Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show July 8, 2010

Going boldly into the second week of the New Regime of President DENNIS YOUNG, a healthy turnout of Rotarians was on hand when President DENNIS chimed the meeting to order at 12:15 p.m. 

The throng of arriving Rotarians had been greeted by an extra large group: JEAN MORDO, ROLAND PAYNE, JOE LOCONTE, and GARY WALDECK. 

BOB ADAMS led the pledge, and BOO BUE stepped up with the thought for the day.  According to BOO, to help newly-installed  Pres DENNIS, we need to “Drink, swear, steal and lie”; “Drink” to a good year  for Dennis. “Swear” to be true to the Rotary ideals. “Steal” a few minutes each day to help on Rotary, and “Lie” in bed thinking of ways to help Dennis have a great Rotary year. 

JERRY MOISON stepped up to lead us in song and mentioned that “Its’ a Wonderful World” has special meaning in his family, since his wife’s mom died last week.

PE MONA ARMISTEAD was missing in action, bringing her PE streak to a solid one in a row, so DENNIS resumed the duties of introducing visiting Rotarians and guests.  No visiting Rotarians this week, but STEVE SHEPHERD, ABBY AHRENS, MARLENE COWAN, BOB ADAMS, and MARY MARLEY introduced their respective guests.

CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS

DENNIS also stepped in for KENDRA GJERSETH to remind us that the next “social” is at DICK BLANDING’s house on July 23rd.  Even though a clipboard was circulating, KENDRA asks folks to get to her by e-mail (pznkarots@gmail.com) to let her know if you are coming.

BILL PALMER announced that the Partners For Elder Generations committee will meet next Wednesday at STEVE YARBROUGH’s office at Noon (bring a bag lunch).

BAIDRA MURPHY announced that the Red Badgers were meeting this evening at 6 p.m at the offices of MetLife compliments of CAMMIE BRODIE.

STEVE POMEROY announced on behalf of JACK HEIDMILLER that members had stepped up and filled all the work slots at the Chef Chu booth for this Weekend’s Los Altos Art and Wine Festival.

CHUCK LINDAUER announced that the Youth Exchange was suddenly alive and well, and we are looking for a home for a Rotarian exchange student from Hong Kong.

DAVE CASAS announced that next Thursday, July 15 at 6:30 there will be City-sponsored live music in the park with “Swing Fever,” part of a summer concert series in town.

FINES ALONG MEMORY LANE

JOHN SINES stepped up to levy a few fines on some of our illustrious past presidents.  But first, he singled out new Red Badger CAMMIE BRODIE, who, for a small fee, was encouraged to tell us about the sports achievements of her sons.  CAMMIE managed to get a severely reduced fine by correctly answering the question of who was her son’s “best-ever” baseball coach; (Answer; JOHN SINES, of course!). 
JOHN also called on former (quite former in fact) soccer start, LEW FRASER to give a bold prediction on the winner of the World Cup Final on Sunday.  LEW gave deference to the Orange of Netherlands, but picked SPAIN! (LEW was cribbing off the famous predictions of Paul the Octopus, who picked Spain and who has called all the games correctly so far.  Yes, Paul the OCTOPUS; look it up on the Web).

John then moved to Past President DICK DUHRING to recall the biggest catastrophe in his year.  DICK recalled trying to elevate the cultural level of the club, and said he failed miserably.

PP BOO BUE recalled that Polio Plus began in his year, and the club needed to raise an average of $600 from each member.  Thanks to help from speaker Ralph Nichols, and a timely and inspiring contribution from LEN McBIRNEY, the club raised $100,000.

DUDE ANGIUS recalled the twin tragedies of his year, the loss of his son Steven to AIDS and the loss of PP WALT SINGER also to AIDS, leading DUDE and our club to start the Rotary AIDS Project.  DUDE mentioned another severe trauma, the member who suffered from DPS.  After consultation with several specialists, the club learned it was incurable, and the member was permanently afflicted.  But thanks to continuous treatment, noble MEL KAHN continues to struggle on despite “Delayed Puberty Syndrome.”

ROY LAVE recalled the troubles in his year of dealing with the “president-elect selection process.”  The “system” was still tilted against bringing in a woman president. But a lot of back-room dealings overcame this (leading to our first female president, MARGE BRUNO).

BOB ADAMS recalled his plan to start his year with the Cal Band coming in, but only half showed up, and they could not play due to the missing instruments.  BOB also recalled giving out chocolate stars to President Club members, but left them in the car too long before the meeting and ended up giving out wrapped chocolate sauce instead.

AL TRAFICANTI recalled being extremely well prepared and well organized for his year, and then coming to his second meeting, only to discover that we had no one covering the Chef Chu booth at all for the entire weekend of the Art & Wine Festival.  Then LARC member, Ginny Lear stepped up and told AL that she would take over and make sure all the slots were filled.  The club rallied, and Ginny got them all filled.  AL also recalled the missing cotton candy machine that DENNIS YOUNG went out and retrieved.  DENNIS reported the cotton candy machine is in his garage for anyone who would like to operate it.

When his fining frenzy was over, JOHN realized that he had not extracted very much money from all these past presidents, so he fined himself $20 for this oversight.

NEW MEMBER- LONNIE GARY

CLYDE NOEL stepped up to induct our newest member, LONNIE GARY, a partner with DENNIS at Young Craig and Company.  LONNIE is an enrolled agent (enrolled with the IRS and authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS and Tax Court).  LONNIE is also the President of the regional chapter of Enrolled Agents, and sits on the Board of the National Association of Enrolled Agents.  LONNIE lives in Los Altos with his wife, Hildy.

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: Dr. LINDA THOR of Foothill/De Anza Colleges

PP DICK HENNING stepped to the podium, and started by reminding us that PE MONA has an active speakers committee that works hard to locate top speakers for our meetings.  DICK said MONA welcomes any members who want to help on that committee.

DICK then introduced our guest speaker, Dr. Linda Thor, the new Chancellor of the Foothill/De Anza Community College District.  She spoke on “The perspective of a new observer; the good, the bad and the ugly.”  Dr. Thor mentioned that she is just 5 months on the job.

Dr. Thor began with the “good” part.  The assets of the district are tremendous; The Celebrity Forum Series originated by our own DICK HENNING 43 years ago, the Museum, the Planetarium, and the theatre facilities, particularly Flint Center, one of the finest in Northern California. 

She commended the district outreach to lower income local students.  She was very enthusiastic about the new Science and Engineering projects, particularly the new partnership at Moffett Field with UC Santa Cruz. 

Linda noted that over 70% of the district students transfer to UC or receive degrees.  She also pointed out that in the specialized medical training fields like paramedics, 100% of the students pass the certification test.  The district has served over one million students in the last 50 years.  Remarkably, the students are not all young; 43% of the students are over 25, and fully 18% are over 40.

The “bad” news is the severe cuts in state funding.  Given the cuts at the four-year colleges, the demand on the Junior colleges has increased tremendously, while funding has decreased.  Funding has been cut $20 million in the last two years.  The District has had to cut 500 of the 14,000 courses it offers, and has had to lay off a few employees.

The “ugly” is the disinvestment across the state in higher education.  The post K-12 system is turning away students by the thousands.  Meanwhile students at the “for profit” private schools are taking a higher percentage of student aid, and have a higher default rate on student loans.  Dr. Thor is very concerned about the looming “worker skill gap.”  As college resources decline and fewer students are allowed in, fewer people will develop the necessary skills to move into productive jobs in the economy.  Dr. Thor estimates that in the near future, we will have one million fewer college graduates than we need for job placement. 

Dr. Thor then took Q&A, and President DENNIS chimed the meeting to a close at 1:30.