Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show October 18 2012

Indian Summer it was, at least that is what it used to be called.  Native American Summer just doesn’t have the same ring.  Indian Summer is also defined as a pleasant time in life.  That certainly described our meeting today;  starting on time, full of entertaining fun, and some seriousness that needed to be done as well.

President JOHN SYLVESTER eloquently (though that is probably redundant) chimed the meeting to order, and after a brief struggle, got the meeting under control, thanks to his sonorous pleadings of “Settle down, now.”  PP ROY LAVE lead us in the Pledge. and TAYLOR ROBINSON showed us all that a short “Thought for the Day” beats a long drawn out "Thought” with her comments about how information received allays our worst fear.

Regular Rotator Writer, JOHN MCDONNELL followed up with an equally short song that a bunch of us old guys really got into:  “Let me Call You Sweetheart.”   I even heard some nice harmony.  All were praised by Pres. JOHN, well not the actual singing, but the shortness of it all.

PE JACK KELLY introduced visiting Rotarians, one from San Jose, and guests, 3 or 4.
Keeping up with the theme for the day: “briefness”, members were encouraged to come to the lectern with their BRIEF comments. 

FRAN VERLOT announced that the monthly WCS (World Community Service) meeting will be held TOMORROW, OCTOBER 23rd at First Republic Bank in Los Altos from 8 to 9:30 AM.  Enter from the side door.  Everyone is welcome, and encouraged to attend.  The November meeting will be on Nov 27th same place, same time. The December is to be announced with a possible location change for that one.

GARY WALDECK held up the signup sheet for RotaCare.  We need sign-ups for November and December.  This is one of the most rewarding tasks that members can sign up for.  Please look for the signup sheet next week.  It fills pretty fast, so be warned.

PP DENNIS YOUNG brought up the 21st Annual Community Foundation Brunch on 10/25.  The brunch will conclude with a presentation of the 48th Annual Community Service Award to our own JANE REED.  Check their website for more information.

CAROL GARSTEN announced that the Red Badge Committee’s Pens for Vets party will be November 2, 2012 at the Nature Gallery in Los Altos. Come to the party 5-8 p.m. Food from GoGoGyro and music from the Jazz Connection will be provided. Join your fellow Rotarians for the fun.

PP SAM PESNER reminded everyone that November, just around the corner, is Rotary Foundation Month, and challenges everyone to donate $200 each year to the Foundation to become a Double Sustainer. 

MEMBERSHIP – RANDY GARD, Membership Chair, announced we started with 169 members; we had gained 15 new members and 13 departing members for a total at the end of the year of 171.

Today, Rotary year 2012-2013 we started with 171 members, gained (to date) 7 but lost 9 leaving us with a current total of 169.  If you want to see Randy’s report, it is posted on our website, under the article about Membership, or click HERE.  One of the purposes of RANDY’S update was to encourage us to this constantly be on the lookout for potential members.  Leaders in the community are always looking for additional ways to lead.  What could be better than being an active member in Los Altos Rotary Club?

  RANDY also mentioned the protocol of bringing in potential member, how they are introduced etc.  We should always go out of our way to introduce ourselves to guests in general.  People want to feel welcomed.  Part of that welcoming spirit is being sure that new members become engaged.  How many of us who are on committees have ever thought, “Boy, if I just had some help here.”  Well, of the 22 members that we have lost in the past year or so, about half of them left because they were not engaged.  They are gone, but we have about 22 new members in the past year or so.  That is at least 11 who need engaging.  Their names are on the website link above. Get to work.

BLUE BADGE INDUCTION – As new members cycle through the Red to Blue Badge Process, they eventually earn their Blue Badge.  Such a member today is STEVE WHEELER.  STEVE was sponsored by PP MONA ARMISTEAD and was presented with his new Blue Badge.  Congratulations, STEVE WHEELER.  And thank you MONA for taking the effort to bring Steve into the club. 

MINI PROGRAM Occasionally, we have a mini program about a subject of interest to the club.   Dave Crocker of Learning Ally ,which was formally, Reading for the Blind, spoke to us about how his company has changed in the last fifty years.  This name change rebrands the company bringing it into focus with their current business model.  Originally set up after WWII to help blind veterans returning from the war, Learning Ally currently addresses a variety of needs: for the blind, of course, but additionally clients who have learning disabilities that range from dyslexia, visually impaired, and addresses the lack of self-confidence that is rooted in these disabilities. 

Just as a personal aside, I was reading a novel the other day and one of the characters was extremely dyslexic, to the point that the child was misclassified as a special needs child with extreme behavior problems.  Addressing the dyslexia issue brought the child back into the mainstream of society.  Listening to Mr. Crocker today made me think about how this might be true in real life, and not just part of a novel.  Check out their website above for more information about this worthy enterprise. 

NO FINES TODAY With just 2 minutes to 1:00, the traditional time to begin the program, President JOHN intoned that there would not be any time for the Fine master.  However, after great pressure from the assembled, PP MARY PROCHNOW, who was already heading to the lectern, quickly got to business and in 2 and a half minutes, was able to extract some bucks from FRANK VERLOT (birthday), JEAN NEWTON (BIG job change) and KENDRA GJERSETH (still not engaged).

PROGRAM – PE JACK KELLY introduced our program today: Sasha Gourevitch of Job Train.  I have to admit that when I saw on the website was about Job Train, I thought that the program was going to be about some song back in the 70’s.  Or that the Southern Pacific had a train that was going up and down the peninsula with employers talking about positions they had.

No, the “train” in Job Train is really about “training”; literally “Job Training.”  Their website JOB TRAIN is full of very interesting information about their mission, successes and opportunities for new clients, volunteers, employers and donors. 

If you missed this program, I am sorry because it was about one of the most encouraging work enabling programs I have heard about.  We hear an awful lot of news and talk about jobs, jobs, jobs.  The talk is of lack of jobs, people no longer looking for job, high unemployment, under-employment, yadda. yadda, yadda.  Sitting in our snug little homes, gainfully employed, or comfortably retired, it is very difficult to relate to these statistics.  And when you try to be empathetic, it is easy to be discouraged because there is no easy answer. 

There are jobs out there.  Most employers don’t have a problem of lack of jobs.  Their problems stem from lack of qualified candidates.  This is where the ‘train” in JobTrain comes into focus. 
Currently JobTrain has seven areas where they provide training programs:

• Computer Service Technician / Telecommunications Installer and Technician
• Culinary Arts
• Medical Office Assistant
• Office Skills
• Professional Health Care Worker
• Project Build
• Solar Training Program

88% of those who complete the program are placed in jobs, and 75% of those placed are still employed after a year.  They also have a youth program (under 21) where GED is the primary objective, along with after school programs and the all-important Internship program where students can get a feel of specific industries that they might be interested in.

Anna came up to the lectern and told us a bit about her success at JobTrain.  She is a single mom (widow), striving to better her situation.  She saw the need to develop new skills in order for her to accomplish her goals. 

As I was sitting there, listening to Anna and Sasha it occurred to me that the key to this unemployment morass we have is getting people to understand the need to develop new skills to meet the job markets of today.  Anna understood it.  Others do too.  And I am sure that most unemployed and under-employed understand it as well. 

I wonder if much of the problem stems from lack of information about the availability of programs such as JobTrain.  There are probably 100 government programs as well that address the issue of retraining.  I wonder how many programs there are that address the lack of information about these training programs. 

Perhaps that is something we can do.  The Red Badgers created a Youth Resources handout card.  Maybe the next card would be Job Training Resource card that gave a bunch of 800 numbers about training opportunities that we could hand to people looking for handouts.  We could call the project “Hand-Up not Hand-Out.”

THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM: