Los Altos Rotary Club eNewsletter "Rotator"

Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

February 3 2011

Writer: Matt Cabot - Photographer: Steve Pomeroy - Editor: Cindy Luedtke

Spring-like conditions brought on guilty thoughts, thinking about my sister in New Jersey's 20- degree weather. But honestly, those thoughts were short lived. What the hey? Let’s enjoy what we got.

Our greeters today were two Past Presidents, and a Red Badger. PP ROY LAVE greeted us first , followed by STEVE WU and finishing up with PP MARY PROCHNOW. All three got into the picture greeting (soon to be) Red Badger, Crysta Krames.

Did you ever wonder what the purpose is of having greeters? 20 years ago we didn't have greeters. We just paid our money to HAL HOBLET, got our food, and sat down. I also walked uphill both ways to school every day, but that was more than 50 years ago. Times do change.

For one thing our club is four times the size it was 20 years ago, so it is good that someone greets and recognizes you. But the other reason is that YOU get to meet someone who doesn't normally sit at your table. It is difficult to know everyone in our club. That is one of the challenges of having a large club membership. We need to make more effort to know one another. After all, like today, we hear some very impressive things about our new members. Now go out and get to know your members.

PE MONA ARMISTEAD, no stranger to us, introduced visiting Rotarians and Guests. Doug Crothers from Sunnyvale was the only visiting Rotarian. MICHAEL STADLEN, BAIDRA MURPHY, BARBARA SMALL, and PAUL SCHUTZ all had guests.

Speaking of new members (new members come from guests who are greeted warmly and decide to become members - so this is a segue) we inducted two new Red Badgers today. Director CLYDE NOEL introduced CRYSTA KRAMES sponsored by PP MARY PROCHNOW and LAUREN HERBSTMAN, sponsored by President DENNIS YOUNG.

CRYSTA is an active Community Volunteer and LAUREN has a logo-related gift shop. More on each of them when they give us their 10 minute talk. In the mean time, get to know these two members, and make them feel welcome.

We began this by giving them our traditional standing ovation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

President DENNIS started off by giving PP TRACIE MURRAY a citation from RI for our club exceeding our goal for Polio Plus donations under her fine tutelage last year. The money was raised at last year’s Cioppino Dinner.
STEVE BIANCHI reminded us that this year’s Cioppino dinner fundraiser will be held March 4th and will again benefit Polio Plus and the Red Badge project. Click here for more information and to sign up online. Be sure to invite your friends and colleagues to this special event.
RICH CASEY reminded us of The Los Altos Rotary AIDS Project's (LARAP) presentation of “An Evening with Jose Antonio Vargas”, writer & co-producer of the Film Documentary "The Other City". DATE: Tuesday, February 8, 7-9 p.m.

The documentary, which debuted at the New York Tribeca Film Festival, shines light on Washington, D.C.'s HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and now a senior contributing editor with the Huffington Post. Jose is a graduate of Mountain View High School and San Francisco State University. In high school, he was mentored by past LARC member, Rich Fischer and is featured in our PNG video.
RICH also mentioned that the event has been underwritten so the event is FREE. So don't miss out on this opportunity to hear Mr. Vargas.
PP MARLENE COWAN brought to our attention the STRS (I called it STARS last week, but really it is STRS, but pronounced stars) conference on March 12th. Click here for more information.
Animated PEN JOHN SYLVESTER mentioned the quickly filling up Chinese New Year's celebration to be held at Chef Chu's on February 15th. Click here for more information and to sign up online.
GREG DABB brought up the importance of getting sponsors for our Los Altos Fine Art Show which will be held in a few months. There are all sorts of levels from $250 to $5,000. Each level has its own benefits. I am guessing the higher the level, the more benefits. Maybe one day, someone or some company will underwrite the entire show, so 100% of our proceeds go to LAREF. Sort of like the college bowl games. I can see it now: The Hewlett Packard Los Altos Rotary Art Show. Or, how about Google presents: The Los Altos Rotary Art Show?
Entrepreneur GARY ROSS' new restaurant Cafe Vitale is having a fundraiser of sorts. Actually he is having a Super Bowl XLV party at his new restaurant. But the kicker is (no pun intended) that 10% of the proceeds will be donated to Rotary International, and 5% additionally will be donated to the NFL Players Association's Douglas Hollies' Nonprofit "S.M.A.R.T." Student, Inc. So it is your duty to go. If KENDRA GJERSETH attends, there may be a make-up opportunity. How cool is that?
STEVE SHEPHERD announced a critically important event: the first of many meetings of his humongous Golf Committee, where they will begin with a beer or two followed by 36 holes of golf. The meeting will be on Feb 11th and take place at Shoreline. Give Steve a call if you would like to serve on the committee. I am positive he has nothing else to do.
President DENNIS pointed out the beautiful picture of PP SAM PESNER in the Town Crier last week in their continuing series "Meet a Rotarian." He also mentioned the District Celebration on May 6th -8th. The popular District golf tournament will precede the Celebration on May 5th. Click here for more information. Well, not much information there, but as we get closer there will be more on it.
Also DENNIS mentioned the District Assembly on April 9th. No information on the web, so that too will have to wait until we get a little closer
Finely, President DENNIS pointed out that the Board of Directors ballots were emailed out this morning; just in time, according to the bylaws. Reply to them with your three choices. Or wait until this coming Thursday, Feb 10 and vote in person. Or do both if you are voting for my candidates.

Pres_Dennis_awards_Roy_Lave_Rotarian_of_Month

ROTARIAN OF THE MONTH – President DENNIS presented PP ROY LAVE with the Rotarian of the Month PIN for his background work for the club, including maintaining the aforementioned bylaws.

Marge Sentous, Charlie Fass andPresident Dennis Young

A BAG JOB - Our speaker today, Charlie Faas presented President Dennis with a Sharks Tote bag which President Dennis. As usual, Dennis saw an opportunity for profit and promptly auctioned off the "worthless bag" to MARGE SENTOUS. Marge paid $150 for the 'worthless bag." See? If you classify the bag as worthless, then 100% of the auctioned amount becomes 100% deductible. So, you’re still safe even if the IRS agent is a Capital's fan.

STEVE WU took on the task of Finemaster today and found out it is a lot harder than it looks. 75% of the people he called on were not there. Maybe that was the reason they had not been fined. Anyway, it was so bad that probably for the first time ever, people felt sorry for the Finemaster, and offered themselves up to be fined.

STEVE had a great theme, of taking (not so) obscure lines from movies and matching them to movies. While KENDRA GJERSETH was never called on, she seemed to get most of the answers for others.
There were at least twelve people called on, and even one, SHIV SHASTRI, joined the President's Club. Hint to you holdbacks: By June 20th EVERYONE must belong to the President's Club, so get with it.

STEVE YARBROUGH stepped up to the podium to introduce our speaker of the day. Our speaker was Charlie Faas, Executive Vice President and CFO of Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment/San Jose Sharks.
Faas began by explaining the business side of the San Jose Sharks group. There is only so much money that can be made from ticket sales, particularly if you want to keep the price of tickets reasonable. So it is no mystery why there are so many different and varied business entities associated with the group such as:

Merchandising
Publishing
Venue Management
Mixed Martial Arts
Sports team(s) Management

Mr. Faas said, as far as the Sharks were concerned, the objective is to bring that Stanley Cup to San Jose. He sort of hinted, that if the Sharks won the Cup, he would bring it to a subsequent Los Altos Rotary meeting, so GO SHARKS!.

He spoke about the lock-out of the 2004-2005 season, and how that precipitated into the league-wide salary cap/salary floor establishment. He said there is a 39 million dollar cap and a 23 million dollar floor in place at this time.

He also said that between 54 and 57% of total NHL revenue goes to NHL payroll. That is a little low compared to other sports like football and basketball.

There is also a revenue sharing between the top 10 teams and the bottom 15 teams. This policy is both good and bad. Good because it puts all teams on a par with one another; Bad because it puts all teams on a par with one another. It is sort of like how grading on the curve helped me in school but really screwed up the smart ones.

During the question period Faas said that the team has been in the playoffs for 11 of the past 12 seasons. But getting into the playoffs is not the objective: Winning the Stanley Cup is.
Another person asked how the ice hockey arena is changed from ice to something else. Foss' description was quite extensive. But here is a Youtube video that sort of shows that, albeit not at the HP Pavilion.
Great program. Thanks Program Committee.

"THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM: February 10th

Dr. Jane E. Shaw, Ph.D. Chairman of the Board of Directors Intel Corporation

Jane Shaw has been a director of Intel since 1993 and was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors in May 2009. She previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Aerogen, Inc., after holding various scientific and management positions with ALZA Corporation, including serving as President and Chief Operating Officer.   Dr. Shaw received a B.S. and Ph.D. in Physiology from Birmingham University in England, and also received an honorary Doctor of Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Dr. Shaw is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, New York Academy of Sciences, and the World Affairs Council of Northern California. She holds more than a dozen patents and is a noted expert in prostaglandin pharmacology, transdermal drug delivery, as well as corporate management and financing.

Dr. Shaw has been published in over 120 publications in the areas of physiology, pharmacology, percutaneous absorption, and controlled drug delivery. She has won numerous awards including Woman of Science, ALZA Founders Awards, ODX Outstanding Director Award, Outstanding Woman of Silicon Valley, and the Entrepreneurial Achievement Award.   Dr. Shaw also currently serves on the board of directors of McKesson Corporation and Talima Therapeutics, Inc.