Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show June 10, 2010

President TRACIE asked ANDY WONG to do the honor of leading the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by ANNE ARJANI’s Thought for the Day which were a series of pithy quotes, including the Boy Scouts’ “Be prepared” and her favorite: “90% of failure is quitting.”  Our cheerful greeters were JACK KELLY, GEORGE STAFFORD, and JOHN HAMMERSCHMIDT.

Our eager President Elect DENNIS called for introductions and found only one visiting Rotarian, Mary Bradley, President-Elect of Sunnyvale RC. Other hosts included PE DENNIS who introduced his employee, JULIE ROSE who introduced Kathy Lera, Sales Manager for the Town Crier, and JOHN SYLVESTER who introduced Judy Ott. Next week’s speaker will be Alicia Peters with what appears to be a mystery topic: “Ennovationz”.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Good news that the Art Show raffle netted nearly $10,000, with a quick offer from the floor to contribute the final $21 to make it a round 10K.
 
JACK HEIDMILLER, out for the first time since his right knee replacement, was so excited to be back at LARC that he forgot his cane, but he did remember to call for volunteers to man the Chef Chu Chicken Salad booth at the Art and Wine Festival.

Fellowship Director, JOHN SYLVESTER, reminded us to join in Pres TRACIE’s Kick Out at Fremont Hills Country Club on Friday, June 25th. Club members are pre-charged and invited to bring a guest at $70 each. The next Wine and Cheese party is slated for July 23rd at DICK BLANDING’s wine cellar.
 
STEVE SHEPHERD had a good time announcing all the award winners at the Golf Tournament followed by the barbecue and Texas Hold ‘em game.  Golf awards went to BONNIE BURDETT, DAVE BERONIO, KENDRA GJERSETH’s team, JOHN BOGART, MEL KAHN, and JEAN NEWTON FRAGUGLIA, among others. Low Gross Champions were JERRY MOISION (in his neon outfit) and CINDY LUEDTKE. Were there any Rotarians who didn’t take home an award?  BAIDRA PROCHNOW MURPHY was photographer for the event. MEL KAHN even grabbed the mike at the end of announcements “just because it had been so long” since he was President at the dais; he wanted to thank STEVE for such a “well-organized and fun” golf tournament. More on the full day of events follows.

DAN O’DONNELL called for volunteers to deliver restaurant dinners to doctors at the RotaCare Free Clinic in the basement of the YMCA. Attention new Rotarians: this easy job is a great way to experience Rotary in action in our own community.

SETH MANNING called for the Kick Out Committee to meet this afternoon.

DAVID SMITH took sign-ups for Beta testing of  “emota”, a sort of user-friendly Facebook, to take place June 22 from 5:45-7:30 pm at El Camino Hospital.

KATHY BERRY reminded us to attend the Relay for Life, the American Cancer Society’s fundraiser at Egan School, organized by our own unstoppable JEANNE MACVICAR and her husband Duncan.  The Rotary Ramblers will be selling pedometers to raise money.

Our champion Membership Director, JOHN CARDOZA, keeps LARC’s membership growing, and today he inducted the newest member, DAN HARDING, who now completes another father-son team with PP SAM HARDING. DAN lives in San Francisco with his wife and 9 month old daughter and will be moving south to work as a retirement planning consultant with his father.  JOHN enlightened DAN by mentioning some of Rotary’s international service projects in 32,000 clubs in far-off lands like Uganda, India, South Korea, and even Chicago where 10K was recently raised for polio eradication by Rotarians who sold Cubs-Dodgers game tickets and gained a donation from the ball teams for each ticket.

Our very fine Finemistress JEANNE MACVICAR kept us scratching our heads with the World’s Weirdest Laws, all of which were actually true. Each victim was asked his/her state of origin and then served a weird law. “In this state, a man needs permission from his wife to buy alcohol. True or false?”  “In France between 8am and 8 pm, 80% of the music played on the radio must be by a French composer. True or false?”  “In Michigan, men cannot swear in front of women or children. True of false?”  Amazing what some states will enact, then not enforce!

• PP MARLENE volunteered that she was “in a state of euphoria” over the birth of her first granddaughter, Brianna, who weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs.3 oz and 22 inches.
• DAN O’DONNELL announced his state of ecstasy over his 58th wedding anniversary with wife Pat.

TODAY'S PROGRAM - WORLD COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT

The topic of today’s program was the World Community Service annual report. FRANK VERLOT, co-chair with ROLAND PAYNE, made amends for ROLAND who is gone traveling on his 50th wedding anniversary. MARY MARLEY is LARC’s International Director and club representative to RI’s Future Vision pilot project which provides leveraged funding for many of our international projects. She explained that some of the money our club members contribute to The Rotary Foundation (TRF) returns to us after three years of interest compounding in the form of matching grant funds. RI has just revamped the grant system to decrease paperwork overhead and streamline the process. This first year of testing in a three year transition process has been assigned to just 100 districts, including our own District 5170, so we are now counting our blessings for past grants and figuring out the process for new “Future Vision” grants which will require a hefty minimum $15K match.

ALLART LIGTENBERG has written several successful grant proposals and personally traveled to remote lands to do the hard work “on the ground”. In numerous villages located in Indonesia and from one to fourteen hours travel away from Kathmandu, he has taught the local production and use of solar cookers, rocket stoves, water pasteurizers, bio-holes to reduce flooding, mobile clinics, vertical vegetable farming, and sanitation practices to keep river water clean. He has empowered women who learn income generation by producing and selling bio-mass briquettes. His projects even ameliorate life for the most needy outcasts who live with leprosy, polio, and AIDS in these remote villages. “One Village at a Time” is ALLART’s motto. He estimates these Rotary grant projects have helped 3,700 people at a cost of just $3 per person, which sure beats the stock market!

RICH CASEY reported on the work of the Los Altos Rotary AIDS Project (LARAP) which was founded 20 years ago by PP DUDE ANGIUS. The new effort is titled “Child AIDS Prevention” and it focuses on reducing mother-to-child transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus during the childbirth process in Liberia, Africa. After the American Civil War, many former slaves were “repatriated” to Liberia, so we have a definite connection with them. Rotary funds raised will support the work of Dr. Art Ammann of UCSF and his NGO, Global Strategies for HIV Prevention.  In his Liberian clinics, Dr. Ammann distributes the “miracle drug” Nevirapine which eliminates 50% of mother-to-child HIV/AIDS virus transmissions, and provides education, counseling, HIV testing, and anti-retroviral drug treatment of pregnant women. All of these services can be provided for just $10 per birth. RICH and the LA RAP committee plan to submit a $65-75K grant proposal under the new “Future Vision” guidelines.

ALAN VARNI described the Haiti project which is a holistic approach to rebuilding that country after its disastrous earthquake. This project may include refurbishing of a medical clinic, an orphanage, a “green community center, and micro credit loans with sustainability in a suburb of Port au Prince. Our art show raffle and silent auction raised $10,000 for this project. Members were reminded to pay for their silent auction items as soon as possible.

All LARC members are welcome to join meetings of the World Community Service Committee which take place the fourth Tuesday of each month, 8 am at First Republic Bank.

ROTARY GOLF AND POKER TOURNAMENT SUMMARY

June 4th turned out to be a beautiful day for the annual Los Altos Rotary Golf Tournament.  There was a full field of 48 for the day. 

CINDY LUEDTKE managed to retain the largest trophy for women’s low gross.  JERRY MOISON will take home the men’s low gross trophy for his mantle.

JEAN NEWTON FRAGULIA and MEL KAHN will not only enjoy the fact they came in as low net champions this year, but, for the first time ever, they will receive an engraved trophy to be handed to succeeding champions in the future. 

This year our sophisticated scoring team (ROY LAVE) came up with a new award for the Blind Bogey.  Winners for men and women were our own JOHN BOGART and JOYCE ANTHONY (Guest of Bonnie Burdett).

And then there is the signature Rotary Yellow Ball competition. This was won by KENDRA GJERSETH’S foursome along with Wayne Doiyguchi, his brother Scott Doiyguchi, and guest, Kevin White.  KENDRA celebrated her personal best that day. Together the team racked up a 68 which is phenomenal as the yellow ball can create a bit of anxiety for any person who plays with it.

Other awards included:

Longest Drive:

• Men-LARRY CHU and Rich Yamaguma
• Women-CINDY LUEDTKE
  

Closest to the Pin:

• Men-DAVE BERONIO
• Women-BONNIE BURDETT

A special “Spirit Award” was handed to BONNIE BURDETT for recruiting an all female team.  Her trophy, more like a paper weight, was the club head they left behind at the 18th tee which had broken off with one of their “power” tee shots.

There was no “Best Dressed” award, despite the efforts of JERRY MOISON and LARRY CHU, who showed up in full Rotary Blue shirt and Yellow knickers (and don’t forget the argyle socks!) regalia.

After a pleasant dinner and awards ceremony, three full tables convened for a serious round of Texas Hold’em.  Although one of the tables soon became not so serious and began belting out show tunes, three individuals managed to conquer over the din and win the cash.  They were RANDY GARD, STEVE SHEPHERD and Bev Shepherd, her second consecutive year!

Hats off go to all who participated in this year’s event.  The point of this golf tournament is not so much to win, but to hit and giggle and have fellowship with your fellow Rotarians and their guests.  Thank you to STEVE SHEPHERD and committee for planning such a fine tournament and carrying on our long-standing Los Altos Rotary tradition.