membership. You don’t say they are thinking of joining or this is their third meeting, but you do say they are “a guest of the club”. That’s the code so pass it on.

JERRY MOISON keeps busy as the Chair of Youth and Vocation, overseeing a variety of programs including Partners for New Generations (PNG) with some 40 tutors in Kindergarten through High School; Interact Clubs at Pinewood and Los Altos, with projects such as $1 for Life(ODFL) in Nigeria and Nepal and the laptop computer project for Kenya; the Rotary Speech Contest; Camp Ryla; Scholarships; Boy Scouts; and Youth Exchange. He is excited that there are many mini Rotarians out there and that the work we do in the community inspires future Rotarians.

DAVID SMITH, Chair of Community Service, believes that service is at the core off Rotary and that we can improve the quality of life in our community while promoting a positive image of Rotary. He encourages Red Badgers to get involved. He oversees Rotacare meal delivery; Festival of Lights participation; CSA Holiday Food Drive; Public Relations; Partners for Elder Generations (PEGS); the annual Hands-on Project in the community slated for April 17; Relay for Life which is moving to Egan this year. (By the way, he needs a new chair so if anyone is interested please let him know.)

JOHN CARDOZA, the Membership Chair, announced a successful effort in increasing members from 148 eighteen months ago to 168 currently. We are the fourth largest club in the district after Oakland, San Jose and Cupertino. There are 121 male members and 47 female members so he would like to see more women join the club. Realtors and Lawyers make up the largest classifications in the club. The average male club member is 61, while the women’s average age is 55. We had 60% attendance in July and had 75% in November. He oversees Orientation; Red Badgers; 10-minute talks; and Membership Development.

BONNIE BURDETT, Operations Director, was excited to introduce the new mikes and system that came in under budget on top of having great sound. She oversees Young at Art, which is in the midst of soliciting art from area high schools for the contest and subsequent showing at the Art Show; the Los Altos Rotary Web Site which will be undergoing an overhaul to make it more efficient; the Handbook, which should be almost ready for the printer; the Rotator that is published on a weekly basis, and the biggie: the Art Show scheduled for May.

And that was all we had time for as the clock ticked to 1:30 p.m.

One last quick announcement from Tracie: The nominating committee comprised of MONA ARMISTEAD, SETH MANNING, DENNIS YOUNG, JOE RENATI, AL TRAFICANTI, JACK KELLY and TRACIE will be meeting to nominate potential candidates to be Directors for our Board for the next coming Rotary year. Actual voting by the membership will take place at the second meeting in February.

The meeting was adjourned.