Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show January 13 2011

On a Thursday in January, when most of the East Coast was buried under 10 feet of snow, and major portions of Australia were fighting 10 feet of flood water, over 100 hearty Rotarians braved their way through a light drizzle (yes, we love Los Altos), to attend the highlight of the Rotary year–the Midyear Assembly.  Arriving Rotarians were greeted by GEORGE STAFFORD, ESTHER NG, and PAUL NYBERG.
 
Pres. DENNIS YOUNG chimed the meeting to order promptly at 12:15.  CLYDE NOEL led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. GREG DABB, gave the thought for the day, quoting from the founder of chiropractic, Daniel Palmer.  Palmer observed, among other things, that to have wealth is not a crime, but to have wealth and not do something good with it, is a crime. Pres. DENNIS then called up BOB ADAMS who, with able assistance of JOHN SYLVESTER, led us in singing that grand old song, “You're a Grand Old Flag.”
 
VP MONA ARMISTEAD introduced visiting Rotarians and guests.  We reacquainted ourselves with Jim Quinn (a former member of our club) from Pacific Grove. We also welcomed back another former member of the club, Ginny Lear from the Palo Alto Club.  Steve Aker from the San Mateo Club was also visiting today and despite Mona's entreaties, he did not become a former member of our club.  MONA invited the LARC members to introduce their guests, and only MARY PROCHNOW had a guest of the club today.
 
MONA then announced a change in the program schedule. The speech contest cannot take place next week, because the excellent speakers that we have scheduled for the contest are going to be taking part in another competition in Los Angeles on the same date.  So, instead, Los Altos Police Chief Tuck Younis, will be visiting us next week and telling us about police operations in Los Altos.
 

ROTARIAN OF THE MONTH:  President DENNIS promptly asked MATT CABOT to come forward and be recognized as LARC’s Rotarian of the Month.  DENNIS cited the many ways in which MATT contributes to LARC on a consistent, dependable basis, to produce an excellent club online newsletter and well-maintained website. Congratulations, MATT!  Your work is very much appreciated by all of us.
 

NEW BLUE BADGERS:

CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PP CINDY LUEDTKE announced that we are soliciting sign-ups for mock job interviews to be conducted at Alta Vista High School on January 28 from 10:30 am to 1 pm. This is the only time commitment required to do the job.  Up to 15 volunteers are needed.  If you are interested in being an interviewer, but did not have the opportunity to sign up on the clip board at the meeting, please contact Doreen Bracamontes directly at doreen.bracamontes@mvla.net or call (650) 691-2433 by January 14, 2011.
 
PAUL SCHUTZ announced that we are forming an exploratory committee to try to develop a new fundraiser for the club in addition to the Art Show.  The first meeting of this committee was to take place immediately following our meeting today.
 
FRANK VERLOT, on behalf of World Community Service announced that two of our members ALLAN VARNI and BUD OLIVER will be traveling to Haiti to meet with Rotarians at the clubs we will work with in Haiti, and to do due diligence on the projects that we will be sponsoring and supporting in Haiti for relief of the victims of the earthquake.
 
PEN JOHN SYLVESTER announced that sign-ups were being taken for the special Chinese New Year dinner at Chef Chu’s on February 15.  It is recommended that you go to the website and use ClubRunner to sign up, but the clipboard was being circulated for convenience.
 
KIM COPHER, liaison with the Interact Club at Los Altos High School, announced that we have many t Interact volunteers available to assist us with club projects. KIM says that the fastest way to obtain the volunteers is to call Kim directly so that she could expedite obtaining volunteers for your projects.
 
JERRY MOISON announced that the Ciaoppino Night will take place on Friday, March 4th of this year. Once again, it would be best to go to the web site and sign up. JERRY also reminded us that this event is a fundraiser for the benefit of Polio Plus, and we will have a silent auction in addition to having a delicious dinner.  Contact JERRY about donations for the silent auction. Members of the Los Altos Sunset Club and their guests will be joining us that evening.  President of Los Altos Sunset, Mike Mansch and his wife Joanne, of Alotta’s Deli, will be donating lasagne to be served in addition to the Cioppino that evening.  The Cioppino Night is meant to be an event to invite your friends to join in the food and fun.
 
STUART BOWEN announced that as part of the Art Show this year we will be putting together a magazine-style program, and we will be soliciting ads from the businesses in Los Altos and surrounding area, to defray some of the operating costs and produce additional revenue for the show.
 
BAIDRA MURPHY announced that the red badgers meeting would take place 6 PM tonight at First Republic Bank.
 
SCOTT FLEMING stepped up to “announce” that, because he arrived late, he did not have a chance to introduce his guest Lewis Lane, a representative from the Junior Achievement Foundation, which builds business and financial awareness among young people.  SCOTT promptly volunteered a fine for this misconduct and Lewis was allowed to spend some time talking about the Foundation.
 

A FINE TIME IS HAD BY ALL
SCOTT'S confession was a perfect lead-in for Pres. DENNIS to call up this week's finemaster, PP MARY PROCHNOW.  MARY promptly singled out a few birthdays. KIM COPHER announced that she was celebrating her 29th birthday again and volunteered $29.  PAT GRAY is celebrating her 28th wedding anniversary and rounded up the fine to $30.   MARY then called on Pres. DENNIS for a fine, but DENNIS passed the fine on to DON HULL, who paid $10.  PAUL SCHUTZ stepped up to announce that he was making a $100 donation to LAREF in honor of the continuing generosity of our president, DENNIS YOUNG.  STEVE FICK is also celebrating an anniversary, and was fined $20.  KENDRA GJERSETH is also celebrating an undisclosed birthday, but she also announced that she received a couple of “righteous fixes” lately because of her assertiveness; First, with the handling a parking ticket in Oakland she did not deserve, and then second receiving a brand new replacement I-phone upon presenting her beef.  Since she was “on a roll”, KENDRA decided to join the President’s Club and got a spiffy new hat from DENNIS.
 
MARY called on longtime member JEAN NEWTON-FRAGUGLIA, who had celebrated an important birthday in Las Vegas. JEAN decided to join the Presidents Club.  MARY then called on a few fellow Rotarians to give their testimonials for all the wonderful work JEAN has done for the club over the years.  DUDE ANGIUS was the first to step up, and after congratulating Jean that her nephew had won the Heisman Trophy (this was a joke), DUDE paid his fine and thanked JEAN for the tremendous work that she had done on the book, “America Responds to the Los Altos Story.”  ROY LAVE and Ginny Lear also paid $20 each to thank JEAN for the art and promotion work she had in the years when they were in charge of the Art Show.  Pres. Dennis also thanked JEAN for her special work over the years helping the Housing Industry Foundation and its work to keep people in their homes during times of economic hardship.
 
In other fines;  Having not been to Rotary in a while, GARY ROSS announced that he would pay a fine of $100 just to get the keen hat. GARY also announced that on February 6, he will be having a Super Bowl party at his new café, Café Vitale at Loyola Corners, and will donate 10% of the proceeds from that Super Bowl party to Rotary.
 
MARY then started asking difficult questions about the Rotarian Magazine. SHELLY POTVIN was fined $40 because she did not know that the Rotarian Magazine was 100 years old this month.  NANCY DUNAWAY paid a $50 fine for not knowing any of the famous artists who had provided artwork for the magazine cover.  However, NANCY announced that she was paying the $50 fine to join the President’s Club so that she could get the hat and wear it in the Boston Marathon.  BILL MOISON volunteered to pay a $20 fine for ratting out that DAVE BERONIO, sitting next to Bill, told him he had never been asked to pay a fine.  DAVE, in turn, paid $30 to see if KENDRA GJERSETH could spell her name backward in less than 10 seconds.  KENDRA won.
 
 

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM: THE MID-YEAR ASSEMBLY
Pres. DENNIS then updated to club on many of the activities that had taken place during the first half- year of his presidency.
 
The first area is Club Operations. At the board meeting on Wednesday, the Board voted that the club would continue to meet at the Garden House. The Board also determined that beginning on February 3, Café Primavera will be our caterer.  Lunch will still cost $20. There will also be an ongoing committee overseeing the lunch menu issues, headed by BONNIE BURDETT.
 
DENNIS then explained the many justifications for the $20 price for lunch and $5 non-eater charge. The club pays $147 in rent to the City of Los Altos for the Garden House each week, whether 50 people show up or 120 people show up.  With an average of 100, this is almost $1.50 per head just to hold the meeting. We also tip the caterers $1 for each person who shows up. We have guests of the Club in addition to our speakers, who do not pay for their lunch, so that cost is spread among the members.  Normally this accounts for 5-6 people per week that the Club pays for, and adds another $1.40 to the cost of simply holding the meeting. Therefore, people who attend the weekly meeting but do not have lunch must understand that the $5 charge is necessary to take care of the overhead for the meeting.
 
DENNIS explained that the $20 for the catered lunch is about the lowest we can now expect. On top of the fixed fees above, the lunch costs are about $16-17.  He asked us to consider  what a lunch costs at a restaurant.  Our lunch includes not just the entrée, but also coffee, salad, dessert, tip and tax. If you simply looked to what it costs to go to lunch at a restaurant, you would see that it would be approaching $16-$18 just to cover those items, and we have to add the cost of having the lunch catered into the Garden House. DENNIS pointed out that many of the caterers that we talked to would not even put in a bid to try to match the price point of $17 per head.
 
DENNIS also announced that we are making some changes with the Art Show to try to increase revenue. The booth fees, which have not been raised for several years will go up $50 to $350, and we will be attempting to put in 20 additional booths which will raise a significant amount of additional revenue for  our key fundraising event.
 
DENNIS then ran through several areas of contributions made by club members to Operations of the club. LARRY CHU brings provides the Chinese chicken salads that we sell at the July Art and Wine Festival, which produce a significant profit for the club. BEVERLY TUCKER is working on various improvements that are being made to the Garden House.
 
DENNIS complimented the writers of the Rotator and pointed out that it has won several prizes in Rotary. The District Governor complimented Dennis on the Rotator and stated that in his view, it was among one of the best in the District. Dennis thanked all the Rotator writers, CINDY LUEDTKE for her work as the editor, and MATT CABOT in managing the website and running herd on the Rotator writers.
 
DENNIS then thanked the many chairs in charge of the “backroom” actions that help put our meetings together week after week; Our Sergeants at Arms (THANK YOU, MIKE ABRAMS, STEVE POMEROY, and FRANK VERLOT) arranging for the greeters (Thank you, PAUL SCHUTZ), arranging for a cashier (Thank you WYATT), arranging for a photographer (Thank you, RANDY GARD) putting together the programs (thank you MONA and your team) arranging for the finemaster (Thank you JERRY MOISON), arranging the song of the week (Thank you, JEANNE MACVICAR), and arranging for the thought for the day (Thank you PHIL ROSE). DENNIS encouraged members to get involved in some of these activities that help our meetings succeed.
 
DENNIS then thanked KAREN FOX for heading up the area of Community Service for our Club. NANCY SIMON, for the second year in a row, just recently organized the donations for CSA over the holidays.
Among the many tasks covered by Community Service, are the bi-weekly delivery of the meals to the Rotacare Clinic, headed by DAN O'DONNELL and the annual Asante’ fundraiser put together this year by TRACIE MURRAY and JOANNA MEDIN.
 
JOHN SYLVESTER is Director of Fellowship.  We heard today of some of the events of that committee; the Chef Chu’s Chinese New Year dinner and the Cioppino Night in March. JOHN also schedules the popular monthly wine and cheese socials.  For helping to promote fellowship and goodwill at our meetings, President DENNIS thanked SAM PESNER for not telling any jokes at DENNIS’s meetings so far.
 
The International Service area is headed by Director, MARY MARLEY, and ably assisted by ROLAND PAYNE.  MARY and ROLAND have been deeply involved in Rotary International’s Future Vision Program. The Liberia project for Child AIDS Prevention, was one of the first international projects to receive funding under Rotary's Future Vision Program.  As a testimony to our Club’s effectiveness in the international arena, our club will have two booths; one for World Community Service (including the water project) and another for the Rotary AIDS Project (and the Liberia project) at the annual PETS (President Education and Training Seminar) convention this year.  PETS is attended by all the incoming club presidents from the hundreds of clubs over the entire West Coast.  It’s special for a club to present one booth, but it's rare that one club would have TWO booths to show incoming presidents the types of projects that they can motivate their own clubs to undertake or be involved in.
 
The Rotary Foundation:  President Dennis announced that we had exceeded our dollar goal in donations. So far 82% of our members have participated in donating to the annual drive. CINDY and DENNIS encouraged every member to participate with at least some amount, no matter how small.   There are still Rotarians who have not yet responded to Cindy’s numerous announcements and even personalized emails.  Remember, the slogan is “Every Rotarian, Every Year.”  There is still time to make a donation to TRF to reach our 100% goal. 
 
Pres. DENNIS pointed out that CHUCK LINDAUER is doing a wonderful job as Director of Youth- Vocations.  We will be sponsoring four young people to Camp RYLA this year. Our club sponsors two Interact clubs, one at Pinewood and one at Los Altos High School. Our district, 5170, has the most Interacters of any district in the world.  Youth Services Committee sponsors the mock job interviews that we announced earlier today as well as the speech competition. It also supports the local Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops.
 
The Membership Committee is headed up by CLYDE NOEL. We currently have 169 members and we are achieving 75% attendance.  Pres. DENNIS outlined some of the new ideas that Rotary at the National level, was beginning to shift, putting more focus to member involvement than to attendance.  Other ideas being considered, which would allow for more participation, include Clubs holding satellite meetings at other sites on days/times other than the weekly meeting that work better for otherwise non-participatory Rotarians. CLUBS might also be permitted to invite “corporate members” where the company would have one primary member and perhaps two or three assistant members who could attend if the primary member were unavailable.
 
Pres. DENNIS also announced that the STARS program (Success Through Rotary Seminars) will be taking place this year on March 12 from 8:30 in the morning until 3 PM.  May 6-8 will be the Annual 5170 District Celebration at the Santa Clara Marriott. To the delight of everyone, this year there will be a talent show, “Rotary's Got Talent.” Everyone interested in displaying their song or dance talents at the district celebration should contact Pres. DENNIS.  
(date revised 1/19/11)
 
In summarizing his midyear report, President DENNIS pointed out that there is a tremendous amount of work that goes on in the background at Rotary Clubs with all of our committees and operations. DENNIS announced that for all of this hard work our club has been submitted to Rotary International to receive a Presidential Citation “With Distinction”. This is the highest level of recognition a Rotary Club can receive, and is limited only to a few clubs.
 
Given the many items that he needed to report on, DENNIS had run a few minutes over, and chimed the meeting to a close at 1:37 PM.

THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM:

Tuck Younis - Chief of Police, City of Los Altos

Tuck was born, raised and currently lives in Saratoga.  He graduated from West Valley College in Saratoga with a degree in Administration of Criminal Justice and from California State University, Chico with a degree in Community Service.

Tuck started his law enforcement career with the San Jose Police Department in 1978.

• As an officer he worked in Patrol, Vice and the Criminal Intelligence Unit.
• As a Sergeant he worked in Patrol and Internal Affairs. 
• As a Lieutenant he was assigned to Patrol as a Watch Commander, the Special Operations Division in charge of the Violent Crime Enforcement Team, Mounted Unit and Air Support Unit, and served as the Commander of Special Investigations. 
• As a Captain, Tuck worked in the Bureau of Administration overseeing Personnel, Training and the Fiscal Unit. He was also the Commander of the Special Operations Division managing all gang, drug, traffic and high risk tactical operations.