Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show January 21 2010

A hundred hearty Rotarians braved the rain for our January 21 meeting.
 
President TRACIE MURRAY chimed an overflowing meeting to order at 12:15 p.m.  
 
Arriving Rotarians had been met by greeters BONNIE BURDETT, PAUL SCHUTZ and red badger, STEVE BIANCHI.
 

MEL KAHN led us in the pledge, and JEANNE MACVICAR did double duty bringing us the Thought(s) for the day and a lovely song to honor TRACIE.  The tragedy in Haiti led JEANNE to bring thoughts from the three leaders we honor in January and February.  Martin Luther King said, “Life’s most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?” Washington said “Let your heart feel for the afflictions of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.”  And, Lincoln said “My dream is that once again America will be seen as the last best hope of earth.” JEANNE followed the thought with a rousing “For She’s a Jolly Good Leader” for TRACIE.
 
Staunch VP DENNIS YOUNG was apparently scared by the rain and missed the meeting.  TRACIE promptly flubbed her role as stand-in by missing visiting Rotarians.  However Rotarians BOB ADAMS, BAIDRA MURPHY and VAL CARPENTER all introduced their guests.  DICK HENNING mentioned that he brought guests last week for the wrong meeting, and so he stood to introduce them this week, BUT he forgot to invite them back.  TRACIE then called on visiting Rotarians, and we met Berry Hagge from Incline Village and Alan Goodman from Mountain View.
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• TRACIE then made a few announcements.  We will have a Ciaoppino feed on March 12 to raise funds for polio.  The cost will be $70. 
• GEORGE ZETINA has taken a leave of absence from the Club to travel to Taiwan.  His wife is expecting a baby but he will return.
• TRACIE also advised that DAN DUTTON is in El Camino Hospital. 
• MARY MARLEY has also been in the hospital for treatment, but is not having visitors or cards. 
• TRACIE also announced that the Nominating Committee had chosen the nominees for the three openings on the Board.  The nominees are:

  KAREN FOX	CHUCK LINDAUER	CLYDE NOEL

  Retiring Director JACK KELLY, having served on the Nominating Committee, decided he did not want to retire and pleaded with TRACIE to let him stay on the Board permanently.  JACK wasn’t at the meeting, but we voted him back on for a five year hitch. 
• Past Pres. SAM PESNER stepped up to announce that the Art Show is coming on May 15-16, and STEVE POMEROY will again be in charge of assignments.  For those looking to help there is an Art Show Committee meeting at SAM’s house next Tuesday.  JOANNA MEDIN announced that ASanté was on this evening, and encouraged all to show up early and bid often. 
• CHUCK LINDAUER announced that it was going to be a crowded evening because the Los Altos Sister City Dinner is tonight also, taking place at the Garden House. 
• Alan Goodman from the Mountain View Club was allowed to announce that their Club will hold its Crab Feast on January 30, 2010.   He had tickets for sale right then and there. 
• MARLENE COWAN announced that the STARS Leadership training will be held on March 20.  The Club sponsors members who want to participate.
• Not to be overshadowed by Mountain View Rotary, we (LARC) will have its own Cioppino Night on March 12 right here at the Garden House.  Details are on line on our website.  On line signup is also available.  However, for those of you who are technically challenged, an old fashioned clip board will be passed around.  Also, our website can not take payment, so the clipboard will be necessary for collecting the money.  DAVE LUEDTKE and PP JOE RENATI are the cooks. HISTORY OF CIOPPINO
  

ASanté

The Rotary Clubs of Cupertino, Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto/University and Sunnyvale joined forces for the Annual ASante Fundraiser and Auction in Sunnyvale on January 21, 2010.  100% of the proceeds from the gourmet food and wine event go to help fund the RotaCara Clinic in Mountain View. This year’s ASante Event took place at the Del Monte Restaurant Hall in Sunnyvale. More than eight wineries poured their latest vintages at the event, which were paired with gourmet food from twelve local restaurants. The event also included a live and silent auction with various prizes donated by local residents.  In  fact, two of the five live auction items came from our club, they were:  2 tickets to the Celebrity Forum Series 2010-2011 (PP DICK HENNING) and the other was the Kahn's Santa Cruz Beach House (PP MEL KAHN).  Here are some pictures from the event taken by JERRY TOMANEK:

HAITI RELIEF: WORLD COMMUNITY SERVICE
FRANK VERLOT updated us on the Rotary Relief efforts in Haiti.  Rotary is working on both short-term and long-term relief efforts.  There is a WCS meeting next Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. at First Republic to discuss some proposals.  FRANK provided the following full outline:
 
1. There are two types of relief… immediate… and longer term sustainability efforts
 
2. For immediate near term relief it is best to use existing channels already at work… many options to choose from:
 
Rotary’s short term focus is on providing Shelter Boxes… ALLART LIGTENBERG told us that each box being sent by Rotary in the USA and UK will house (via tents) and feed/support 10 people for up to 3 months on an emergency basis; each box costs $1,000. ... easiest way to contribute is to go to the District 5170 website: www.rotary5170.org and contribute via PayPal.
 
Text messaging of a $10 contribution/text is another way… your phone bill provides proof of contribution… RI in Evanston recommends several on their website, but since our focus is on shelter boxes, we recommend using the Rotary text source… simply text ‘ROTARY’ to 90999; multiple texts will deliver multiples of $10
 
Recall that Sasha Kramer spoke to our club last year; she  heads up the Haiti SOIL organization project we are currently funding (in partnership with Palo Alto Rotary, the lead club) via a matching grant from the Rotary Foundation. Sasha is in Haiti and has emailed us that she and her SOIL staff and volunteers drove to Port au Prince from the villages they were working in, and are now working on the scene as volunteer manpower helping other NGO’s they know and/or work with in their immediate relief efforts. Once immediate relief has been provided and the situation is more stabilized, their focus will return to SOIL’s longer term sustainability projects (village sanitation & soils improvement).
 
3. After the Peru Earthquake and Indonesian Tsunami, Los Altos Rotary focused on developing longer term sustainable projects to help the people affected. We propose doing the same for Haiti.  We have talked to TRACIE and HERB MARSHALL and they have OK’d the setting up of a special restricted fund within LAREF for Haiti… so we will be collecting checks and cash at ensuing meetings for the special purpose of helping Haiti via a longer term project that promotes sustainability.

ROLAND PAYNE noted that we replaced and equipped a school that had been flattened in the Peruvian Pisco Earthquake and Allart noted that we replaced a small fleet of fishing boats lost by Indonesian villagers in the tsunami. Both projects helped put these particular stricken communities back on a longer term sustainable trajectory. Our objective is to find similar (but not identical) projects for Haiti that the local Haitian Rotarians and NGOs (like Sasha’s) will help us to define.
 
4. For those interested in helping structure these longer term sustainability projects in Haiti, we welcome your participation. Our next regular WCS meeting, which will devote considerable time to Haiti, will be this coming Tuesday morning, January 26th 8AM at First Republic Bank (at 2nd street, just off San Antonio Rd…. enter through the side door on Lyell St).
 
President TRACIE mentioned that there are many worthy relief organizations working in Haiti, but encouraged us to provide our support through Rotary; it goes through established and trustworthy local Rotarians, so we know the efforts will be worthwhile.
 

After a few minutes of general Fellowship (with many members grousing that we were not using the time for fines), TRACIE called us back to order.  VAL CARPENTER did not let the lack of fining stop her from joining the President’s Club.  She just returned from a cruise in Argentina, and rushed straight from the airport to our meeting to join the club.  JEAN HOLLANDS reminded us that we still need folks to act as mock hirers for the mock interviews the club provides to high schoolers.  The mock interviews will take place at Alta Vista High School on Friday, January 29th.
 

WEEKLY PRESENTATION: Dr. JOHN NICHOLSON on PLASTIC SURGERY
One of our newer members, retired doctor JOHN NICHOLSON, provided insights into the history and practice of plastic surgery.  It started as far back as World War I when surgeons developed techniques to try to repair facial injuries of soldiers.  JOHN observed that the pressures of was often lead to new medical techniques.  The profession moved forward in the 1920’s when Boards were formed and cosmetic surgery evolved, beginning with rhinoplasty, a procedure to repair noses.  In the 1930’s plastic surgery moved to California, where it became something of a cult. 

Needless to say, the beautiful people of Hollywood were prime patients.  JOHN started a story about one of the early leaders of the profession, Mike Gurtin, and how JOHN and the gang would buy Mike a few drinks to hear stories about one of his patients, Marilyn Monroe.  But enough gossip.  JOHN traced the further development into the 1980’s when doctors developed liposuction, and then breast implants and cosmetic peels.
 
JOHN then gave members advice on questions to cover with a doctor if one of us ever for a procedure.  He then brought up CINDY LUEDTKE as a mock patient, to show how facial surgery would be made to eyebrows, eyes (the first to age) cheeks, throat, and the classic face-lift.
 
After some Q and A for JOHN, President TRACIE chimed the meeting to a close at 1:35.