Los Altos Rotary Club eNewsletter "Rotator"

Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

February 25 2010

Writer: Clyde Noel - Photographer: Steve Yarbrough - Editor: Cindy Luedtke

This Thursday's Program: March 4th
Jack Kelly: Area 10 Speech Contest

There we stood, JEAN MORDO, CLYDE NOEL and ALLAN VARDI, greeters for the Los Altos Rotary Club on February 25, 2010. Allan, a red shirt Rotarian, put his hand out to members and held it a bit longer because, “I want to learn the faces that go with the names of our members.” JEAN MORDO and I hugged the members dressed in their spring attire as they came in from a rare beautiful day of sunshine.

PP DON HULL commented “what greenery, everything in bloom and pink blossoms what a great day to come to the Rotary meeting.” ROY JONES said, “I’m here, but Kauai or the Cook Islands would be a nice place to be today.” MARV PATTERSON celebrated an anniversary and brought his wife Mary Lou to the Rotary for the first time as he stepped aside and gave his money to PP WYATT ALLEN for the buffet. Being the Rotator writer and a greeter provides interesting observations and a lot of conversation from the many smiling faces, but the time to sit down arrived and President TRACIE MURRAY extolled her bellowing welcome to the Los Altos Rotary Club because it was 12:15 p.m.

DAN O’DONNELL provided several thoughts of the day about politicians, but the thought that brought on the most laughs was a request from a thoughtful woman to her doctor. “If you can’t make me skinny, please make all my friends fat.”

Song of the Day was Dan again with the help of PP SAM PESNER singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” the nursery rhyme that tells about a spider descending a downspout. Watching the sequence of hand and finger gestures of grown men and women was hilarious.

President-elect DENNIS YOUNG called for visiting Rotarians and a red shirt from Menlo Park was the only Rotarian making up at our club. Rotarians with guests were: MARY MARLEY, DAVID BERGMAN, STEVE POMEREY, and MARV PATTERSON.

Announcements

DON WITT announced a new program that would provide a member-to-member opportunity to promote a product to other members within the organization. The idea is to generate money for the Rotary Club.

It will be presented to the board and they will vote on the idea.
PP DICK HENNING is looking to Rotarians to get involved with the Rotary International Group Study Exchange Program. Five visitors from Brazil will be visiting us and Dick is looking for members to host on April 6,7 and 8. As a host, you would serve breakfast and dinner each evening. The party consists of two women and three men from Brazil and all speak good English. See Dick’s full announcement below or call Dick or MIKE STADLEN to learn more.
BILL PALMER is still looking for members to join Partners for Elder Generations. The new program is getting a slow start and Bill sent out the clipboard looking for more people to become involved in the program. The idea is to visit ailing seniors and provide enthusiasm for continued life through encouragement.
PP STEVE ANDERSON is hosting the wine and cheese party on Friday February 26, and he is running short of room in the house for 100 people to enjoy themselves in the rain because there isn’t enough room in the house. Bring umbrellas and slickers and Steve will report on his party next week.
FRANK VERLOT reported on the current Haiti donation program and the current donation total is at $3,096 and three boxes have been sent to Haiti already.

Lew Fraser’s Ten-Minute Talk

LEW FRASER started by saying, “Being undecided about this exercise, I asked several members what was expected of me and was told to talk about things that would be of interest to the members.” So the slide show began.”

Lew’s father was born in Peru and his mother in Canada and they met through the oil industry. “I am an only child, and my mother said I was so perfect that she didn’t want any more children,” Lew said. A graduate of San Jose State, he has a BS in accounting and a minor in economics.
He was featured on the cover of the 1965 Soccer Guide and was elected to the first team All America in 1945. His varied experiences also included lead singer in a band where he also cut three 45’s.

Lew became a citizen in 1985, and has citizenship in three countries, U.S. Canada and Peru. Lew has been married for more than 30 years and has four grandchildren. He has been in the Rotary Club since March 19, 2009 and was sponsored by PHIL ROSE.

Acknowledgement time:

Using the current Winter Olympics in Vancouver for her theme for fining, BAIDRA MURPHY had a field day in collecting money for the club. Correct answers were $20 and wrong answers $30. Unfortunate Rotarians were:

CAMMIE BRODIE	$30	STUART BOWEN	$30	LOU WELLMEIR	$50
DAVID DEMATTEIS	$30	BARBARA SMALL	$20	DAN O’DONNELL	$30
HINDA WEBER	$30	BOB ADAMS	$30	PAUL NYBERG	$30
DAN HOLDEN	$10	ROY JONES	$30	BILL MOISON	$20
JOHN SYLVESTER	$30	JEANNE MacVICAR	$30	RICK GLAZE	$30
		ALLART LIGTENBERG	$30

Speaker for the day:

The Rotary Club was fortunate in having executive director Sharon Williams, from JobTrain, as speaker for the day. JobTrain is an organization that tries to make dreams come true even in this day of economic pressure. JobTrain is an educational and training institution that offers career counseling and job placement services for our graduates. JobTrain has helped more than 150,000 low income individuals move toward a better life for themselves and their families.

“Our trainees are people who want to work,” Sharon said. “We even help intense ex-felons get on their feet and we have huge success with teenagers.”

“What is our secret sauce? What makes us successful at JobTrain?” Sharon said. “We understand the enormities in a person’s life. Our students come from a poor culture, but in JobTrain we train them to shift from street language culture to middle class culture.”

One of JobTrain’s biggest fundraisers is the annual Breakfast of Champions. Last year’s keynote speaker was 49ers coach Mike Singletary, who provided a message of hope. More than 700 people attended and this year the date for Breakfast of Champions XXVI is May 7, 2010.

In the question and answer period, Sharon said last year more than 5,158 people were helped through a JobTrain program. By student residence, 44 percent were from East Palo Alto and 40 percent were Latino.

Los Altos Rotary Hosting Brazilian GSE Team.

We have the opportunity to host 5 Brazilians on April 6m, 7, 8. This is a wonderful opportunity to get involved in a Rotary International program.
You would serve breakfast and dinner each evening. During the day, the team members will be out on tour from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The evenings to host are April 6, 7 & 8.

Nilza Le Grazie, Team leader, 58 years-old, single female, works at a health clinic. 12 year Rotarian.
Andrea Campos, 28 years-old female, single, history teacher in elementary middle school
Flavio Luz, 29 years-old male, teaches English and Spanish.
Marcelo Ribeiro, 32 years-old single male, forestry engineer and part-time gym instructor.
Rafael Faria, 28 years-old single male, in advertising; also a computer whiz.

Call or e-mail PP DICK HENNING or MIKE STADLEN to learn more.

President Tracie rang the bell at 1:30 p.m. and we all went out to enjoy the wonderful rare sunshine again.

POST MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT:

President Tracie received the following announcement for a trip to Nigeria for a polio immunization trip in April. Please contact Brad if you are interested in this trip.

Dear Los Altos Rotary members:
We are sending you this announcement to invite you to join us and participate in a polio immunization exercise in Northern Nigeria the second half of April. Recently, the Nigerian Government announced the dates of the April immunization exercises. Although this is short notice, this may an one of the last opportunities Rotarians may have to join participate in such an experience.

Please feel free to share this information with anyone who is interested in joining us.

You may recall that I forwarded a similar message in July to invite your club to join us for a trip to Benin. Approximately 50 people joined us for a remarkably successful trip and experience.

Although the Linked PDF material provides full information about the trip, permit me to summarize the key points:

Departs North America - Saturday, April 17
Returns to North America – Tuesday, April 27
Travels to Amsterdam and Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, Nigeria

The program includes hotels, private transfers, Rotary meetings and special events, meals, and participation in three days of immunization activities. Although the program does not include roundtrip airfare, we have made special arrangements for discounted airfare with KLM Airlines. The cost of the airfare will depend upon the individual’s specific flight itinerary.

If you, or any one you know, is interested in joining us, there is still room. However, we strongly encourage immediate action if you would like to join us. We already have a core group who have joined this program and we are limiting the group to 40 people. Based on the response to date, we expect to be sold out in the next week to 10 days. Also, we need to act quickly to purchase our airline tickets, obtain our visas and prepare for our trip.

Thank you for your interest and support. We hope members from your Club can join us.

Bradford R. Howard

Rotary District 5170
Governor, 2002-2003
516 Grand Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
Phone: (510) 834-2260
FAX: (510) 834-1019
E-mail: Bhoward@HowardTours.net