Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show February 11 2010

Writer: Michael Stadlen  - Photographer:Steve Pomeroy  - Editor:  Jack Kelly

This Thursday's Program: Feb 18 2010 Dan Holden What it takes today to be college bound

It’s funny how things work out sometimes!  While the entire eastern USA was digging out from its recent torrent of incredible snowstorms, all of western Canada was praying to get some snow so the Winter Olympics wouldn’t turn into a mud-wrestling fiasco.  And in the midst of all this, our club was blessed with a warm, idyllic Los Altos day for our meeting on Thursday.  Isn’t it great to live in California?

Greeting us with smiles on this spring-like day were KAREN GREGURAS and LEW FRASER.  Manning his usual post behind the cash drawer was equally-cheerful WYATT ALLEN.  STEVE POMEROY did double duty as Photographer and Sergeant-at Arms, ably joined by MIKE ABRAMS and FRANK VERLOT in the latter role.
JEAN MORDO led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and PP MEL KAHN regaled us with several quotes from Abraham Lincoln.  The first one was about women; none of the married men would ever dare repeat it.  The second was more popular.  “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”  Good advice!

JEANNE MacVICAR then led us in “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”  President TRACIE MURRAY let us in on how to look like you’re singing when you don’t know the words to the song.  Just mouth the word “watermelon” over and over until it ends, and nobody will be the wiser.  This prompted a wag at my table to suggest that next time he is the Songmeister, he will choose “Watermelon” as the song of the day.

• VAL CARPENTER – Jeannie Bruins – a Guest of the Club
• BAIDRA MURPHY – Cammie Brodie – also a Guest of the Club
• PP MARLENE COWAN –Julie Veroff, the Executive Director of the Face AIDS networking chapter at Stanford.  This national organization raises money to combat AIDS in Africa and to assist with health care.  Austin Keely and David Evans were also here after recently completing a 60+ day bicycle trip to Boston as a fund-raiser.  After the meeting, these dynamic young people met with our RAP group to discuss and request funding assistance.  LARC has helped them in the past, and they have applied again for a LAREF grant this year.

• Our Nominating Committee had named:

  KAREN FOX	CHUCK LINDAUER	CLYDE NOEL

  to join the Board of Directors at the end of the present term.  By a voice vote of acclamation, all 3 were confirmed by the club members.  Congratulations – Karen, Chuck and Clyde!
• PP DAN DUTTON is home from the hospital, is doing well and thanks us all for the good wishes sent him.
• Next week DAN HOLDEN will deliver his presentation on how to help our children & grandchildren to find their way (successfully) through the college admission & application processes.  This will be of great interest!
• annual Gardner Awards are coming up soon – April 8.  This is a Community Foundation event, and PP SAM PESNER has been selected as LARC’s representative to be honored this year.  Sign-up sheets will go around starting next week, so others of us can attend and perhaps one or more whole tables.

• PP SAM HARDING made us aware that former member Hardy Jones was in El Camino Hospital after suffering a heart attack on Tuesday.  He was working out at the YMCA across the street, and the combination of proximity to the hospital and the excellent care he received from the Y staff, nearby Paramedics, and Emergency Department professionals undoubtedly saved his life.  He was resting comfortably and expecting to be transferred to Kaiser within a few days and hopefully to home next week.  Visits are not yet encouraged, but cards and e-mails are welcome.
• BAIDRA MURPHY reminded the Red Badgers of their short meeting immediately after lunch and of their monthly meeting that evening at 6 PM.  KATHY BERRY and MICHAEL STADLEN will be there to discuss the roles that Red Badgers can play in this year’s Scholarship Contest and Art Show, respectively.
• DAN O’DONNELL has 3 openings left on the current RotaCare meal delivery sign-up sheet.  Contact him to add your name.
• PEN MONA ARMISTEAD is trying to get a head start on her upcoming responsibilities as President-Elect by starting to think about lining up speakers for our meetings.  On a recent visit to the San Jose Downtown club, she discovered that they have a Program Committee (of ~45 people) to work with the PE and a great process in place to make it all happen.  She would like to start a similar committee within LARC and passed a clipboard around to get volunteers.
• JOHN SYLVESTER reminded us of President TRACIE’s promise to “put the fun back into Rotary” by talking up the next Social evening coming at PP STEVE ANDERSON’s home on February 26.
• BILL PALMER is still waiting to hear from 90% of the members he contacted about forming a Partners for Elder Generations committee.  If you were contacted by Bill about this, please let him of your interest or lack thereof.  Other members interested in being on this committee should also let Bill know.
• FRANK VERLOT updated us on the campaign to raise funds for the Haiti relief effort.  Checks should be made out to LAREF; receipts for tax deductions are available.  The contribution basket was circulated around the room again, and hopefully it got back to Frank full of checks.
• RICH CASEY passed out kudos to PP MARLENE COWAN and ESTHER NG for their recent work on the Child AIDS Prevention program.  Marlene contacted 21 other Bay Area Rotary clubs to solicit their cooperation and Esther did a great job in her first public presentation in Newark.  More than $500 was contributed in Newark, and the Dublin club weighed in heavily with $3,000.  Nice work, ladies!
• President TRACIE finished up by thanking JEAN HOLLANDS for her coordination of the Alta Vista interview program, and the 15 other members for their participation in it.  Congratulations also went to JERRY MOISON for meeting his goal of collecting 50 laptops and to GREG DABB for coming up with 31!

RECOGNITION

 
KURT HUEG took the floor to help us celebrate Valentine’s Day (or VD, if you prefer).  He expressed surprise that the name of the holiday had never been changed to avoid those initials.  But it did give him a good subject for trivia questions.

• STEVE BIANCHI plans to celebrate his 27th anniversary by going to Fresno to watch his son play baseball.  For this romantic escapade, Steve paid $54.
• STEVE FICK is taking his family on a ski trip next week, but he knew that 15% of women send themselves flowers on VD, so he got off for only $15.
• JASON SANBORN was asked if he had any romantic plans for VD, and he replied that his wife is pregnant (you may draw your own conclusions).  He did know that sales of condoms are 35% higher than normal this week each year, so he paid only $20 for each of the twins his wife is carrying.
• MARY MARLEY was welcomed back from her recent illness with a rousing ovation.  She reported that she lost her wedding ring and is going to shop for a new one this weekend.  For this excitement - $20.
• TIM BYRD knew that 75% of men don’t plan ahead for VD, and then he joined the President’s Club!
• BILL MOISON announced with some relief that his wife is not pregnant.  And he knew that Verona, Italy, annually gets many Valentines addressed to Romeo and/or Juliet.  He paid $50 after determining that this would top brother JERRY’s total.
• KAREN GREGURAS made the most of her first-time appearance during Recognition by joining the President’s Club!
• JEAN MacVICAR knew that 75% of flowers are purchased by men, so she was in for $25.
• And finally, PP DUDE ANGIUS paid $10 for the chance to tell us more about the bike trip the Stanford men took.  Since he has already joined the President’s Club several times over, we’re always willing to indulge Dude when he wants to tell us a story!

PROGRAM
PP SAM PESNER took the floor to bring the club up-to-date on the status of and plans for this year’s Fine Art in the Park Show.  He explained that he had joined Rotary to help make the world a better place, and the annual Art Show is the most ambitious (and visible) example of how we in LARC contribute to that goal.  For historical perspective, Sam asked PP JOE RENATI, who was President the year the Art Show began (35 years ago) to give us some insight into its background.

Joe reminisced fondly about how it all began and said that 8 of our present members were in the club at that time.  They were looking for a way to do something bigger and more profitable for Los Altos than what they had tried up until then.  The Saratoga club was already putting on an Art Show, and it was rumored that they were pulling in $200K from it.  So Joe and Bill Powell convinced the Board that we could, and should, do something similar.  Cathy Tuttle was hired as a professional Coordinator to help us run it – a role she played for 16 years.  After her, Ginny Lear took over the role for the next 9 years.  Year by year we learned how to make our Los Altos festival the top-notch show that it has become.  We have always taken great care of our artists, and they reward us by returning regularly and spreading the word in the artist community.

Sam then put up a PowerPoint presentation to display a to-scale drawing of the park (with appreciation to Marv Patterson for his hard work in creating it) and to introduce each of the Chairpersons of the major functional areas.

Art Chair – COETA CHAMBERS explained the jury process we use to select the artists and the fee structure for how we charge them to participate.  We typically have ~170 artists in our program.  She also visits other similar shows to meet promising artists and to keep up with important trends in the market.

Finance & Administration – JEAN MORDO reviewed our results for the last 3 years and explained how dependent we are on good weather and favorable economic conditions for our success.  This year we need more help in the Cash Management function, so interested members should contact Jean about this.

Club Chair – STEVE POMEROY explained how easy our show website makes it for members to sign up for the various jobs they would like to take on.  He also reminded us that, by default, whatever jobs we had last year are re-assigned to us this year.  So each of us must opt out of jobs we don’t wish to have again.  Sponsorships are an area that we plan to pay more attention to this year, as this is a great way to increase our total revenue.  Members interested in helping this effort should contact Steve.

Marketing & Advertising – CLARI NOLET indicated that most of the work in this function gets done before the actual weekend of the show, so anyone who won’t be available on May 15-16 can find many ways to contribute in these tasks.  Something new we’re eager to explore this year is Social Marketing, so help from members with expertise in this area would be greatly appreciated.

Food & Beverage – MIKE ABRAMS explained that this area is not designed to make a lot of money for the show, but it plays an important role in creating an ambience for our customers that is conducive to their enjoyment of the day.  And this, of course, will indirectly help to expand the amount of time they spend onsite and the amount of money they spend on art.

Operations – HERB MARSHALL co-chairs this function with JERRY MOISON, and both of them have had the experience of being the Grand Poobah for past Art Shows.  So they are both well-acquainted with all the important tasks that must take place behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly out in front where the customers are. 

Site Chair – JOE LoCONTE has been chairing this function for several years now, so he knows what it takes to get everything up and running smoothly and to break it all down neatly so the park is left in the same pristine condition we receive it in.  Lots of work takes place on the Friday before the show, so this is another place where people who can’t help out on show days can make a valuable contribution.

Community – PP JOHN MOSS and his committee are responsible for insuring that we have good working relationships with many important constituencies, like the Boy & Girl Scouts, InterAct clubs, and neighborhood residents.  They also run the Young at Art program and supervise the exhibits in the Gazebo.
Overall show management – SAM PESNER wrapped up the program by summarizing the importance of the success of the Art Show to our ability to fund the good work we do all year long.  He also stressed how valuable it is for the Red Badgers to become actively involved on the team, both for the new spirit and ideas they bring to our project and for the benefits each of them derives from participating and getting to know many fellow members.  And speaking of fellowship, Sam closed by showing some fun pictures taken at several recent shows of Rotarians, their family members and guests, artists, customers, musicians, kids, and some outrageous costumes

President TRACIE closed the meeting with the happy announcement that we had met our goal of raising $3,000 for Haiti!